My alternative to our current presidential election system(

I am not going to claim I invented the wheel or created fire, just an alternative proposal.

Lets begin with what stays the same: Every four years we have the primaries and the general election. The primaries are spread out between February and June, and each state gets to decide when they take place. The General Election happens in November and everybody votes at once.

Now lets move to the changes. To sum it up simply: In order to win the nomination or presidency outright, you need to win both the national popular vote AND the most presidential contests. If there's a split between the two, then you move into a tiebreaker round. The tiebreaker round depends on whether it's a primary or general election. For the primary, each district, including Washington D.C, gets to vote on who should be the next Republican/Democrat nominee. So for example, California has 53 districts, therefore the California Republican/Democrat party appoints electors to cast their ballots for the Republican/Democrat nomination. Their choices will only be TWO candidates. They either pick the candidate with the most popular votes or the most presidential contests won. For the general election, we do the same thing, only we look at which political party won each district. So if in Minnesota, the Republican nominee won 3 districts and the Democrat won 5, then the Minnesota GOP would appoint 3 electors, and the Minnesota Democratic party, would appoint 5 electors.

So why is this better? Here's my thinking:

(1) Each vote cast gets treated the same. It doesn't matter where you live. Every vote is a 1:1 ratio.
(2) Each state gets treated the same.
(3) It's simpler and more transparent. No superdelegates. No electors voting for anybody they want. Under a proportional system, we have to worry about decimal point controversies.
(4) Republicans in California and New York get their votes counted, so does Democrats in Tennessee and Alabama.
(5) Electors are only there for tiebreaker purposes, and only limited to the two most popular candidates.

Any questions?

BrotherFease said:

I am not going to claim I invented the wheel or created fire, just an alternative proposal.

Lets begin with what stays the same: Every four years we have the primaries and the general election. The primaries are spread out between February and June, and each state gets to decide when they take place. The General Election happens in November and everybody votes at once.

Now lets move to the changes. To sum it up simply: In order to win the nomination or presidency outright, you need to win both the national popular vote AND the most presidential contests. If there's a split between the two, then you move into a tiebreaker round. The tiebreaker round depends on whether it's a primary or general election. For the primary, each district, including Washington D.C, gets to vote on who should be the next Republican/Democrat nominee. So for example, California has 53 districts, therefore the California Republican/Democrat party appoints electors to cast their ballots for the Republican/Democrat nomination. Their choices will only be TWO candidates. They either pick the candidate with the most popular votes or the most presidential contests won. For the general election, we do the same thing, only we look at which political party won each district. So if in Minnesota, the Republican nominee won 3 districts and the Democrat won 5, then the Minnesota GOP would appoint 3 electors, and the Minnesota Democratic party, would appoint 5 electors.

So why is this better? Here's my thinking:

(1) Each vote cast gets treated the same. It doesn't matter where you live. Every vote is a 1:1 ratio.
(2) Each state gets treated the same.
(3) It's simpler and more transparent. No superdelegates. No electors voting for anybody they want. Under a proportional system, we have to worry about decimal point controversies.
(4) Republicans in California and New York get their votes counted, so does Democrats in Tennessee and Alabama.
(5) Electors are only there for tiebreaker purposes, and only limited to the two most popular candidates.

Any questions?

Click to expand...

Hmmmm, let me think. :think:

NO! I am content with the system specifically designed by the Founders to insure that the leader of our Federal government is selected by a method which represents the most States.

The populace is represented where it counts most...the House where popular votes elect the people who decide how much we get taxed, and how it is supposed to be spent.

Captain Adverse said:

Hmmmm, let me think. :think:

NO! I am content with the system specifically designed by the Founders to insure that the leader of our Federal government is selected by a method which represents the most States.

The populace is represented where it counts most...the House where popular votes elect the people who decide how much we get taxed, and how it is supposed to be spent.

Click to expand...

Not sure what your criticism is. My system requires you both the popular vote and the most states. The system benefits both the small states AND large states. It's much more simpler.

BrotherFease said:

Not sure what your criticism is. My system requires you both the popular vote and the most states. The system benefits both the small states AND large states. It's much more simpler.

