[EM] electoral college/Serious thoughts

[Adam H Tarr]

Dave wrote:

>      Destroying the EC is neither practical nor useful.
>      There are doable improvements for the EC.
>      IRV people need to be locked out of this debate.
>
>Practical nor useful?
>      Not practical, for it requires at least some of the low population 
>states to approve a Constitutional amendment that gives them less voice in 
>electing a President.

OK, fine, give them the power.  Just do it in a way that isn't ridiculously 
crude.  Just scale the votes.  If there are N votes cast in North Dakota, 
then multiply every vote from North Dakota by 3/N.  If there are M votes 
cast in California, then multiply every vote from California by 54/M.  Much 
more simple, and much less crude.

This also makes it easy to implement Condorcet or approval in a national 
election, if we can ever get there.

>      What lies down this path - electing by nationwide popular vote? 
>Then you get nationwide suffering with near ties like Florida got in 2000 
>with a near tie.

The possibility of a close national election is not, in my opinion, a 
sufficient reason to avoid using a better method.  Recounts are part of 
elections; a national recount would not be a disaster.  And the chances of 
a national election being as close as Florida's was are vanishingly small, 
of course.