Former President Donald Trump and Republican Gov. Jim Pillen have called on lawmakers to change the state’s Electoral College vote allocation to a winner-take-all system.
I have mixed feelings on the electoral college, but imo “winner-takes-all” voting should be unconstitutional. That particular implementation of the electoral college carries the potential to nullify 49% of the votes in our current two-party system, and it gets even worse when you have more than 2 parties. If there were 3 major parties, “winner-takes-all” has the potential to nullify 66% of the vote if it’s split 33%-33%-34%, and becomes more egregious as the number of major parties increases.
My ideal election laws would have an electoral college type setup, but based on congressional district rather than by state. Now, here are the changes that make it workable.
First, the number of congressional districts needs to increase. Massively. There needs to be a fixed ratio of Representatives to state population. At least 1 rep per X people. Then that number needs to be set in stone.
Congress got into a pissing match 100 years ago over how to do apportionment, so now we’re stuck with 435 Representatives when the population of the US has more than tripled and two new states have been added.
The next thing that needs to be set in stone is a way to draw districts. Shortest split-line is the method of choice here. Now, it can favor conservatives and rural areas a bit, but only if your number of districts is too low. With enough districts, the output starts to look a lot like actual population maps. If you squint.
I’d ditch the Senate. Or roll it into the House. Maybe say that each state gets an equal number of representatives who serve more than 2 years. So that there’s a group of people who have institutional knowledge when the next congress forms.
This would be important for the next change I’d make. Term limits, or rather, consecutive term limits. You’d be able to serve two terms, but then to serve a third you’d have to take one full term off, actually living in your district. You must spend 25 of every 30 days living in the district for at least 2 years to qualify to represent that district.
The final, and most impactful, change would be the voting system itself. We desperately need to ditch FPtP, and Ordinal voting systems in general. Cardinal voting systems are the only way to have viable third parties, with actual, separate identities.
My current favorite system is STAR. It’s the absolute best single winner election system out there. There may be better systems in the future, but for now, this is it.
So let’s talk practicality of these fixes.
Increasing the size of Congress is a single law. That’s it. If you want to push things a bit further, there’s James Madison’s Congressional Apportionment Amendment, which despite being introduced in the late 1700s, is still a viable amendment, and could theoretically finish the ratification process.
Fun fact, the 27th amendment, which was ratified within my lifetime, was introduced along with the congressional apportionment amendment.
Drawing districts is a State level thing, but Congress does have the power to set requirements on federal elections. They could require that federal districts be drawn via a certain way.
But still, an amendment is likely the only way that it would be implemented.
Term limits flat out need an amendment, same with ditching the senate.
And the final note, the voting system needs to either be done state by state, or via the ability to control federal elections. Possibly needs an amendment to actually apply to everyone,
The solution to this is, obviously, ranked choice voting, and ditch the EC.
Citizens can cast multiple votes across parties, votes don’t get nullified, and it actually gives a chance to more than 2 parties while still accurately representing the popular vote.
The problem is, unfortunately, educating the entire electorate on how the hell it actually works and works for them. The first time that I participated in it, we ended up with mayor Eric Adams, because people didn’t know that they could choose more than one option at a time During the primaries. We could have had Mayor Kathryn Garcia instead if anyone had bothered to explain how ranked choice voting worked.
Which completely deprives them of representation. Even if they only got 10%, that 10% of people will have no voice.
It needs to be more like Nebraskas current method but in every state, along with ranked choice voting. Winner takes all, let alone FPTP and the EC as a whole, are horribly stupid.
It doesn’t matter how you change the voting system. Only one person can be president. And once a president is chosen, by whatever means, anyone who wanted someone else “has no voice” by your definition.
While we’re changing things that should be one of the things we change as well. There should not be a unitary executive with ability to override the will of the people. There should be a council or something similar where a group of views are represented and a decision come to. Making things more democratic is always a worthy goal.
The president almost always gets a majority of the popular vote.
Of course I think the president should always, not almost always, get a majority. But that just requires switching to a national popular vote, not one of the various other schemes under discussion.
I have mixed feelings on the electoral college, but imo “winner-takes-all” voting should be unconstitutional. That particular implementation of the electoral college carries the potential to nullify 49% of the votes in our current two-party system, and it gets even worse when you have more than 2 parties. If there were 3 major parties, “winner-takes-all” has the potential to nullify 66% of the vote if it’s split 33%-33%-34%, and becomes more egregious as the number of major parties increases.