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The criticism is first, that primaries are political party contests. That means the party membership is selecting their overall candidate...not the person everyone, including NON-party members might want to vote for.

Second, the Electors are supposed to represent the overall vote in each State, and have nothing to do with Party, but rather with the choice by the most people in that particular State between any and all qualified candidates.

Now a State can chose winner take all, or as in two States, proportional apportionment. But it remains a popular choice having nothing to do with who won the most primaries aside from their current purpose of selecting that Party's candidate.

Captain Adverse said:

The criticism is first, that primaries are political party contests. That means the party membership is selecting their overall candidate...not the person everyone, including NON-party members might want to vote for.

Second, the Electors are supposed to represent the overall vote in each State, and have nothing to do with Party, but rather with the choice by the most people in that particular State between any and all qualified candidates.

Now a State can chose winner take all, or as in two States, proportional apportionment. But it remains a popular choice having nothing to do with who won the most primaries aside from their current purpose of selecting that Party's candidate.

Click to expand...

Explaining how the current system operates does not address your problem with my alternative.

BrotherFease said:

I am not going to claim I invented the wheel or created fire, just an alternative proposal.

Lets begin with what stays the same: Every four years we have the primaries and the general election. The primaries are spread out between February and June, and each state gets to decide when they take place. The General Election happens in November and everybody votes at once.

Now lets move to the changes. To sum it up simply: In order to win the nomination or presidency outright, you need to win both the national popular vote AND the most presidential contests. If there's a split between the two, then you move into a tiebreaker round. The tiebreaker round depends on whether it's a primary or general election. For the primary, each district, including Washington D.C, gets to vote on who should be the next Republican/Democrat nominee. So for example, California has 53 districts, therefore the California Republican/Democrat party appoints electors to cast their ballots for the Republican/Democrat nomination. Their choices will only be TWO candidates. They either pick the candidate with the most popular votes or the most presidential contests won. For the general election, we do the same thing, only we look at which political party won each district. So if in Minnesota, the Republican nominee won 3 districts and the Democrat won 5, then the Minnesota GOP would appoint 3 electors, and the Minnesota Democratic party, would appoint 5 electors.

So why is this better? Here's my thinking:

(1) Each vote cast gets treated the same. It doesn't matter where you live. Every vote is a 1:1 ratio.
(2) Each state gets treated the same.
(3) It's simpler and more transparent. No superdelegates. No electors voting for anybody they want. Under a proportional system, we have to worry about decimal point controversies.
(4) Republicans in California and New York get their votes counted, so does Democrats in Tennessee and Alabama.
(5) Electors are only there for tiebreaker purposes, and only limited to the two most popular candidates.

Any questions?

Click to expand...

If I were going to cha ge things, I would prefer a system where we select our top 5 choices and add the weighted voting.

So a candidate that was nobodies favorite, but everyone’s second choice might win.

Simpletruther said:

If I were going to cha ge things, I would prefer a system where we select our top 5 choices and add the weighted voting.

So a candidate that was nobodies favorite, but everyone’s second choice might win.

Click to expand...

National Popular Vote, done through a preferential ballot system?

So if I'm understanding this correctly, then a candidate in the general election would have to win both a plurality of states and a plurality of the national vote. If they don't then it basically goes to looking at how each district voted and appointing electors accordingly to each party. So under this scenario, Trump would have been elected because he won 30 states but lost the popular vote and thus it would have gone to a tiebreaker and in the tiebreaker Trump won 230 districts compared to Clinton's 205 so Trump would still have been elected. This would also have elected Romney if Obama had won 1 fewer state than he did in 2012 (say for example Florida) because it would have been a 25-25 split for states even though Obama would still carry both the EC and popular vote by comfortable margins. This also seems like it could severely impact the any party if the party has a voting base that makes it either very difficult to win a majority of state contests or win a plurality of the popular vote. And having it look at individual districts could cause elections to be determined by gerrymandered districts that favor one party over another even if a majority of the state or the majority of the country voted for the other party. Proportional vote allocation seems more closely to what you were getting at to make elections more fair.

