Revising the Electoral College

[lpetrich]

Gaming the Electoral College: Alternate Allocation Methods - "Don't like the results? Change the rules!"

Discussing several algorithms for translating each state's popular votes into Electoral-College allocations.

• WTA: popular-vote winner-take-all for all electors
• CDP: each Congressional district selects an elector, popular-vote WTA for the remaining two
• CDC: each Congressional district selects an elector, district-elector WTA for the remaining two
• PPV: proportional for all the electors corresponding to Reps, popular-vote WTA for the remaining two
• PVS: proportional for all the electors

Currently, all states but Maine and Nebraska use WTA, with those two states using CDP.

But what if the states used other algorithms? That site has calculations only for 2016 and 2012.

Algorithm	State	Each CD	Max CD	Pop Vote	Trump	Clinton	3rd	Romney	Obama	3rd
Actual					306	232		206	332
WTA	All				305	233		206	332
CDP	2	1			290	248		274	264
CDC		1	2		297	241		286	252
PPV	2			Prop.	276	257	5	255	282	1
PVS				Prop.	267	265	6	257	281

So if every state did in 2012 what ME and NE now do, Romney would have won in 2012.

With proportional allocation, Trump would have had a squeaker of a victory in 2016, because the lower-population states are upweighted.

 

[lpetrich]

Unintended Consequences

One reason these alternatives have not had more legislative success is a recognition that things can change. For example, in 2013, Pennsylvania Republican State Senator Dominic Pileggi introduced a bill that would change the state’s allocation to roughly reflect the popular vote. This proposal was clearly meant to benefit his party, which had just lost its 6th consecutive presidential election. Mitt Romney would have won 8 of the state’s 20 electoral votes under Pileggi’s plan. Fast forward to 2016, the first election the new rules would have been in place. Donald Trump broke the Democratic winning streak. This legislation would have cost him 9 electoral votes.

There is also the problem that campaigns are built around whatever allocation algorithms the states use. Different algorithms would provoke different strategies. Proportional by state would mean the end of swing states, for instance.

 

[jonatha]

CDP or CDC is aesthetically pleasing but would require a Constitutional amendment specifying an algorithm for districting. Otherwise you just introduce gerrymandering into Presidential elections.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Here's an idea. People directly elect electors who are running in a non-partisan race without party labels attached.

You have to know enough about politics to know "this elector will probably vote for X, this elector will probably vote for Y."

The electors, as part of their campaign, can state who they support, but you have to know their position in order to vote for the elector who supports the candidate you support.

 

[Elixir]

Here's an idea. People directly elect electors who are running in a non-partisan race without party labels attached.

You have to know enough about politics to know "this elector will probably vote for X, this elector will probably vote for Y."

The electors, as part of their campaign, can state who they support, but you have to know their position in order to vote for the elector who supports the candidate you support.

Do you use gerrymandered "districts" to decide who your elector choices are? Yeah, that sounds like it would work...

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Here's an idea. People directly elect electors who are running in a non-partisan race without party labels attached.

You have to know enough about politics to know "this elector will probably vote for X, this elector will probably vote for Y."

The electors, as part of their campaign, can state who they support, but you have to know their position in order to vote for the elector who supports the candidate you support.

Do you use gerrymandered "districts" to decide who your elector choices are?

That's what you do, not me. Now drop the stupid derail.

 

[Elixir]

Here's an idea. People directly elect electors who are running in a non-partisan race without party labels attached.

You have to know enough about politics to know "this elector will probably vote for X, this elector will probably vote for Y."

The electors, as part of their campaign, can state who they support, but you have to know their position in order to vote for the elector who supports the candidate you support.

Do you use gerrymandered "districts" to decide who your elector choices are?

That's what you do, not me. Now drop the stupid derail.

