Electoral College or Popular Vote?

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

Popular vote rule is unfair to states like Vermont, who will then have virtually no say in the election, leaving places like Texas & California to decide for everyone else.

When's the last time VT has had a say in an election?

1876.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

I don't mind the electoral college too much, but I think that all states should use the Maine / Nebraska method. As a matter of interest, has there been any serious attempt to introduce that anywhere else?

Noooooooooo!

If the undemocratic ME/NE method had been adopted in each state Obama might not have won the 2008 presidential election.
Take a look at Indiana and North Carolina, each of which he won:
Indiana would have given him 3 EV and 6 EV to McCain.
In North Carolina Obama would have received 6 EV, compared to McCain's 7 EV.

A proportional allocation of the electoral votes could be a good compromise.

The calculation's been done, and while I don't recall the exact results, Obama would have still won under he Maine/Nebraska method.

Okay, but it'd be possible that close elections like 2000, 1992, 1976 or 1960 could have come to different results with the CD-method.

I don't see why the fact that past elections would have had a different result is a reason to not want a system.

How about the fact that the Maine-Nebraska method allows gerrymandering to influence the results of Presidential elections? Obama narrowly won North Carolina in 2008. But the Republicans just recently gerrymandered that state to hell, and Obama would only have won five out of fifteen electoral votes from that state under the new lines. It's bad enough that gerrymandering affects the results of Congressional races without affecting Presidential races as well.

Even if the US had a neutral redistricting process, I would not approve of the Maine-Nebraska method as it would still allow Presidential elections to be decided based on arbitrary lines on a map even more than the current system does.

I oppose having electoral votes be allocated proportionally as well, though it's better than the current system. If the electoral votes are allocated proportionally at a nationwide level, then it makes no difference from the popular vote in any election where a candidate gets a majority, but it throws the election to the House in all other cases (such as 1992, 1996, and 2000). If the electoral votes are allocated proportionally by state, then small states would still be disproportionate (if a candidate wins by one vote in Vermont, that's a 2-1 margin in the Electoral Vote, but a candidate would need to break 60% in New Hampshire to not tie).

With a popular vote, one vote is one vote, and it carries the same weight no matter which state or district the voter lives in.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

If the electoral votes are allocated proportionally at a nationwide level

What conceivable reason would one have to allocate electoral votes in any manner on a national level? The only way that even begins to make any sort of sense would be if instead of meeting in each State and voting once, the electors met together to choose a President and Vice President by a majority vote, and Congress was cut out of the process entirely.

I was just putting that out there as an example, but I suppose you're right. However, seeing as how I oppose it anyway, you're not really changing my mind about anything.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

Most states don't have counties of uniform enough population for that to be viable.  The selection of electors would presumably be subject to the same one-man/one-vote limitations as other offices are subject to (assuming that the State legislature chooses to have the electors selected by the people).

It's simple. Loving County Texas gets 1 Elector, and Los Angeles County California gets 119,739.[/sarcasm]

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

I always thought that a good way to reform the Electoral College would be to give each voter a number of Electoral Votes equal to their state's total number of Presidential Electors.

This would allow for cleaner campaigning on behalf of the Democratic and Republican candidates, who usually go into negative attack ads trying to get all the undecided/swing voters.

So, if you live in Wyoming and get 3 electoral votes, or in California and you get 55 electoral votes, candidates would have to go after your votes.

BTW, what I'm proposing isn't a violation of the "one-man/one-vote rule".

If that's the case, then I don't think I'm interpreting your proposal correctly. Could you please explain in a little more detail?

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

On the surface, direct popular vote seems fairer, but if you don't live in a big state like California, Texas, New York, or Florida, then you would have virtually no say in that system.

Wrong, wrong, absolutely brimming over with wrongability.

In a direct popular vote, one vote is one vote, regardless of whether you live in New York City or Hooterville. Let's compare the two systems. Let's say the Republican wins Wyoming by ten thousand votes and the Democrat wins California by ten thousand votes. With a direct popular vote, the election is tied at this point. But in the Electoral College, the Democrat leads 55-3. That means that the ten thousand voters who made the difference in California are over eighteen times as powerful as the ten thousand voters who made the difference in Wyoming. This does not resemble anything even remotely fair. And if you bothered to watch the video that FallenMorgan posted, you'd know that the 100 most populous cities in America amount to less than 20% of the population, proving the absurdity of the argument that big cities would dominate presidential elections in a popular vote system.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

The D'Hondt/St Laigue formulas should be used to proportionally allocate electors by the vote share the candidate got in each state. Its used In most Western Democracies that have Proportional Representation legislatures.
So In California 2012 Gary Johnson wins 1, Obama wins 33 and Romney 21, In Florida, Romney 14, Obama 15. In Utah, Romney 5, Obama 1, Texas Romney 22 Obama 16 etc.

And in Mississippi, where Romney won by 12 points, he and Obama get 3 electoral votes each. The problem with allocating electoral votes proportionally is that the results are skewed in the smaller states.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

The Electoral College is a relic of the 18th Century.