I think I'm most confused by the primary structure and how the candidate who has won the most presidential contests plays into the primary. It sounds like the electors could only vote for whichever candidate has either won the most popular votes or contests in other states thus far in the primary. This sounds like it would cause issues with preventing any third candidate from winning a primary in either party and it would prevent any candidate, such as say Joe Biden using the 2020 primary as evidence, from being able to win a primary if two other candidates have already accrued more votes and won more states. I'm also confused as to how the first state(s) in the primary plays into this as the only candidates eligible to vote for would have to be determined either by polls or you would have the first state(s) be massive king-makers in the primary by very rapidly determining which two candidates the rest of the states will be able to vote for.

Also would there be any sort of early voting for elections because you said that everyone would vote all at once which leads me to believe that you could only vote in person on Election Day.

Also correct me if I misinterpreted your proposed system.

BrotherFease said:

Explaining how the current system operates does not address your problem with my alternative.

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I told you very clearly in my very first post why I disagreed with your non-new, but already posited one person one vote national popular vote initiative.

The only thing you changed was the vague "one who won the most contests." I may have mistakenly thought that meant "primary" contests, but perhaps you meant "most votes in each State?" Or even perhaps "most votes in each District?"

That already exists in either "Winner take all" for most States, or "Proportional" in those two States who give electors based on congressional districts won and the 2 "senate" electors to the overall popular vote winner. In that case States already have that option, but only two have chosen it.

However, your 1 person 1 vote is the national popular vote initiative, basically, whoever gets the most popular votes wins ALL State's electors.

That would mean the same problems already raised, i.e., candidates would focus all their attention and all their promises on those States with the largest populations, leaving the majority of States on the sidelines.

Captain Adverse said:

That would mean the same problems already raised, i.e., candidates would focus all their attention and all their promises on those States with the largest populations, leaving the majority of States on the sidelines.

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I still don't really understand this view. Candidates wouldn't necessarily be focused on campaigning in the largest population centers or states, they'd be campaigning to win the most voters, and voters come from everywhere. If a candidate could get more voters from low population states to vote in favor of them, then those votes would still count and could negate any votes that the other candidate is trying to win from a few high population areas. If anything in this scenario, it would become a battle of getting turnout from all segments of society, with democrats trying to squeeze as many votes out of urban cores and republicans trying to maximize margins in rural areas and the suburban areas in between would be a political battleground. In other words, it's effectively the exact same setup as today just it's no longer limited to X swing states that determine the outcome of the election for the entire country. And our current electoral setup basically disregards 2/3 of all states with only 16 being within 10% in 2016 - which is only about 32% of states. Our current setup already has the problems you listed, I don't see how trying to fix it would be a bad thing.

CBuckets said:

I still don't really understand this view. Candidates wouldn't necessarily be focused on campaigning in the largest population centers or states, they'd be campaigning to win the most voters, and voters come from everywhere. If a candidate could get more voters from low population states to vote in favor of them, then those votes would still count and could negate any votes that the other candidate is trying to win from a few high population areas. If anything in this scenario, it would become a battle of getting turnout from all segments of society, with democrats trying to squeeze as many votes out of urban cores and republicans trying to maximize margins in rural areas and the suburban areas in between would be a political battleground. In other words, it's effectively the exact same setup as today just it's no longer limited to X swing states that determine the outcome of the election for the entire country. And our current electoral setup basically disregards 2/3 of all states with only 16 being within 10% in 2016 - which is only about 32% of states. Our current setup already has the problems you listed, I don't see how trying to fix it would be a bad thing.

Click to expand...

Really?

Simply look at the 2016 Election. Hillary Clinton won the most popular votes, but still lost the election.

That's because she picked up three of the big States, NY, CA, and IL, three middle states NJ, VA, and MASS, and 14 small. Her popular vote total was something like 2 million more than Trump.

He won because he won 30 States to her 20. Three big, TX, FL, PA, 10 Middle, and 17 Small. Just as the Electoral College was designed to do.

