[EM] Making a Bad Thing Worse

[Terry Bouricius]

Actually, Maine and Nebraska do NOT apportion electoral college seats in a 
proportional way.
Instead of statewide winner-take-all (as in all other states), they use 
plurality winner-take-all in each congressional district within the state, 
with the remaining two seats going to the statewide plurality winner. The 
results COULD be roughly proportional or even LESS proportional than 
statewide winner-take-all by happenstance of how supporters of various 
candidates are distributed around the state.

However, with true proportional distribution of electors, there is also 
the increased likelihood of no majority winner in the electoral college, 
which throws the election of president to the House of Representatives, 
with one vote for each state (my tiny state of Vermont delegation gets one 
vote and the massive state of California delegation gets one vote)...which 
is even LESS proportional than the electoral college makeup.

Terry Bouricius




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kathy Dopp" <kathy.dopp at gmail.com>
To: <election-methods at lists.electorama.com>
Sent: Friday, October 17, 2008 10:11 PM
Subject: Re: [EM] Making a Bad Thing Worse


Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2008 02:17:14 +0100
> From: "Raph Frank" <raphfrk at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [EM] Making a Bad Thing Worse
> The Electoral College should meet and then make its decision.
>
> This is compounded by the fact that all states have switched to winner
> takes all methods of selecting the electors, so it is double broken.
>

That is not quite true. There are two states, Maine and one other (I
forget which) that proportionally split their electoral votes.
Recently there was an effort by Republicans to have CA split its
electoral votes proportionally - but Dems fought it because it would
have virtually guaranteed that Republicans win the Presidential
contest.

Kathy
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