[EM] electoral college/Serious thoughts

[Paul Kislanko]

Some of this I've mentioned before on the list.

Two states already determine their EC electors based upon
proportionality in the sense that each congressional district selects
one elector and two are selected based upon statewide popular vote.

If every state did it that way, the "winner take all" approach used by
the other 48 states would not create "swing states" or the abomination
we had in 2000.

This would be consistent with what the Founding Fathers had in mind when
they set up the Electoral College in the first place. When they set the
number of electors by state equal to number of senators (2 per state)
and representatives (proportional to state's percentatge of total
voters) they (in the "Great Compromise") preserved the input from less
populous states while keeping with the principle of majority rule.

They trusted State Legislatures a little too much, because the 48 states
who have set a winner take all approach to the selection of electors
created the very un-democratic situation where a US president was
elected who was less-preferred by a majority of voters to at least one
candidate.

I pointed out in an earlier post that the first step in fixing the
problem is getting states to adopt the approach of electing electors by
district, with only two elected by statewide voting. 

As far as the US goes, that would be a much bigger improvement than
changing the election method from plurality to anything else. 


-----Original Message-----
From: election-methods-electorama.com-admin at electorama.com
[mailto:election-methods-electorama.com-admin at electorama.com] On Behalf
Of Dave Ketchum
Sent: Tuesday, April 27, 2004 11:11 PM
To: Curt Siffert
Cc: election-methods-electorama.com at electorama.com
Subject: Re: [EM] electoral college/Serious thoughts


First I hit some serious topics; then I comment on some of what Curt & 
Adam 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.
      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.

Doable?
      Article II.2 authorizes each state Legislature to see to
appointing 
electors.  It says almost NOTHING as to how they should go about this.
      Note that, per Amendment XII, the House (or Senate) DO NOT get to 
pick some stranger when they get to pick - they pick from the candidates

getting the most EC votes.

So - what to do:
      NOTHING as to mechanics of doing the election.
      Appoint EC members proportionally in each state, per popular vote.

Whoever nominates a slate of EC candidates produces an ordered list so 
that, should their candidate get half the vote, first half of their list

gets appointed.
      It is EXPECTED that whoever nominates EC candidates will have them

committed to reasonableness:
           Major party EC candidates likely promise to vote for their 
party's candidates.
           Other party EC candidates likely promise to vote for their 
party's candidates if there is a chance of winning; else whatever was 
agreed to when they became a candidate.

Actually doing:
      Swing states might do the above, since it does not give any
special 
advantage to any party.
      States such as NY could not afford to give the Republicans the 
unfair advantage of getting some NY EC votes; NY could consider
partnering 
with states that would give comparable aid to the Democrats.
      This thought is possible ammunition for a Constitutional
amendment.

Lockout IRV?
      The above proportional election of EC members is better than any
IRV 
dream I have heard of,

On Tue, 27 Apr 2004 17:32:23 -0700 Curt Siffert wrote per
     Subject :Re: [EM] electoral college/ two-party-duopoly	

> 
> On Apr 27, 2004, at 4:55 PM, Adam H Tarr wrote:
> 
>> Curt wrote:
>>
>>> [ The first issue really illustrates what I find so impossible about

>>> IRV advocates, because many of them advocate IRV *in presidential 
>>> elections*, but *before* removing the EC.  Implementing IRV in pres.

>>> elections on a state level, without changing the EC, has *no* effect

>>> whatsoever,
>>
>>
>> Not so.  It could swing an election from one major party to another 
>> in a swing state, by transferring the votes of a wing party.  To take

>> 2000 as an easy example: give Gore the Nader votes, and he as a clear

>> majority in Florida.
> 
> 
> I should have been more clear - Such an IRV scheme has no effect on 
> making it more likely their candidate will win or that their interests

> will be reflected.  They can't win the EC until they have 270 EVs, at 
> which point they're not exactly a third party anymore.
> 
>> There is an argument that IRV perpetuates a two-party system almost 
>> as well as plurality does.  That's a bad thing in general, but in the

>> isolated case of trying to avoid elections being sent to the House, 
>> it's a good thing.
> 

How is getting the House involved on near ties a crime?

> 
> What pro-IRV argument makes sent-to-House elections less likely?
> 
>> 1) Some small states actually get under-represented in the EC, due to

>> being just short of getting an extra representative.  So the EC is 
>> actually pretty erratic in this regard.
> 
> 
> Yes, apportionment is sort of arbitrary.  The ratio of representatives

> to senators is arbitrary - the House scaled with population for a 
> while, then just turned the scaling off.