CBuckets said:

So if I'm understanding this correctly, then a candidate in the general election would have to win both a plurality of states and a plurality of the national vote. If they don't then it basically goes to looking at how each district voted and appointing electors accordingly to each party. So under this scenario, Trump would have been elected because he won 30 states but lost the popular vote and thus it would have gone to a tiebreaker and in the tiebreaker Trump won 230 districts compared to Clinton's 205 so Trump would still have been elected.

Click to expand...

In 2016, Clinton won the national popular vote, Trump won the most states. Under the tiebreaker scenario, we would have 230 Republican electors to 206 (counting D.C) Democratic electors. The electors would have two options Clinton or Trump, and whoever got the most votes would be the next President. Most likely the electors would lean toward Donald Trump.

This would also have elected Romney if Obama had won 1 fewer state than he did in 2012 (say for example Florida) because it would have been a 25-25 split for states even though Obama would still carry both the EC and popular vote by comfortable margins. This also seems like it could severely impact the any party if the party has a voting base that makes it either very difficult to win a majority of state contests or win a plurality of the popular vote. And having it look at individual districts could cause elections to be determined by gerrymandered districts that favor one party over another even if a majority of the state or the majority of the country voted for the other party. Proportional vote allocation seems more closely to what you were getting at to make elections more fair.

Click to expand...

No. Barack Obama won 27 out of the 51 contests and the popular vote. Lets just say for example, Gary Johnson won New Mexico and Romney won Colorado. If we had that scenario, which has happened before, then Obama and Romney won the most contests (25 to 25) and Obama won the popular vote, then Obama would have won the election, because he won the most states and the popular vote. Now if Romney won New Mexico, Colorado and Iowa, making it 27-24 in favor of Romney, then Romney would have won the election, if the electors went with party lines.

I think I'm most confused by the primary structure and how the candidate who has won the most presidential contests plays into the primary. It sounds like the electors could only vote for whichever candidate has either won the most popular votes or contests in other states thus far in the primary.

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The tiebreaker would only kick in, after all the states voted and there was a split between the two candidates. I have looked at the past primaries and I can only find the 1984 Democrat primary where Mondale won the popular vote AND Hart won the most contests.

Also would there be any sort of early voting for elections because you said that everyone would vote all at once which leads me to believe that you could only vote in person on Election Day.

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Early voting is fine. It's just that for the general, the election happens on the same day.

Captain Adverse said:

Really?

Simply look at the 2016 Election. Hillary Clinton won the most popular votes, but still lost the election.

That's because she picked up three of the big States, NY, CA, and IL, three middle states NJ, VA, and MASS, and 14 small. Her popular vote total was something like 2 million more than Trump.

He won because he won 30 States to her 20. Three big, TX, FL, PA, 10 Middle, and 17 Small. Just as the Electoral College was designed to do.

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Flip Texas and Clinton wins 270-268 (assuming no faithless electors). The electoral college has really only worked as a matter of geographic and political circumstance and nothing else.

CBuckets said:

I still don't really understand this view. Candidates wouldn't necessarily be focused on campaigning in the largest population centers or states, they'd be campaigning to win the most voters, and voters come from everywhere.

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Which is why I think winning the popular vote is important too.

I hope I answered your questions.

Captain Adverse said:

I told you very clearly in my very first post why I disagreed with your non-new, but already posited one person one vote national popular vote initiative.

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My idea is not the NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE INITIATIVE.

The only thing you changed was the vague "one who won the most contests." I may have mistakenly thought that meant "primary" contests, but perhaps you meant "most votes in each State?" Or even perhaps "most votes in each District?"

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In the Democrat Primary there are 57 presidential contests -- 50 states, DC, Democrats Abroad, and 5 territories. In the general election, there are 51 contests for the 50 states and Washington DC. What I am saying here is, we do not move toward electors picking a President, UNLESS there's a split between who won the most popular votes and who won the most contests.

However, your 1 person 1 vote is the national popular vote initiative, basically, whoever gets the most popular votes wins ALL State's electors.

