Quote :

"It really depends on how it is administered and if there are any unintentional consequences."

How to administer:

1) Once the total number of votes in a state are tallied, that number--not the previous decade's census--will determine the number of EC votes the state has to give to the presidential candidate.

2) The actual tally of EC votes awarded to the presidential candidate will be determined by applying the percentage of votes they received to the total number arrived at in (1).

It changes incentives for voters by actually applying the intention behind their votes--the successful election of the candidate they voted for--to the effect that their vote will have. Namely, the awarding of the tiny fraction of electoral college votes each vote ends up representing to the candidate they actually voted for; not the other guy, which is what happens if their candidate doesn't carry the state.

It changes incentives for presidential candidates drastically. You can no longer convince "just enough" people in a state to vote for you to win all of their EC votes. You have to convince (1) a massive amount of people to vote at all, and (2) a more massive amount of people to vote for you.

One particular issue this system would address is negative campaign ads, which historically lead to lower turnout. Since Electoral Votes depend on turnout under this system, candidates using negative ads would have to exercise far more restraint. Frequent negative ads, especially if all candidates are using them, would completely dilute the capacity of the state to support a successful political campaign, even if they were successful at convincing the voters who participate in that state to believe one candidate's a saint and the other a demon.

That's just one consequence I can think of. I'm sure there are many others...

I encourage debate as the idea isn't fully formed.

[Edited on September 1, 2006 at 2:11 PM. Reason : .]

9/1/2006 2:06:26 PM

why do you want to change the constitution?

9/1/2006 2:06:50 PM

because it might help our democracy?

9/1/2006 2:07:31 PM

modifying search and seizure rights might help our democracy too

but you were pretty adamant about your stance on that issue

9/1/2006 2:08:55 PM

^^^ Because I know everything.

Now that you have what you want, I'll answer for anyone else who might be curious. Because I feel this would put the consequences of elections exclusively in the hands of voter action, instead of sharing it with a tremendous amount of voter inaction.

In the last election, fully 60.3% of Americas eligible voting age population participated and 39.7% did not. The implication of this that's rarely discussed is that slightly fewer people (30.6%) elected the president than did not vote at all. I take the capitalistic view that if that many Americans self-select for disenfranchisement, it's because they didn't see enough of an incentive to vote. Given that voting is the way one would achieve representation, I'd say representation is probably _that_ incentive.

I'd like to alter the political system to favor candidates who do incent Americans to vote, and in a way that allows their votes to apply to the candidates they intend.

I strongly question the efficacy of a representative government that doesn't blink at the fact that more of its citizens stay home or could care less, than elect the leader of the entire nation.

Why do you discourage changing the Constitution?

[Edited on September 1, 2006 at 2:26 PM. Reason : .]

9/1/2006 2:10:03 PM

but i don't think that would help our democracy. i think this change might (it may not. i honestly dont' think i know enough about political history to know if something like this has been tried before and if it would possibly work).

9/1/2006 2:10:41 PM

You certainly know enough history--I hope--to know whether something like this has been tried in America.

9/1/2006 2:12:37 PM

i was speaking more internationally. i honestly think it would help with apathy and don't really see our voting process turning into chaos. and this way it would still be administered by the states.

9/1/2006 2:14:15 PM

so you dont want to change the constitution to beef up national security

just to give a democratic presidential candidate a better chance to win an election

9/1/2006 2:14:17 PM

why would this help democrats win over others?

also: i'm against increasing the governments powers of search and seizure because i see a lot of potential (and history of) abuse of that power.

9/1/2006 2:15:46 PM

^^ No. I already told you. It's because I know everything.

Quote :

"Why do you discourage changing the Constitution?"

Don't you have some goats to feed on?

Stay on topic or make another thread, plz.

[Edited on September 1, 2006 at 2:28 PM. Reason : .]

9/1/2006 2:27:15 PM

Gamecat just so you know

This thread isnt gonna change the 04 election

Thanks

9/1/2006 2:34:08 PM

I actually wonder if it would encourage turnout...

