For example, in 1992, Ross Perot got 20% of the popular vote in Calfornia. Under a proportional system, that would seem to entitle Perot to 10 or 11 electoral votes from California alone. If a third party candidate had received. Ten electoral votes for a third party candidate in 2000 would have almost certainly meant that the House of Representatives would have decided the election.

As I’ve indicated, I’m no fan of the electoral college system, but I think the tie-break in the House of Representatives is absolutely the worst feature of the system.

Our Founding Fathers had the wisdom to know that they were fallable so they put in the mechanisms by which we could amend the constitution as changing times might dictate.
I believe that the present electoral system creates a lot of apathy, especially in states that have a fairly consistant majority in one party. On the other hand I believe it would be wrong-headed to go to a directly popular presidential elections. I would hope that compromises such as I have recommended would be considered.

The original system was very republican in nature. Most proposed reforms, including the one you discuss, erodes small-r republicanism. For very important reasons, the Founders placed limits on the reach of American democracy.

The most important functioning constant of the American system is the delegation of power. In the federalist model as it was originally envisioned, the majority of that delegated power rested in the individual states, which included the mechanism for selecting the executive.

Proportionalizing to the degree you discuss inches us away from democratic republicanism. America has long maintained a winner-take-all view of her elections. I think it has served us well.

The simple solutions suggested below both retains the college and provides most of the democratic advantages of having the votes of individual citizens matter. Since an elector (a whole human being) cannot be divided, replace the concept of electoral vote with electoral number or weight, which can be divided into arbitrarily small units. Instead of each state having certain amounts of electoral votes which much be all in favor of one candidate, have the electoral number be divided in direct proportion to the vote count of the candidates. The sizes of these smaller units would be reported to the electoral college and they would reflect the desires of the citizens of the state in a much more democratic way than the present electoral system. Each state would have the size of its total electoral number or weight reported to the electoral college equal to its present electoral vote number (the total number of congressional members, Representatives and Senators). This is in keeping with the small state - large state compromise that formed the centerstone of our Republic.

Thus, for example, if the Republican presidential candidate gets 49% of the vote, and the Democratic candidate get 51% then the 9 electoral weight for Tennessee would be 4.41 for the Republican candidate and 4.59 for the Democratic candidate.

A possible problem of the above proposal is that significant third party candidates could throw the election into the House of Representatives. An alternative to the above would divide the electoral number but always rounded off in such a way that it is always a whole number, a number of electoral votes. It would be rounded up for the winner. This could go as follows: I will use the example of Tennessee with its 9 electoral votes. In order for a candidate to receive 1 electoral vote he must receive at least 1/9 or about 11%. In order for a candidate to receive 3 electoral vote he must receive at least 3/9 or about 33%. And so on. So, if the Democratic candidate received 49% of the vote and the Republican 48% and the independent 3%, then instead of the Democratic candidate receiving 4.41 electoral votes, the Republican 4.32 electoral votes and the independent 0.27 electoral votes, the independent would get no electoral votes, the Democratic candidate would receive 5 and the Republican 4. In extreme case like candidate D receiving 53%, R receiving 35% and I 12%, D would get 5 electoral votes, R would get 3 and I 1. But if candidate D receiving 56%, R receiving 32% and I 10%, D would get 6 electoral votes, R would get 3 and I 0. Although not as fair numerically as the electoral number system it would be much less likely to end up in the House of Representatives and it is certainly more just than the present system.

I would greatly appreciate your comments or suggestions

Best Regards

Horace Crater
310 Oakwood Cove
La Vergne, TN
37086

I have no problem with the tie break going to the states, where the representatives selected by the people determine who becomes the chief executive.

The electoral college system is not supposed to simply confirm the popular vote. The electoral college preserves the states’ contract with the union, so that more populous states are not able to coerce and dominate less populous states. Making the process more democratic, or mob-centric, begins the process of making the states irrelevant. The fifty states are sovereigns that have delegated certain powers to the center, not administrative districts to be further marginalized by skipping them for direct democracy.

I am perfectly happy in keeping with empowering the states. It works. And it works well. We are a young country. It is too early to say that the electoral college is arcane because no single individual has threatened to destroy the republic from within. Let’s not make it possible simply because it hasn’t happened yet.

Republican Party platforms in 1948, 1960, and 1968 called for the reform of the electoral college system. Perhaps these were somewhat self-serving in 1948 and 1968 because there were major third party candidates running.

In 1948, Henry Wallace got almost as many votes as Strom Thurmond. Thurmond got 39 electoral votes because his votes were concentrated in the South. Henry Wallace got no electoral votes at all because his popular votes were scattered throughout the country. In 1992, Ross Perot received nearly 19% of the national popular vote, but didn’t get a single electoral vote. In 1968, George Wallace got 13.5% of the popular vote and received 46 electoral votes, again because his votes were concentrated in one region of the country.

In 1960, Harry Byrd got 15 electoral votes although he wasn’t on the ballot in a single state.

Suppose that I concede that everything you say about the electoral college itself is correct? What about the tie breaker? If a third party candidate is strong enough to win even a single state, there’s always the possibility of the election being thrown into the House of Representatives, under arcane rules with each state delegation getting one vote. Fortunately this hasn’t happened since 1824. Do you think this is a good system.

Personally, I prefer — dare I say it — the French mobocratic system, with an election and a run-off between the two top candidates. I think results like the result in 2000, where the candidate who loses the popular vote winds up being inaugurated, are bad for the country regardless of which party wins. I recognize that there are major flaws with the system the Tennessean proposes. It probably is worse than just keeping the current system. The reason people make such proposals is the difficulty of getting rid of the current system through a constitutional amendment.

If direct democracy is truly preferable, we might as well go ahead and abolish the congress.

In 2000, the closest recent election, former Senator Baker resigned as an elector at the last moment so that he could be replaced by his grandson.

Their textbooks aren’t really so awful. The electoral college was originally a proslavery institution. It, in conjunction with the 3/5 clause, assured that all but one of the first five Presidents would be from Virginia.