That would mean the same problems already raised, i.e., candidates would focus all their attention and all their promises on those States with the largest populations, leaving the majority of States on the sidelines.

Click to expand...

This is why my system is structured the way it is. Each state is worth the same value. Candidates would be focused on winning the most votes and would put more states in play. You seem to have misunderstood my entire plan.

CBuckets said:

Flip Texas and Clinton wins 270-268 (assuming no faithless electors). The electoral college has really only worked as a matter of geographic and political circumstance and nothing else.

Click to expand...

Actually you'd only have to campaign in 14 States to reach 270, with the bulk being the top 6: 55 CA; 38 TX; 29 NY; 29 FL; 20 IL; 20 PA = 162; followed by the Middle six: 18 OH, 16 GA, 16 MI, 15 NC; 14 NJ; 13 VA = 92

To provide a more clarifying positions, I'll use some elections as examples. Keep in mind, most system focuses on both winning the most contests AND winning the popular vote. As in, this would encourage campaigning in the safe states.

2016 election: Trump won the most contests with 30, Clinton won the popular vote. Therefore, the electors would choose between Trump or Clinton. Most likely Trump would have won, because he won the most districts.

2012 election: Obama won the popular vote and 27/51 contests. No need for a tiebreaker.

2008 election: Obama won the popular vote and 29/51 contests. No need for a tiebreaker.

2004 election: Bush won 31 states/contests and the national popular vote. No need for a tiebreaker.

2000 election: Bush won 30 states/contests and Gore won the national popular vote. The electors would kick in and decide between Bush or Gore.

There could be a scenario out there where one person wins the popular vote AND two people win the most contests. Under my scenario, the candidate that won the popular voted and tied for the most contests won, would win outright.

BrotherFease said:

No. Barack Obama won 27 out of the 51 contests and the popular vote. Lets just say for example, Gary Johnson won New Mexico and Romney won Colorado. If we had that scenario, which has happened before, then Obama and Romney won the most contests (25 to 25) and Obama won the popular vote, then Obama would have won the election, because he won the most states and the popular vote. Now if Romney won New Mexico, Colorado and Iowa, making it 27-24 in favor of Romney, then Romney would have won the election, if the electors went with party lines.

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Oof I forgot about D.C. But I still think this would favor whichever party has an advantage in how congressional districts were drawn so long as that party's candidate can win at least 26 of the 51 contests because that's all that would be needed to negate any loss in the popular vote because it would send the election to individual districts. I think it would be best if a tie-breaker didn't rely on individual districts because district lines can be drawn to include certain voters that may tip the scale in favor of one party over the other. I can't think of anything that would work well to remedy this but something outside of drawn districts I feel would be better. I know Georgia does run-off elections if a candidate doesn't win more than 50% of the vote which could be a possibility for a presidential election though it would be quite expensive.

BrotherFease said:

The tiebreaker would only kick in, after all the states voted and there was a split between the two candidates. I have looked at the past primaries and I can only find the 1984 Democrat primary where Mondale won the popular vote AND Hart won the most contests.

Click to expand...

Ok now I understand what you meant. Um I guess this would work but it still bothers me that primaries would have to be between just two candidates.

BrotherFease said:

Early voting is fine. It's just that for the general, the election happens on the same day.

Click to expand...

Ok cool just wanted to get that cleared up.

BrotherFease said:

I am not going to claim I invented the wheel or created fire, just an alternative proposal.

Lets begin with what stays the same: Every four years we have the primaries and the general election. The primaries are spread out between February and June, and each state gets to decide when they take place. The General Election happens in November and everybody votes at once.

Now lets move to the changes. To sum it up simply: In order to win the nomination or presidency outright, you need to win both the national popular vote AND the most presidential contests. If there's a split between the two, then you move into a tiebreaker round. The tiebreaker round depends on whether it's a primary or general election. For the primary, each district, including Washington D.C, gets to vote on who should be the next Republican/Democrat nominee. So for example, California has 53 districts, therefore the California Republican/Democrat party appoints electors to cast their ballots for the Republican/Democrat nomination. Their choices will only be TWO candidates. They either pick the candidate with the most popular votes or the most presidential contests won. For the general election, we do the same thing, only we look at which political party won each district. So if in Minnesota, the Republican nominee won 3 districts and the Democrat won 5, then the Minnesota GOP would appoint 3 electors, and the Minnesota Democratic party, would appoint 5 electors.