Look at the incentives: If I live in North Carolina where it is pretty certain that the Republican's will win the state and thus all its electorial votes, why should I, a Democrat, vote? His vote will not turn the election in North Carolina, all it would do is increase the number of electorial votes for the state of North Carolina and by extension the Republicans.

The result I would expect is to see minority voters in every state shy away from voting at all for fear of boosting Electoral College seats going to the opposition. This would devastate local elections if people were not allowed to avoid being included in the statistics by leaving national sections blank.

It would also set seats in stone as even if in a decade or so Democrats become the Majority in North Carolina they won't know because a large fraction is not voting to avoid beefing electorial votes for a traditionally Republican state.

I suggest you put more thought into it, your idea is ripe with perverse incentives.

9/1/2006 2:34:16 PM

Quote :

"LoneSnark: If I live in North Carolina where it is pretty certain that the Republican's will win the state and thus all its electorial votes, why should I, a Democrat, vote?"

I thought this was obvious.

You'd vote because your candidate will receive electoral votes as a result, in an amount determined by the percentage of voters in that state who voted for your candidate.

Help me understand how you're confused by this.

[Edited on September 1, 2006 at 2:49 PM. Reason : .]

9/1/2006 2:49:33 PM

I'm sure Gamecat has agreed with all of the honorable Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's ideas before now

9/1/2006 2:51:05 PM

I'm sure that's of such obvious relevance that you could demonstrate it in a sentence or two.

9/1/2006 2:53:51 PM

Ah, misunderstood your part 2, so your idea is not as stupid as I understood it to be. Instead, what we are left with is a convoluted means of arriving at a popular vote election.

Ignoring rounding error, I don't see how your system will ever return a result that didn't match the popular vote result.

9/1/2006 3:09:14 PM

Two possible modifications come to mind.

1) Number of electoral votes is based on turnout in the previous election not the current election. Would seem to help offset vote rushing (i.e. candidate A is wining as easter polls close so campaigners on west coast step massive campaign to boost they're electoral votes before the end of the day to generate better results for candidate B.

2) The max number of electoral votes recieved is capped via the current method for determining electoral votes and is only achieveable with at least a 90% turn out for the state.

9/1/2006 3:20:20 PM

Problem there: In the first election, a state has lower turnout. They won't come out this time because their votes don't count as much and people rarely think 8 years in advance.

9/1/2006 3:35:00 PM

it only makes sense if it's for that election.

and yeah, it basically is a convoluted popular vote, but one that's still controlled by states. and one where state results do matter to an extent. we could still assign two electors to each state by default and then the ones on top of that would be based on turnout.

9/1/2006 3:48:03 PM

^ I like that idea, and agree that it ought to be based on current election.

Also, the vote tallies ought to be done by machine, and completely undisclosed to all campaign officials and news media until the polls close in Hawaii. If the Pentagon can find a way to keep the SR71 under wraps for decades, I think we can find a way to keep vote totals in particular states under wraps for a few hours.

Quote :

"LoneSnark: Ignoring rounding error, I don't see how your system will ever return a result that didn't match the popular vote result."

That only happens about 3% of the time as it is.

The object isn't to come up with a system that can yield a result where EC votes can elect a candidate that the popular vote doesn't. It's to come up with a system that applies your vote to your intention.

Quote :

"1337 b4k4: 2) The max number of electoral votes recieved is capped via the current method for determining electoral votes and is only achieveable with at least a 90% turn out for the state."

Yes. This would work well.

[Edited on September 1, 2006 at 3:50 PM. Reason : .]

9/1/2006 3:49:22 PM

Quote :

"Also, the vote tallies ought to be done by machine, and completely undisclosed to all campaign officials and news media until the polls close in Hawaii. If the Pentagon can find a way to keep the SR71 under wraps for decades, I think we can find a way to keep vote totals in particular states under wraps for a few hours."

Agreed. I would have suggested it myself, but I know better than to try to limit freedom of the press. I've always thought that they should keep election results under wraps until its done.