Gerrymandering would make the president like the House. 55% of voters select Democrats but then 52% of selected representatives are Republicans 🤔
Absolutely. Its taking an already flawed undemocratic system and making it even worse.
My ideal election laws would have an electoral college type setup, but based on congressional district rather than by state. Now, here are the changes that make it workable.
First, the number of congressional districts needs to increase. Massively. There needs to be a fixed ratio of Representatives to state population. At least 1 rep per X people. Then that number needs to be set in stone.
Congress got into a pissing match 100 years ago over how to do apportionment, so now we’re stuck with 435 Representatives when the population of the US has more than tripled and two new states have been added.
The next thing that needs to be set in stone is a way to draw districts. Shortest split-line is the method of choice here. Now, it can favor conservatives and rural areas a bit, but only if your number of districts is too low. With enough districts, the output starts to look a lot like actual population maps. If you squint.
I’d ditch the Senate. Or roll it into the House. Maybe say that each state gets an equal number of representatives who serve more than 2 years. So that there’s a group of people who have institutional knowledge when the next congress forms.
This would be important for the next change I’d make. Term limits, or rather, consecutive term limits. You’d be able to serve two terms, but then to serve a third you’d have to take one full term off, actually living in your district. You must spend 25 of every 30 days living in the district for at least 2 years to qualify to represent that district.
The final, and most impactful, change would be the voting system itself. We desperately need to ditch FPtP, and Ordinal voting systems in general. Cardinal voting systems are the only way to have viable third parties, with actual, separate identities.
My current favorite system is STAR. It’s the absolute best single winner election system out there. There may be better systems in the future, but for now, this is it.
So let’s talk practicality of these fixes.
Increasing the size of Congress is a single law. That’s it. If you want to push things a bit further, there’s James Madison’s Congressional Apportionment Amendment, which despite being introduced in the late 1700s, is still a viable amendment, and could theoretically finish the ratification process.
Fun fact, the 27th amendment, which was ratified within my lifetime, was introduced along with the congressional apportionment amendment.
Drawing districts is a State level thing, but Congress does have the power to set requirements on federal elections. They could require that federal districts be drawn via a certain way.
But still, an amendment is likely the only way that it would be implemented.
Term limits flat out need an amendment, same with ditching the senate.
And the final note, the voting system needs to either be done state by state, or via the ability to control federal elections. Possibly needs an amendment to actually apply to everyone,
Why do all this stuff and chunk at the district level rather than just using the popular vote?
The solution to this is, obviously, ranked choice voting, and ditch the EC.
Citizens can cast multiple votes across parties, votes don’t get nullified, and it actually gives a chance to more than 2 parties while still accurately representing the popular vote.
The problem is, unfortunately, educating the entire electorate on how the hell it actually works and works for them. The first time that I participated in it, we ended up with mayor Eric Adams, because people didn’t know that they could choose more than one option at a time During the primaries. We could have had Mayor Kathryn Garcia instead if anyone had bothered to explain how ranked choice voting worked.
A losing vote is not “nullified”. It is simply a losing vote.
Regardless of the voting system, when voting for President there are going to be people who vote for a losing candidate.
Which completely deprives them of representation. Even if they only got 10%, that 10% of people will have no voice.
It needs to be more like Nebraskas current method but in every state, along with ranked choice voting. Winner takes all, let alone FPTP and the EC as a whole, are horribly stupid.
It doesn’t matter how you change the voting system. Only one person can be president. And once a president is chosen, by whatever means, anyone who wanted someone else “has no voice” by your definition.
While we’re changing things that should be one of the things we change as well. There should not be a unitary executive with ability to override the will of the people. There should be a council or something similar where a group of views are represented and a decision come to. Making things more democratic is always a worthy goal.
We have that too, it’s called Congress
@FlowVoid @Soulg true, but then it won’t be the *majority* of people who didn’t “have a voice” which is a stark improvement over the current situation
The president almost always gets a majority of the popular vote.
Of course I think the president should always, not almost always, get a majority. But that just requires switching to a national popular vote, not one of the various other schemes under discussion.
Republicans won both 2000 and 2016 despite losing the popular vote.
Right, which is why I said almost always instead of always. Out of 57 contested elections, the popular vote winner won 52.