So why is this better? Here's my thinking:

(1) Each vote cast gets treated the same. It doesn't matter where you live. Every vote is a 1:1 ratio.
(2) Each state gets treated the same.
(3) It's simpler and more transparent. No superdelegates. No electors voting for anybody they want. Under a proportional system, we have to worry about decimal point controversies.
(4) Republicans in California and New York get their votes counted, so does Democrats in Tennessee and Alabama.
(5) Electors are only there for tiebreaker purposes, and only limited to the two most popular candidates.

Any questions?

Click to expand...

I have a better idea, far simpler, too. The President is the only candidate for political office in the U.S. who is not chosen by the American people. Eliminate the Electoral College and allow Americans to choose their President.

The E.C. is holdover from an era during which we had yet to lick the Indian problem, and Americans worked their farms, too busy to go to school. It is past time for it to be eliminated.

Naysayers will say that will require a Constitutional amendment. I never said it was going to be easy.

CBuckets said:

I think it would be best if a tie-breaker didn't rely on individual districts because district lines can be drawn to include certain voters that may tip the scale in favor of one party over the other. I can't think of anything that would work well to remedy this but something outside of drawn districts I feel would be better.

Click to expand...

Fair point. Gerrymandering is a problem. Florida had to re-due its district map.

Here my big point of emphasis, I feel our electoral college system makes safe states irrelevant. If we really want politicians to campaign in Wyoming, Idaho, Vermont, Maryland and Rhode Island, they need to have the same value. Saying you have to win both, opens up the doors and puts more states in play. Besides districts making the final call, would be to throw the presidency back to the congress. If it was the primaries, you would throw it back to the congress of a specific party. If Biden and Sanders split the popular and most contests won, then the Democrats in the house would choose between the two. I also detest the concept that an elector can vote for whoever he or she wants. I feel like they need to go in the direction of the popular.

My only other option would be to move toward proportionality. You have 538 electoral college votes. Each state has at least 3 electors. The electors are divided by based on the percentage of the vote. If there are any "leftover electors", they would go toward the winner of the popular vote. On the first ballot, the elector would have to go with their assigned candidate. On the second ballot, they could choose any candidate they wanted or any candidate which had any round one votes. If you want to help out the little guy, maybe that would be your direction.

Captain Adverse said:

Actually you'd only have to campaign in 14 States to reach 270, with the bulk being the top 6: 55 CA; 38 TX; 29 NY; 29 FL; 20 IL; 20 PA = 162; followed by the Middle six: 18 OH, 16 GA, 16 MI, 15 NC; 14 NJ; 13 VA = 92

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Yes I'm aware, and I'm saying that the electoral college has only worked to "protect" small and medium population states because of political and geographical circumstance. As you point out, the electoral college still can allow a candidate to win if that candidate can win all of the above 11 states minus Virginia which gives 270 EV's. It does give more weight to small population states and it's been mathematically proven before that winning a bare majority in every state not listed plus Virginia and NJ (282 EV's worth) and no votes in any other state would only require 23% of the vote to win while winning 50% in the largest 11 states (270 EV's) would require 27% of the vote. That being said, it's still only been a matter of geopolitical maneuvering by candidates, political parties, and voters that the Electoral College has managed to keep any small population states relevant in the discussion regarding significance. And even then the EC still dictates that republicans that live in Southern Illinois have basically no say on how the state votes in presidential elections because their votes are entirely negated by Chicago. Vice-versa for democrats in places like Kansas City or Louisville Ky.

Captain Adverse said:

Hmmmm, let me think. :think:

NO! I am content with the system specifically designed by the Founders to insure that the leader of our Federal government is selected by a method which represents the most States.

The populace is represented where it counts most...the House where popular votes elect the people who decide how much we get taxed, and how it is supposed to be spent.

