A Better Electoral College, a "Winner take Some" System
Sometimes when provoking change, one can strive for the most idealistic approach. It is a frighteningly common occurrence that many of the systems that are used today make common sense. When approached with a problem, often times the first solution is chosen as the correct solution. It isn’t necessary to overcomplicate something as simple as an election. You pick who you want, and the most votes win.
In 2016 this was not the case, however. This is due to the voting system in America not being a straight democracy. Some would argue that this fact is a bad one, saying that all votes should be equal in the eyes of the system, and majority rules. The tyranny of the majority is not something to be desired, though. This is partially why something like the Electoral College exists today. Not only does it consider what the population says, there is some consideration as to which jurisdiction those populations speak from.
The way this consideration is counted numerically is that every state automatically has 2 votes towards the electoral college, and then a state with a higher population will have more electoral college votes equal to the representation in the House of Representatives. This implicates that the President of the United States is both a Leader of the American People and Leader of the States.
Usually, those who would oppose the Electoral College would point out that it does a poor job of adhering to the rule of “one vote per person”, as a voter’s contribution towards gaining an electoral college vote towards that candidate varies depending on state lines. This leads to 2016 situations where the winner of the popular vote does not win the electoral vote, because the votes that candidate won were in areas where the power of the vote was not as high.
California has 55 electoral college votes, and also a lot of people (39,557,045). Wyoming has 3 electoral college votes (the minimum) and not a whole lot of people (577,737) . If one were to take the population and divide it by the electoral college votes, then one could get an estimate to about how many people it takes in each state to get the same thing in the electoral college.
California: 39,557,045 / 55 = 719,219
Wyoming: 577,737 / 3 = 192,579
So 1 Wyomingite's vote is the same as 3.73 Californians’ votes.
Again, this is by design. The existence of other states with their own unique sets of laws, goals, and agendas is part of the reason why this imbalance exists. The state itself has a say in who gets President, similarly as to how the Senate has a say in what federal laws are created.
There are many other voting systems (that are much better than the winner-take-all approach we currently have) that involve more voter participation to get more data. This includes ranked choice voting, which lets people vote for their first choice freely without hurting the odds of similar candidates due to an instant run-off of the 2nd or 3rd choice. Also their is approval voting, where one can vote to “approve” as many candidates as they would like to. These solutions are mathematically and philosophically more ideal.
But, these systems are not likely to come to the American political structure anytime soon. These are large reforms that would basically require an Amendment to the Constitution. What I am suggesting may be in a similar camp, but it still utilizes the ideas in the Electoral College.
I propose a “Winner take Some” system, where the electoral votes are split between being representative of the people and the state. Under this system, the minority in states with a heavy majority are still encouraged to participate, as their vote directly goes towards getting an electoral vote.
Currently, your vote on election day is really for the state government. You are telling your state who you think should be president. The state then looks at the votes, sees that candidate X got the most in your state, and then the electors go represent the state to cast the “real” ballots at the federal level. This system can produce “faithless electors”, which is the result of the hypothetical situation of an elector voting against the will of the voting population. This is an antiquated part of the electoral college. This was basically a failsafe for if in between election day and voting for president, that it was found a candidate was shady or somehow a bad fit for office. I’ll just leave it at that, as information spreads like wildfire today.
In my “Winner take Some” system, there are Population votes (the electoral college votes gained from House seats) and State votes (the electoral college votes gained from seats in the Senate, 2). When a voter votes for one candidate, their contribution will be recorded in the pool of votes as normal. The real difference comes in the state assigning electoral college votes. The process is as follows (instead of the most votes getting ALL electoral college votes):
Subtract 2 from your states electoral college vote pool. These are the votes that both the winning and losing candidate can get in the single state.
Find the split between all candidates. What percentage of votes went to Candidate D? Candidate R? Candidate L?
Using these percentages, assign votes. I will use conventional rounding, though there are much more sophisticated and accurate ways of accomplishing this same idea.
If this rounding doesn’t give enough votes to equal two less than total Electoral college votes, give the tossup vote(s) to the highest ranking candidates first.
If this rounding gives too many votes to equal two less than total Electoral college votes, take away the tossup vote(s) from the lowest ranking candidates first.
Look at the winner, give them 2 extra votes so that the state has the same amount of electoral college votes.
This will apportion votes based on the candidate you voted for, but only for some votes in your state. The process of “Winner takes All” is still here in awarding the candidate with the majority vote a bonus of those two votes.
This encourages diversifying the states a politician appeals to, but it also means that a candidate will have a harder time of getting “easy states”, as some get leeched away from the minority candidate. This also entices people who are the clear minority in their state (Republicans in California) to go and vote anyway, as just having enough of them come out can land them quite a few Electoral college votes (18, with 2020 data, instead of the 0 they will get otherwise).
It will also encourage the prospects of 3rd party candidates. There would have to be a strong showing in the state, but it would accurately show representation of those who do not vote for the 2 primary parties.
I have made a spreadsheet applying this to the 2020 election votes cast so far. Assuming that the data we currently have are all the votes, we can see that Joe Biden has 278 electoral college votes, Donald Trump has 259, and Jo Jorgensen has 1*
(*Under more scrutiny this will likely get absorbed by a candidate, as while “Other” got an electoral college vote in California, Jorgensen only got 60% of the “Other” votes. She probably wouldn’t have gotten that if other candidates hadn’t boosted the “Other” section in the first place).
At the very least, this makes the involvement of the voter matter no matter which state they resided in. It plays the the strengths of the Electoral College, while also acknowledging the will of the people by allowing them to apply their vote directly towards an electoral college vote. This doesn’t overdo that, though, as their are still points given just by winning the state.
How do you like this system? Let me know in the comments, and share if you want more people to see this!