9/1/2006 3:56:38 PM

I'd say you could stretch the definition of "national security" on that one; since it elects the Commander in Chief and all (a big stretch, I know). If you made disclosing the results prematurely a crime under national security statute, I bet it'd dry up real quick.

And we're not talking about a huge limitation of the press. We're talking about suspending the press disclosing one type of information, and only for a matter of a few hours. The NY Times held off on the NSA program for a year--at the administration's request. I'd imagine the news organizations would be willing to cooperate for a few hours if the FCC was staring them down on Election Day.

[Edited on September 1, 2006 at 4:13 PM. Reason : ...]

9/1/2006 4:10:40 PM

Quote :

"The object isn't to come up with a system that can yield a result where EC votes can elect a candidate that the popular vote doesn't. It's to come up with a system that applies your vote to your intention."

But you've come up with a system that is convoluted and difficult to explain to people yet 100% of the time yields the exact same result as a straight plurality election which is easy to explain to everyone.

Why is your voting system better than a straight popular vote where he with the most votes nationally wins? Ignoring rounding error, since it 100% of the time has the same outcome as a popular vote then it has all the same drawbacks as a popular vote without the benefits of simplicity.

9/1/2006 4:14:09 PM

Popular vote is a great idea!

9/1/2006 4:15:45 PM

Quote :

"LoneSnark: you've come up with a system that is convoluted and difficult to explain to people"

The tax codes continue to pass. As do many thousand-page acts in a given year.

Why would this be any different?

Quote :

"LoneSnark: yet 100% of the time yields the exact same result as a straight plurality election which is easy to explain to everyone."

I'm not convinced it yields the same exact result 100% of the time. Primarily because I haven't had the idea long enough to model it to see if it's true.

Who are you, rain man?

I can see that it might yield the same result 100% of the time, but your certainty so early in the idea phase has me a little confused.

And no, I'm not 100% convinced this beats a straight popular vote, but I am convinced it represents a step away from the current system--itself convoluted and poorly understood--towards a simpler one.

[Edited on September 1, 2006 at 4:22 PM. Reason : .]

9/1/2006 4:18:03 PM

With popular vote, the majority of people who actually vote could include dead people!

9/1/2006 4:31:19 PM

why dont we get rid of gerrymandering

new can of worms

9/1/2006 4:45:07 PM

Gamecat, I guess I'm just good at maths.

ok, so, lets analyze your system with a metaphore. Here we have a made-up country with two states, one large one small (40m vs 10m citizens). Now, this system has 100 electoral college seats, an election is held and breaks out this way:
Candidate:__1____2
State A:___10m__2m
State B:____2m__6m

Ok, per stage 1 we apportion the votes:
State A had 12m voters, state B had 8m voters. 100 / (12m + 8m) = 5 EC seats per million voters. So State A gets 60 EC seats and State B gets 40 EC seats.

Stage 2, we determine EC results:
Candidate 1 received 83.333% of the votes in State A and 25% in State B, getting 50 votes from State A and 10 from State B for a total of 60 EC seats.
Candidate 2 received 16.666% of the votes in State A and 75% in State B, getting 10 votes from State A and 30 from State B for a total of 40 EC seats.

EC seat proportion: Candidate 1 received 60% of the EC seats, Candidate 2 received 40%.

Now, compare this to a popular vote:
Candidate 1 received 12m votes out of 20m votes cast, or 60%.
Candidate 2 received 8m votes out of 20m votes cast, or 40%.

How did this happen? Simple, the whole EC college in your idea is nothing but constants that cancel out in the final calculation.

9/1/2006 4:47:38 PM

Here is the Maple solve:

numEC is the total number EC seats.
StateA1 is the number of EC seats for candidate 1 from State A.
StateB1 is the number of EC seats for candidate 1 from State B.

9/1/2006 5:21:18 PM

this is a wonderful idea

bye bye two party system and 60% incumbant reelections

9/1/2006 5:34:25 PM

^ Eh? It would still be a first-past-the-post election system which means two parties.
If you want more than two parties then you need a proportional representation system such as are found in parliamentary systems.