If you don't want to explain (or didn't bother to think through) your "idea", that's your choice.
It seems unavoidable that if you have to vote for an elector, you are assigned to a district. How are those districts to be drawn, then?
If popular vote was in effect, the entire country would be the "district". No gerrymandering possible.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

That's what you do, not me. Now drop the stupid derail.

If you don't want to explain (or didn't bother to think through) your "idea", that's your choice.
It seems unavoidable that if you have to vote for an elector, you are assigned to a district. How are those districts to be drawn, then?
If popular vote was in effect, the entire country would be the "district". No gerrymandering possible.

I had a suggestion - instead of voting for president, you vote for an elector based on his promise of who he will vote for, but his party affiliation isn't included on the ballot.

That is the beginning and end of my suggestion. It has nothing to do with your attempted derail. You might as well also ask lpetrich the exact same question, since he brought up the idea of alternative methods for allocating electors, but you didn't do that.

Comment on the idea or shut up and leave me alone. Take your derail and [censored].

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

If popular vote was in effect, the entire country would be the "district". No gerrymandering possible.

Republicans presently want no such thing because they would not have had many presidencies since Reagan. But that can change, the pendulum swings both ways.

I think any plan works so long as there is no gerrymandering of districts.

 

[lpetrich]

Here's an idea. People directly elect electors who are running in a non-partisan race without party labels attached.

The US Founders wanted a nonpartisan system, and some of them stated their dislike of political parties, but the politicians started dividing up into parties during George Washington's first term.

What will end up happening is that the parties will recommend slates of electors who are pledged to the parties' candidates, and we will be back to where we are at now.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Here's an idea. People directly elect electors who are running in a non-partisan race without party labels attached.

The US Founders wanted a nonpartisan system, and some of them stated their dislike of political parties, but the politicians started dividing up into parties during George Washington's first term.

What will end up happening is that the parties will recommend slates of electors who are pledged to the parties' candidates, and we will be back to where we are at now.

Admittedly, ANY system will get taken over by partisan politics. The virtue of my proposal is simply that, even though it is known who an elector plans to vote for, the voter has to know that in order to choose the right elector.

If the slate is:
Joe Blow
John Smith
Mike Green

That is very different from:
Joe Blow (Democrat)
John Smith (Republican)
Mike Green (Green)

It requires a certain level of voter knowledge to work.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Here's an idea. People directly elect electors who are running in a non-partisan race without party labels attached.

The US Founders wanted a nonpartisan system, and some of them stated their dislike of political parties, but the politicians started dividing up into parties during George Washington's first term.

What will end up happening is that the parties will recommend slates of electors who are pledged to the parties' candidates, and we will be back to where we are at now.

Admittedly, ANY system will get taken over by partisan politics. The virtue of my proposal is simply that, even though it is known who an elector plans to vote for, the voter has to know that in order to choose the right elector.

If the slate is:
Joe Blow
John Smith
Mike Green

That is very different from:
Joe Blow (Democrat)
John Smith (Republican)
Mike Green (Green)

It requires a certain level of voter knowledge to work.

Personally I would feel very disenfranchised, I would be voting for someone that I hope elects the candidate I prefer. Such a system would actually make political parties more powerful. It makes a lot more sense to pass legislation that disenfranchises political parties, not individual voters.

 

[Jayjay]

Here's an idea. People directly elect electors who are running in a non-partisan race without party labels attached.

The US Founders wanted a nonpartisan system, and some of them stated their dislike of political parties, but the politicians started dividing up into parties during George Washington's first term.

What will end up happening is that the parties will recommend slates of electors who are pledged to the parties' candidates, and we will be back to where we are at now.

Admittedly, ANY system will get taken over by partisan politics. The virtue of my proposal is simply that, even though it is known who an elector plans to vote for, the voter has to know that in order to choose the right elector.

If the slate is:
Joe Blow
John Smith
Mike Green

That is very different from:
Joe Blow (Democrat)
John Smith (Republican)
Mike Green (Green)

It requires a certain level of voter knowledge to work.

