I recently watched Lawrence Lessig on TYT interviews and apparently now he wants to allocate state delegates for the electoral college proportionally. I think this is a really bad idea because of all the cumulative rounding errors. This is particularly bad for the even delegate states which will largely be split even.
Let's say a 20 delegate state goes 52% for candidate A and 48% for candidate B. That state is going to give 10 delegates to each candidate. If a 3 delegate state goes for candidate B by the same margin, then suddenly candidate B is in the lead 12 to 11.
This would be more reasonable if we used a point system instead of a delegate system and we split the points into decimals. That way candidate A would still be ahead 11.84 to 11.16 and it would be more accurate. If we were to do that though, we might as well change the entire voting system to something live approval or range voting.
I think a better way to do this is to advocate for a state compact with approval voting. Each candidate would get points equal to their approval percentage multiplied by the number of state delegate. For example, a candidate in Vermont with 60% approval would get 1.8 points [3 * 0.6]. Every state in the compact would have to appoint delegates that will vote for the candidate with the most points.
This might be an easier compact than the national popular vote compact because smaller red states will still have their disproportionate power, but it won't be winner take all and it won't be as much of a disadvantage that they'd be giving up.
Let's say a 20 delegate state goes 52% for candidate A and 48% for candidate B. That state is going to give 10 delegates to each candidate. If a 3 delegate state goes for candidate B by the same margin, then suddenly candidate B is in the lead 12 to 11.
This would be more reasonable if we used a point system instead of a delegate system and we split the points into decimals. That way candidate A would still be ahead 11.84 to 11.16 and it would be more accurate. If we were to do that though, we might as well change the entire voting system to something live approval or range voting.
I think a better way to do this is to advocate for a state compact with approval voting. Each candidate would get points equal to their approval percentage multiplied by the number of state delegate. For example, a candidate in Vermont with 60% approval would get 1.8 points [3 * 0.6]. Every state in the compact would have to appoint delegates that will vote for the candidate with the most points.
This might be an easier compact than the national popular vote compact because smaller red states will still have their disproportionate power, but it won't be winner take all and it won't be as much of a disadvantage that they'd be giving up.