It should be abolished with all due haste.

Is "all due haste" faster or slower than "all deliberate speed"?

Faster, definitely.

"Due" means "owed at present," whereas "deliberate" means "carefully weighed or considered" or "leisurely or steady in movement or action." "Haste" can mean "urgent need of quick action" or even "unnecessarily quick action," whereas "speed" lists "relative rapidity in moving" over "full, maximum, or optimum rate of motion."

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

On the surface, direct popular vote seems fairer, but if you don't live in a big state like California, Texas, New York, or Florida, then you would have virtually no say in that system.

Wrong, wrong, absolutely brimming over with wrongability.

In a direct popular vote, one vote is one vote, regardless of whether you live in New York City or Hooterville. Let's compare the two systems. Let's say the Republican wins Wyoming by ten thousand votes and the Democrat wins California by ten thousand votes. With a direct popular vote, the election is tied at this point. But in the Electoral College, the Democrat leads 55-3. That means that the ten thousand voters who made the difference in California are over eighteen times as powerful as the ten thousand voters who made the difference in Wyoming. This does not resemble anything even remotely fair. And if you bothered to watch the video that FallenMorgan posted, you'd know that the 100 most populous cities in America amount to less than 20% of the population, proving the absurdity of the argument that big cities would dominate presidential elections in a popular vote system.

Not true.  Big states would be even more powerful than they are now under popular vote.  For example, a candidate could carry California, lose every other state, and still win the election because California has so many more people.

Where to begin with this? How about by stating the fact that in 2012 California accounted for only about 10% of the nationwide popular vote? That means that even if Obama won 100% of the two-party vote in California, he'd still need to break about 45% in the rest of the country in order to win the nationwide popular vote. So it is excessively unlikely that a candidate would win California, lose every other state, and still win the popular vote.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

On the surface, direct popular vote seems fairer, but if you don't live in a big state like California, Texas, New York, or Florida, then you would have virtually no say in that system.

Wrong, wrong, absolutely brimming over with wrongability.

In a direct popular vote, one vote is one vote, regardless of whether you live in New York City or Hooterville. Let's compare the two systems. Let's say the Republican wins Wyoming by ten thousand votes and the Democrat wins California by ten thousand votes. With a direct popular vote, the election is tied at this point. But in the Electoral College, the Democrat leads 55-3. That means that the ten thousand voters who made the difference in California are over eighteen times as powerful as the ten thousand voters who made the difference in Wyoming. This does not resemble anything even remotely fair. And if you bothered to watch the video that FallenMorgan posted, you'd know that the 100 most populous cities in America amount to less than 20% of the population, proving the absurdity of the argument that big cities would dominate presidential elections in a popular vote system.

Not true.  Big states would be even more powerful than they are now under popular vote.  For example, a candidate could carry California, lose every other state, and still win the election because California has so many more people.

Where to begin with this? How about by stating the fact that in 2012 California accounted for only about 10% of the nationwide popular vote? That means that even if Obama won 100% of the two-party vote in California, he'd still need to break about 45% in the rest of the country in order to win the nationwide popular vote. So it is excessively unlikely that a candidate would win California, lose every other state, and still win the popular vote.

It's still possible.  Let me give you an example: California currently has 55 electoral votes.  Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin currently have a combined 55 electoral votes.  If California votes for Candidate X and Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin all vote for candidate Y, then under the electoral college, they would be tied.  Under a direct popular vote, Candidate X would be far ahead because California has so many people.
The Founding Fathers established the Electoral College for a very specific reason: to serve as a means of checks and balances between states.  I'm not saying it's an entirely fair system, and bigger states do have more power, but under a national popular vote, it would be even more disproportionately favorable to those states.

Yes, its true that California has more people than Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and Wisconsin combined. What you fail to realize is that those four smaller states are overrepresented in the Electoral College relative to California because of the Electoral Votes they get for their Senators. California only has only two Electoral Votes for Senators, whereas the other states have a combined eight. So, in your example, assuming equal turnout and equal percentage margins in each state, the Candidate who won in California would be ahead. There is, of course, absolutely nothing wrong with this. In this scenario, more people voted in California, so, collectively, they should have more influence than the people who voted in those other states do collectively.

Of course , your premise only falls flatter on its face due to the fact that despite the fact that those states combined have about 3.65 million fewer people than California, in 2012 they cast about 3 million more votes for President than California did. So, in your example, if you assume that the respective candidates won by the same percentage margin in each state, then Candidate Y is leading because California had lower turnout. There is, of course, absolutely nothing wrong with this either. More people voted in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and Wisconsin, so, collectively, they should have more influence than the people who voted in California do collectively.

Of course, both of these examples take certain assumptions into account. The bottom line is, what should matter isn't where the votes are coming from, but for whom the votes are cast. If Candidate X wins more votes than Candidate Y, Candidate X should win.