Good News on Electoral College Reform

[donald at mich.com]

G O O D    N E W S    F O R    T H E    P A I R  W I S E    P E O P L E

Greetings,

I am going to present a solution to Electoral College reform - a solution
that will allow any single winner method to be used when the electoral
votes of the reformed states reach fifty percent. The reformed states are
the states that have agreed to work together by using this reform plan.

Electoral College reform in one or more states

What I am going to present here is a plan by which the voters in one or
more states will in effect be allowed to have a runoff between the top two
national candidates. This runoff may put these voters in the position of
having the deciding electoral votes. It may be possible for them to become
the King Makers. This is good because the King Maker power will attract
more states to join the reformed states. When the power of the reformed
states reaches majority the runoff of top two is dropped - instead a single
winner method is used - your choice.

Lacking a national reform of the Electoral College the following is my plan.

The voters in the reformed states will be allowed to make a series of
selections.

After the election the national standings of all the candidates are going
to be used to pick the top two. The national standings include the votes
from both the reformed states and the unreformed states - both groups have
an influence on which candidates are the top two.

The top two candidates in the national standings are going to have a runoff
in the reformed states. The balance of the candidates in the reformed
states are dropped and their votes are reassigned to the top two
candidates. This is done by using the other selections the voters made at
election time. The winner of this runoff shall receive all the electoral
votes of the reform states.

There will be Presidential elections in which this runoff in the reformed
states decided the national election. This power will attract other states
to join the reformed states. When the number of electoral votes of the
reformed states reach fifty percent plus one of the national total, then we
no longer have this runoff between only the top two candidates. Instead we
pay no attention to the national standings. We merely work the reformed
states numbers using some single winner method - your choice - or I should
say the choice will be open to the decision of the reformed states.
Whichever candidate wins by the chosen single winner method shall receive
all the reformed states' electoral votes - a majority.

[Note: At this point the entire Electoral College system will no longer
have any value - it will become moot. The actual popular vote is doing the
electing of the President. This may be a concern to some people - think
about it.]

Also at this point: If the other states wish to have a vote in the election
of our Presidents they will have to join the reformed states. When all of
the other states do join in, the entire nation will be reformed in regard
to the Electoral College.

If this system had been used by a few states in the 1992 presidential
election, Ross Perot being below the top two would have been dropped. The
people who voted for Perot in these few reformed states would have received
the freedom to have their votes salvaged and placed on either Bush or
Clinton. This may have changed the electoral count for these few states.
This may have changed the national results.

This plan is the best solution. Everyone will understand a runoff between
the top two candidates. (this plan obeys the KISS rule - Keep It Simple
Sailor)

This plan is also best for this Election-Methods-List because the plan
allows any single-winner method to be used in the end. (how nice you are to
those technical guys)

To technical guys: This runoff of the top two is not our cup of tea but it
is an inprovement over the current method and this runoff will be able to
carry electoral reform to a point where some single winner method will be
used that is better than top two runoff.

Donald