9/1/2006 5:41:20 PM

So what is the purpose of the electoral college as it currently stands. In what situations is it desireable for the person elected president to be the person who did not win the popular vote? Then assuming such situations are desireable, is it possible to have a system that allows for such situations that doesn't encourage either a two party system or "battle ground" states?

9/1/2006 6:23:32 PM

the inability of this country to change will mean its death.

9/1/2006 7:10:05 PM

Quote :

"Eh? It would still be a first-past-the-post election system which means two parties. "

omgorz you took Intro to Comparative Government too!11

9/1/2006 8:12:55 PM

Quote :

"LoneSnark: ^ Eh? It would still be a first-past-the-post election system which means two parties. If you want more than two parties then you need a proportional representation system such as are found in parliamentary systems."

I see the problem immediately (sorry I had to log off earlier) in your maple. Changing the electoral system in this fashion doesn't divide the # of EVs between two candidates. No wonder I was confused by your ability to confidently eyeball a complex mathematical model. Without including other candidates, we're not properly modeling a presidential election.

Since electoral votes only count in presidential elections, which are only quasi-two party elections, your Maple doesn't really apply. Socialists, Greens, Reformers, and Libertarians field candidates in those elections, too.

This system removes the HUGE disincentive contributors to those parties' campaigns face today: that their candidate cannot feasibly win a single EV within the span of one presidential campaign cycle.

Nader, Browne, and Badnarik would walk away with a small # of EVs from each state simply for being on the ballot--totally unlike the current system. Introducing all other presidential candidates makes the outcome far less certain, and unbalances the perfect 1:1 ratio between EV winners and Popular Vote winners in your example.

It wouldn't have register much more than a 3% difference in order to mirror the current system, and I wonder if it wouldn't be a little more pronounced than that.

If you have the time (and I'll do this eventually if you don't), check and see what the outcome would've been in the '92 election. I'm very curious about that one.

[Edited on September 1, 2006 at 8:20 PM. Reason : .]

9/1/2006 8:17:40 PM

Gamecat, I'm sorry, but it still would not matter whether there are two or 20 candidates. All the introduction of additional candidates does it make it more difficult to get a majority, which a plurality election does not require. If I get 10% of the votes nationally then, ignoring rounding, I will get 10% of the EC seats.

And in case you did not know, a plurality system will still tend towards only two-parties. If I know historically the Republican candidate sometimes wins, I could ideologically settle for a Republican victory, I am a Libertarian, but the Libertarian party never wins, then by voting for the Libertarians that is one less vote for the Republicans and the Democrats are one vote more likely to win.

Our electoral system only has two parties because only one person can win. If you want more parties then you either need a second round of voting (as in France, the second time around you are only allowed to vote for one of the two most popular parties from the first round) or a system of proportional representation (your party got 30% of the votes so you get 30% of the seats in Parliament, there is no President).

Quote :

"So what is the purpose of the electoral college as it currently stands."

The purpose is to allow 50 independent states with different leaders and ways of doing things to elect a single President. The Electoral College System is nice because it rules out the potentially interference of election fraud. No matter how corrupt they get in Alabama or Illinois they only have the EC votes they have, no more, and no one has more of an interest in fixing election fraud in these states than those living and voting in them.

[Edited on September 1, 2006 at 10:26 PM. Reason : .,.]

9/1/2006 10:26:31 PM

the notion that election fraud is currently not a problem is 100% wrong.

9/1/2006 10:30:42 PM

Quote :

"So what is the purpose of the electoral college as it currently stands. "

As it currently stands, the Electoral College encourages and supports the two party system. Proponents of the Electoral College tell us that the two-party, winner-take-all system promotes political stability. This leaves us with the question: Is political stability the most important goal of selecting the best leaders?