This puzzles.  The small state has to rate ONE extra House member to
rate 
ONE extra EC member - still ahead of NY, etc.

> 
>> 3) People tend to associate small states with rural populations and 
>> certain interests, but the EC is a very crude tool at best if 
>> increasing the representation of those interests.  And why should 
>> they get a larger say, anyway?
> 
> 
> There are strong arguments on both sides of this question.  I actually

> think less populated states should get a higher representation ratio 
> for environmental reasons.  But yes, the EC's current implementation 
> of this aim is crude and bad.
> 
> If I were to overhaul it and still keep the EC, I'd award each state's

> EVs proportionally according to the placement of each candidate in 
> that state.  According to that scheme, by the way, Bush just barely 
> won in 2000 (spoiled by Nader) - Gore actually won more of the 
> ultra-close states in 2000.  I'd figure the placement of each 
> candidate with a better voting scheme.  (Thus my question about 
> normalizing placement of multiple candidates on a 100-point scale a 
> few threads ago.)  I'd re-apportion the EVs to more accurately reflect

> the population.  I'd want some way to come up with a more thoughtful 
> compromise/ratio between popular and regional representation (less 
> arbitrary than 435:100).
> 
I agree as to proportional.  Not clear how you can make a better voting 
scheme for this purpose.

BTW - the House has stumbled into 435 - they might decide that is too
many 
for a legislative body without asking how it would affect the EC.

>> So, the EC should be abolished, but that's not news around here.
> 
> 
> On the contrary, there are many Condorcet advocates that might not 
> support the abolishment of the EC under all circumstances.  I think 
> it's superior to a nationwide popular (plurality) vote, for instance.
> 
>>>  Sure, perhaps too stable, but I personally do find it a hard 
>>> argument to make that a multiple-party legislative body is clearly 
>>> and incontrovertibly better than a two-party legislative body.  When

>>> I see the nature of some of the power-sharing alliance agreements in

>>> some parliamentary bodies with many small parties, it doesn't seem 
>>> to do a much better job of democratically representing the 
>>> population than a two-party body (this reaches the outer limits of 
>>> my study and I don't have many examples to draw on; the only one I 
>>> find myself thinking of in this regard is Israel's).
>>
>>
>> The unstable parliamentary democracies are the ones where the ruling 
>> coalition needs to maintain a majority so that it can form a 
>> government. Even if we had 50 parties in the house, there would still

>> be no need for this.  Sure, they'd have to think of new rules for 
>> forming committees and such, but the executive branch is elected 
>> seperately in the USA, so all those stability issues are not a 
>> problem.
> 
> 
> That is a good point, I will remember this one.  Our leader doesn't by
> definition
> come from our ruling congressional party.
> 
>> ...if you put more diverse opinions on the floor, that are more 
>> representative of the people, then you give the people more choices 
>> about how the government is run.  Right now, (to pick an example out 
>> of a hat) voters can't easily elect a representative to congress who 
>> will oppose affirmative action but support abortion rights.  If I 
>> have those opinions, I'm probably going to end up voting for a 
>> candidate who will misrepresent me on one of them.  More parties 
>> would solve many such connundrums.
> 
> 
> I agree, but the point against such an arrangement is that it could 
> spur even greater gridlock within the legislative body.
> 
>>> In short, is it not possible to simply reform the two-party duopoly 
>>> rather than get rid of it entirely?
>>
>>
>> I really don't think so... as long as you have two parties, you 
>> essentially force the voters to tie their decisions on every issue 
>> together and cast one vote, even if they disagree with 49% of those 
>> decisions.
> 
> 
> However, in a representative democracy, this is kind of the point. 
> Part of my input has already been accounted for in earlier elections -

> primaries and the like.  And so, my representative in DC isn't really 
> expected to represent *me*, he's expected to represent the consensus 
> of which I am a part.  I expect to not fit that mold exactly.
> 
> Whereas in a legislative body of hundreds of representatives, one of 
> whom might represent me exactly, they'd all be very different from 
> each other, and I wouldn't expect any of the body's results to be 
> everything that my representative wants.
> 
> So I don't see how it's clearly better.  I see Condorcet as inarguably
> better
> than Plurality and IRV, but I don't see multi-party representation as 
> inarguably
> better than a two-party "duopoly".
> 
Something immediately above puzzles - most of this thread is about 
President and EC, which does not care much about how many parties.
     Electing House and Senate is where duopoly gets active, and where 
ranked ballots could do some good.

> - Curt

-- 
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  Dave Ketchum   108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY  13827-1708   607-687-5026
            Do to no one what you would not want done to you.
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