I don't see how an additional level of obfuscation would help. Sure, you need to know that if you want Joe Biden to be president, you have to vote for "Joe Blow", and if you want Trump to be president, you have to vote for "John Smith". And also, that Mike Green is a spoiler.

I think the result of making it harder to figure out who you are actually voting for is that people who don't have the time or who are not very smart will either not vote, or accidentally vote for candidates they didn't intend to.

 

[lpetrich]

CDP or CDC is aesthetically pleasing but would require a Constitutional amendment specifying an algorithm for districting. Otherwise you just introduce gerrymandering into Presidential elections.

I agree, and the algorithm would have to be one that avoids gerrymandering.

Electoral College Chaos: How Republicans Could Put a Lock on the Presidency - FairVote

As I explained last week, Pennsylvania Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi is planning to introduce a bill to replace the winner-take-all allocation of his state's Electoral College votes with a plan in which two electoral votes would go to the winner of the state and 18 votes would be allocated based on proportional representation - meaning a presidential candidate receiving 33% of the vote would win six of 18 electoral votes.

...
For the purposes of speculation, let's imagine the following six states colluding to change Electoral College allocation rules: Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. These states all have Republican governors and Republican-run state legislatures. And while they are among the 12 states that earned attention from the presidential campaigns this fall, all six states gave every one of their electoral votes to Barack Obama in the 2012 election.

Mentions yet another scheme: CDV, each Congressional district selects an elector, proportional by popular vote for the remaining two.

The article mentions calculations for all these schemes.

Algorithm	Romney	Obama
Actual	206	322
WTA	206	322
CDP	268	270
CDS	274	264
CDC	280	258
PPV	251	287
PVS	256	282

I'm not sure why the discrepancies in the CD methods from the OP - was it due to one of them using Congressional elections as proxies for the Presidential vote?

 

[lpetrich]

If the slate is:
Joe Blow
John Smith
Mike Green

That is very different from:
Joe Blow (Democrat)
John Smith (Republican)
Mike Green (Green)

All the political parties have to do is advertise that Joe Blow is a Democrat, John Smith is a Republican, and Mike Green is a Green.

 

[lpetrich]

GOP attack on democracy exposes deeper flaws | Opinions | Al Jazeera

One such desperado is Virginia State Senator Charles W Carrico, Sr had voted Republican in every election since 1964, until Barack Obama carried the state in 2008, and won it again in his re-election campaign last year. The fact that Democrats were winning Presidential races in Virginia again, after a four-decade hiatus, must have seemed to Carrico as if it violated some fundamental God-given principle. And so he responded in December by introducing a bill to apportion Virginia’s electoral votes by congressional district, with the final two votes going to the winner of the most congressional districts.

In effect, CDC.

Under this scheme, Virginia’s already gerrymandered Congressional districts would pay an extra round of dividends. Mitt Romney’s 47 percent of the popular vote in Virginia would have yielded him 70 percent of Virginia’s electoral college votes, 9 out of 13, while Obama’s 51 percent of the popular vote would have yielded him just 30 percent of Virginia’s electoral votes. Thus, every Virginia Republican’s vote would have counted for more than two Democrats.

“The last election, [my] constituents were concerned that it didn’t matter what they did, that more densely populated areas were going to outvote them,” Carrico told the Washington Post, arguing that he wanted to give smaller communities a bigger voice. If anyone was going to get outvoted, it should be Democrats, obviously. That’s the way it always had been – at least since 1964.

...
Even beyond Carrico’s selective and hypocritical concern for “minority rights”, there’s a deeper point that needs exploring. Twenty years ago, a major Clinton appointee was denied even getting a hearing because she had argued this exact same point – except that she did it primarily on behalf of disenfranchised black voters, whose lack of political voice was an undeniable historical reality.

