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.
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,
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?