9/1/2006 11:45:59 PM

^ Not at all. The electoral college system is not what is making it a two party system, it is the winner takes all component which is making it a two party system. I just explained as much above. Even if we did do away with the electoral college and went with a pure popular vote we would STILL have a two party system because a vote for the Libertarians (instead of the Republicans) is one less vote the Democrats need to win.

9/2/2006 7:34:28 AM

If you are trying to change the Constitution in order to basically have popular votes elect the President, why not really support that idea and eliminate the Senate? The Senate, with its each-State-gets-two-votes, allows less populous States have the same power as more populous States. If we want the majority to rule, the Senate must go.

And I disagree that popular voting would encourage a two-party system. I think you'd have a lot of smaller parties forming in order to prevent majority parties from winning. This would force the majority parties to accept the more radical ideas of the smaller parties in order to get their support.

9/2/2006 10:25:40 AM

Quote :

"And I disagree that popular voting would encourage a two-party system. I think you'd have a lot of smaller parties forming in order to prevent majority parties from winning."

What is this nonsense? I can only assume you have not thought it through.

I am a Libertarian, but if by voting for the Libertarians it will cause the Democrats to win the election then I am forced to vote Republican.

Plus, people do not vote for parties that have no chance of winning. in a popular vote a small party has NO chance of winning, by definition, so people that are dissatisfied with the two large parties are more likely to just not vote, not waste time voting for a party that cannot win.

9/2/2006 11:28:29 AM

So, if we want third parties to have a legitimate chance on a national scale, is parliamentary elections the only way to go?

9/2/2006 11:39:44 AM

No, there are many techniques, I recommend Wikipedia's article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system#Ranked_voting_methods

And I'm not saying a 3rd party can never succeed in a popular electoral system (if one of the major parties falls apart). But if you want a system that consistently has more than two parties you will need something other than a popular system.

But I do not necessarily feel 3rd parties make a system better.

9/2/2006 1:53:00 PM

Quote :

"I can only assume you have not thought it through. "

And your assumption would be wrong.

Third parties, although not often winners, hold the important role of spoilers. There are numerous examples in history of third parties affecting the outcomes.
The other benefit to third parties is that they give an option for voters who are fed up with the main two parties. Ross Perot probably drew out many people who wouldn't have come out and vote if it had just been a democrat and a republican.

Recently, my fellow moderate Libertarian cohorts successfully eliminated a lot of the more radical and hard-to-sell planks of the National Party platform. The goal is to make the party a more potent and electable entity.

In local elections, instant run-off voting would really help third parties. In Presidential elections, the current system so favors the two parties that it may require a strong third party that has developed a national prominance through grass root efforts to bubble up and deliver the political bitch-slap. to the demo-publicans.

9/2/2006 11:06:50 PM

I'm confused, you are arguing that a popular voting system would be different from today's electoral college system, right?
I am arguing there would be very little difference between the two, particular when it comes to 3rd parties, which you demonstrated by pointing out that under a popular voting system, as under our EC system, 3rd parties only play a spoiler role under both systems. 3rd parties are not elected consistently to government, they never win an election, all they get to do is occasionally punish a major party with defeat.

This is not a good system because even if all the people in the 1992 election that voted for Perot would have voted for Bush had Perot not been on the ballot, it doesn't matter in either the EC or the popular systems, Clinton wins the election because although the non-democrats are in the majority they have split their votes between two candidates. People hate losing elections this way, and that is why in popular systems 3rd parties quickly return to their marginal status, they don't often make the same mistake (and in a popular election voting for a 3rd party is always a mistake).

Now, a ranked election system would eliminate this conflict of interest and allow me to vote for Perot without guaranteeing Clinton victory by splitting the conservative ticket. It is in this way that people do not end up being punished for voting for 3rd parties, therefore 3rd parties can not only stick around year after year they might actually win once in awhile.