Lani Guinier had been a top civil rights lawyer, specialising in voting rights cases before turning to academia. She took that opportunity to reflect long and hard on the struggles she had been part of and their relationship to broader historical currents in democratic theory. She wrote a series of brilliant law review articles (republished in the book, The Tyranny of the Majority: Fundamental Fairness in Representative Democracy) exploring the systematic weaknesses hidden from view by seeing democratic struggles through the lens of electing individual candidates, while the larger framework of democratic culture continues to decay.

She proposed proportional representation in multimember districts.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

If the slate is:
Joe Blow
John Smith
Mike Green

That is very different from:
Joe Blow (Democrat)
John Smith (Republican)
Mike Green (Green)

All the political parties have to do is advertise that Joe Blow is a Democrat, John Smith is a Republican, and Mike Green is a Green.

Yes, that's true. The difference my proposal makes is that it requires the voter to know at least a little bit about the candidates in question. Without the party label written on the ballot, many voters actually wouldn't know.

 

[lpetrich]

That isn't suitable for single-seat positions, like the positions of President and state governor and city mayor. But it would work for multiseat positions like Congress and state legislatures and city councils.

In 1993, Lani Guinier was appointed to the position of Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights by the Clinton Administration. The right wing unleashed a campaign of vilification against her, calling her a "quota queen" and the like. The Clinton Admin backed away without even trying to defend her.

The article continued with National Popular Vote - 15 states and DC have now signed on.

A Better Way to Elect the President | New University
Both ways are algorithms that I'd mentioned earlier in this thread.

Let’s start with parliamentary elections, which is essentially equivalent to how elections work in places like the United Kingdom, where the party that has a majority in parliament votes for their leader. Adjusting the Electoral College to be like the parliamentary system would require changing the amount of electoral votes to match the amount of seats in the House of Representatives, which is 435.

Basically, whichever party wins the House of Representatives would also win the presidency. Implementing this system would not have changed much, as every election since 2000 would have turned out the same, with the exception of 2012, where Mitt Romney would have been elected over incumbent Barack Obama, with the GOP winning 226 seats to the Democrat’s 209.

The size of each state's EC delegation is baked into the Constitution, so one would have to amend it to get around that difficulty. That leaves us with two additional electors to choose, and I mentioned three ways: winner take all from popular vote, proportional from popular vote, and winner take all from Congressional-district electors.

This leads to the last option, and the best in my view: the proportional popular vote method. It is actually pretty simple: whatever percentage of votes a candidate gets in a state is the amount of whole number electoral votes they get. This method, however, would have led to two contingent elections this decade alone. The elections of 2000 and 2016 would have both been thrown to the House of Representatives, with George Bush and Donald Trump both still being elected, as their party won control of the House and controlled a majority of state delegations: 28-18 and 32-17 respectively.

 

[Jayjay]

If the slate is:
Joe Blow
John Smith
Mike Green

That is very different from:
Joe Blow (Democrat)
John Smith (Republican)
Mike Green (Green)

All the political parties have to do is advertise that Joe Blow is a Democrat, John Smith is a Republican, and Mike Green is a Green.

Yes, that's true. The difference my proposal makes is that it requires the voter to know at least a little bit about the candidates in question. Without the party label written on the ballot, many voters actually wouldn't know.

Why do you need to know more about the candidate electors though? Their only job is to vote for the president. If you've already made up your mind about who you want to be the president, all you need to know about the elector is who he will vote for. If you haven't, the job of figuring out which elector would be best suited to make that decision for you, is just as complicated (if not more complicated) as figuring out which of the actual presidential candidates is best.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Why do you need to know more about the candidate electors though? Their only job is to vote for the president. If you've already made up your mind about who you want to be the president, all you need to know about the elector is who he will vote for. If you haven't, the job of figuring out which elector would be best suited to make that decision for you, is just as complicated (if not more complicated) as figuring out which of the actual presidential candidates is best.

True, very true. An informed voter can easily choose the elector that will choose the president they want.

The key point though is in one word - informed.

I think my proposal might have interesting ramifications on the rest of the electorate.