Click to expand...

You didn't "think" enough. "The system designed by the Founders", according to Hamilton in Federalist 68 in support of the electoral college, was to insure that a charismatic popular con-man that was unprepared and unqualified didn't charm "the populace" and get elected. ALL "States" are represented, you can't get more "most" than that.

What does lack proper representation is the individual AmeriCANs VOTE, which in the Electoral System is often diluted and/or completely ignored.

BrotherFease said:

Fair point. Gerrymandering is a problem. Florida had to re-due its district map.

Here my big point of emphasis, I feel our electoral college system makes safe states irrelevant. If we really want politicians to campaign in Wyoming, Idaho, Vermont, Maryland and Rhode Island, they need to have the same value. Saying you have to win both, opens up the doors and puts more states in play. Besides districts making the final call, would be to throw the presidency back to the congress. If it was the primaries, you would throw it back to the congress of a specific party. If Biden and Sanders split the popular and most contests won, then the Democrats in the house would choose between the two. I also detest the concept that an elector can vote for whoever he or she wants. I feel like they need to go in the direction of the popular.

My only other option would be to move toward proportionality. You have 538 electoral college votes. Each state has at least 3 electors. The electors are divided by based on the percentage of the vote. If there are any "leftover electors", they would go toward the winner of the popular vote. On the first ballot, the elector would have to go with their assigned candidate. On the second ballot, they could choose any candidate they wanted or any candidate which had any round one votes. If you want to help out the little guy, maybe that would be your direction.

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I totally agree that the EC makes safe states irrelevant. Democrats don't campaign in Oklahoma and Republicans don't campaign in Massachusetts for a reason - they aren't going to win them so why bother wasting resources trying. That being said, I feel that throwing the election to Congress is better than proportionality (which in theory would follow very closely to the popular vote so that's a serious issue) but I don't feel the most comfortable handing that power to them and I would personally prefer some other third option (my mind keeps wanting to go to ranked-choice voting but if there's only two candidates that's useless). I don't know honestly.

Captain Adverse said:

Hmmmm, let me think. :think:

NO! I am content with the system specifically designed by the Founders to insure that the leader of our Federal government is selected by a method which represents the most States.

The populace is represented where it counts most...the House where popular votes elect the people who decide how much we get taxed, and how it is supposed to be spent.

Click to expand...

But, it's not. The EC is not operating per original design. It's now just a rubber stamp.

Had it been operating according to the original design, Trump never would have been nominated. The EC was designed specifically to prevent someone like Trump from becoming president and hijacking the nation.

CBuckets said:

I totally agree that the EC makes safe states irrelevant. Democrats don't campaign in Oklahoma and Republicans don't campaign in Massachusetts for a reason - they aren't going to win them so why bother wasting resources trying. That being said, I feel that throwing the election to Congress is better than proportionality (which in theory would follow very closely to the popular vote so that's a serious issue) but I don't feel the most comfortable handing that power to them and I would personally prefer some other third option (my mind keeps wanting to go to ranked-choice voting but if there's only two candidates that's useless). I don't know honestly.

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I see the electoral college as it is currently format, with the winner-take-all format, as benefiting the political candidates themselves, not to the people. I live in NY and registered as a Republican. It doesn't matter who I vote for, we all know it's going to go toward whoever the Democrat is. What does do instead is reduce the election to about 25 states at most. This basically means that Trump and Biden will only have to campaign in Arizona, Nevada, Texas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, NH, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and call it a day. You open up the doors proportionally or what I am proposing, you make a more of a national campaign. This means that presidential candidates will visit my neck of the woods -- upstate NY -- and care about my region, which Cuomo couldn't care less about.

Propagandist will tell us that we have the EC in order to make Wyoming a relevant state, but in reality, nobody visits there. The EC doesn't benefit Nebraska or the poorest states like Arkansas, Mississippi, or Alabama. It benefits Florida and Ohio. The only reason why we have the EC in the first place in order to give tiny states like Delaware some sort of reassurance they have some relevance.

I just get frustrated that my vote in NY means nothing.