Now, this is only looking at the final election dates. It is my opinion that we already live under a ranked voting system, those that say we do not fail to take into account the primary process. To put it clearly, early in 1992 Ross Perot ran for the nomination of the Republican Party and through a democratic vote he lost the nomination to Bush. If it had ended there, what we had was a two-tiered voting system designed to eliminate unworthy candidates up front, leaving the American public with two candidates to choose from in November. With only two candidates there is no possibility of split-vote miscarriages, so either a popular or EC system will discern the public's wishes in November, no problem, but only because the prior year was dedicated to the primary conventions to get the election down to two candidates.

My question is, why does everyone choose to pretend the primary process does not take place? In January of '04 there were 10 candidates for President all with an equal chance of victory, 9 of them Democrats. Through '04 the liberals of America held up-front elections to discern which of these 9 was the most popular and they discerned it down to Kerry.

[Edited on September 3, 2006 at 9:23 AM. Reason : .,.]

9/3/2006 9:11:07 AM

Quote :

"I'm sure Gamecat has agreed with all of the honorable Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's ideas before now"

i've made some pretty bad troll attempts in my day

but this is prolly the worst one i've ever seen

you do realize arnold didn't come up with this, and hasn't even signed it yet, right?

so i'm not sure what "the honorable Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's ideas" have to do with anything

9/3/2006 11:26:27 AM

Quote :

"you need a proportional representation system such as are found in parliamentary systems. "

It would be interesting to see what an American version of a parlimentary system would look like. Combine it with instant-run-off voting and you've got yourself some entertaining campaigns.

9/4/2006 12:23:54 AM

Quote :

"LoneSnark: My question is, why does everyone choose to pretend the primary process does not take place?"

Because not everybody can participate in the primaries.

Quote :

"LoneSnark: In January of '04 there were 10 candidates for President all with an equal chance of victory, 9 of them Democrats. Through '04 the liberals of America held up-front elections to discern which of these 9 was the most popular and they discerned it down to Kerry."

This is about as intellectually disingenuous as I've seen you post.

First of all, there weren't 10 candidates for President in January '04. Yet again you've fundamentally ignored that there are more than two parties fielding presidential candidates. Updated your mental "election model" to reflect that fact already.

Secondly, they didn't all have an equal chance of victory. The only way you could suggest they had an equal chance would be if they all had equal resources, namely access to media and campaign funds (particularly federal funds). They clearly did not. That's not the end of it either. Putting names with your assertion illustrates the point more clearly:

LoneSnark: "Carolyn Mosley-Braun had an equal chance of becoming president as George W. Bush in January 2004."

Corrected to reflect the way the 2004 Election will be documented in the history books:

LoneSnark: "Harry Browne had an equal chance of becoming president as George W. Bush in January 2004."

Now I'm positive you're going to cite the study that concluded the candidate with the most money doesn't always win an election, and I'm also sure we're already familiar with it and its irrelevance to the point. Money, incumbency, and access to media cannot win an election on their own, but you're doing your field of study a HUGE disservice by suggesting they have -zero- influence.

[Edited on September 4, 2006 at 5:39 AM. Reason : ...]

9/4/2006 5:39:26 AM

Quote :

"Because not everybody can participate in the primaries."

Since when? Last I knew, all you had to be was a registered Democrat to run in a Democratic primary. Has this changed?

Quote :

"First of all, there weren't 10 candidates for President in January '04."

You're right, there were 11:
"KERRY, KUCINICH, SHARPTON, EDWARDS, DEAN, CLARK, LIEBERMAN, GEPHARDT, MOSELEY BRAUN, GRAHAM, and finally BUSH"

Quote :

"GameCat: And if you're not a liberal or a conservative, you can fuck off."

Remember: Greens are Liberals and Libertarians are Conservatives.

Quote :

"Yet again you've fundamentally ignored that there are more than two parties fielding presidential candidates."

And they should stop (or be stopped) because they are malfunctioning the system. A popular vote only discerns the voter's wishes if there are only two choices, any more and you risk confounding interference: (in '92 the majority of voters were conservatives yet the liberals won the day).

Therefore, for the system to work properly the green party should dispand and Ralph Nader should run, as he used to do, for the Democratic Nomination and take his loss in March with grace.

9/4/2006 10:17:38 AM