A modest proposal

[evilnewbie]

Originally Posted by WaldoKitty

I don't imagine that the Democrat party would ever agree to apportion California's 55 electoral votes.

They would if they plan on cheating, which is guaranteed...

[TheDusty]

Originally Posted by WaldoKitty

I don't imagine that the Democrat party would ever agree to apportion California's 55 electoral votes.

Well of course not. Neither party is going to jump on board for that as it won't be easy help for them.

As is, the current election process basically just involves candidates picking states they think will be contested, and campaigning in them. Because all they need to do is win just over half the state to get all of it. Which is foolish.

The Democrats could jump on board for popular vote, though it will never pass, just because the big population centers tend to vote Democrat. But they wouldn't support electoral votes being awarded proportionally, and neither would the Republicans. Mainly because that process wouldn't be a clear benefit and would change how you campaign. You can't just show up in a state to get a bit more support to win the whole thing or just rely on popular centers. You need an effective strategy is has some level of appeal to the masses. Neither party has that up their sleeve.

[PacoMartin]

Originally Posted by jacqueg

There's a similar electoral college compact that CA and NY have already agreed to - Agreement Among the States to Elect the President by National Popular Vote | National Popular Vote

Originally Posted by TheDusty

Why should the the restricted to only those states? Every state should have that.

There are two proposed compacts in existence. The one based on national popular vote that jacqueg mentioned is clearly supported by only the 10 most hardcore Democratic states (+ D.C.). The idea that TheDusty supports where all 50 states must sign up is clearly supported by the Republicans as they probably would have won the 2012 election with such a system. In 2012 Romney had 13 more congressional districts than Obama , but Obama had 3 more states than Romney. So Romney would have won the election by
13-2*3=7 electoral college votes.

Both these proposals are predestined to fail, because they are perceived as supporting one party over the other.

Just as a reminder the US constitution does little more than say that presidential electors must equal the number of congressmen plus senators. Beyond that simple fact, everything else is at the whim of the state. South Carolina only had it's first popular vote for the twenty first presidential election. Before that electors were simply appointed by the state congressmen. At least twice they all voted for a SC senator for president, who did not receive a single electoral college vote from any other state.

My modest proposal calls for the four largest states to agree to change their state laws at the same time and adopt the one vote per district; two votes per state model at the same time. Although Maine and Nebraska have adopted this system, they know that those states are so small that the winner take all system doesn't attract more attention than anything else. The larger states would never give up their clout all by themselves.

But the four largest together and including the swing state of FL means that the apportioned system doesn't clearly help one party or the other. As a matter of fact the most likely outcome is that it won't change the final result. But what it does is it re-engages more voters in our three largest states (CA, NY, TX) which are over 1/4 of the population and who face each election already knowing the outcome for their state.

Smaller states would not be tied into the compact, but as always they are free to change the system in their own state on their own. But the four largest states constitute

BTW, following the 19th century satirical essay by Jonathan Swift, a "modest proposal" refers to a proposal that is anything but modest.