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Why aren't electoral college votes awarded proportionally?
As you should know, come the general election, each candidate will be awarded electoral votes in every state based on a winner-take-all, single member district plurality system. I argue that this is not truly representative, and is undemocratic. If electoral votes were awarded on a proportional basis, we could presumably avoid presidents who have not won the popular vote, a la John Q. Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, and most notably (because we were alive to care) George W. Bush. It is for this reason I argue that the electoral college system should adjusted to be awarded proportionally.
So, my question is, why ISN'T it? My Political Parties and Voting professor asserts that it was because it didn't occur the founders at the time of the scripting of the Constitution, but he was unsure. Is there anyone that can confirm this, or who knows otherwise?
And also if you disagree with my idea, why?
Or, preferably, if you agree, will you send letters to your congressmen?
Everyone has made good points so far but a few things have stricken me.
A lot of you seem to think that to proportionalize the electoral college would alienate the small states. I argue the opposite, because, as it is, voters in small states actually carry more weight, especially if their state is a swing state.
In the proposed method, every state is essentially a swing state.
As it is, most campaigns already only take place in the big states like NY and CA. If it was distributed proportionally, candidates would be forced to campaign in ALL states, because it wouldn't be insured that they'd get all of the votes from each state by winning with a 51% majority, or in the case of Gore and CA in 200, 53%.
Also, I'm fully aware that America is a Republic, or more accurately, a Representative Democracy. But as it is, everyone who votes against the way their state as a whole goes goes unrepresented.
Additionally, I am not proposing to abolish the electoral college. I'm all too aware of what kind of disastrous effects that would have on the democratic process of this country. The only time I can think of when that might have been a good idea is near the founding (or maybe around 1820, as my favorite president proposed) when the population was small, but Aaron Burr has convinced me otherwise.
And lastly, at the user who says that Bush would still have won: learn your facts. Gore would have won by 8 points, where Bush won by only 5 in the actual election.
9 Answers
- Anonymous1 decade agoFavorite Answer
Bush actually carried more states than Gore. Try again.
- Anonymous1 decade ago
Well if you based giving electoral votes based on state by state percentages.. GWB would have won by an even large margin and the 2000 Floridia fiasco would never had happened.
Keep in mind "The size of the Electoral College is equal to the total membership of both Houses of Congress (435 Representatives and 100 Senators) plus the three electors allocated to Washington, D.C., totaling 538 electors.
Each state is allocated as many electors as it has Representatives and Senators in the United States Congress.[7][8] Since the most populous states have the most seats in the House of Representatives, they also have the most electors. The six states with the most electors are California (55), Texas (34), New York (31), Florida (27), Pennsylvania (21) and Illinois (21). The seven smallest states by population—Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming—each have three electors. Because the number of representatives for each state is determined decennially by the United States Census, the amount of electoral votes for each state is determined concomitantly..
With Gore having won the larger states by big margins.. using your suggested method would have ensured Bush won by an even bigger margin in terms of electoral votes
Un;ess you are arguing the electoral votes suggest just be based on total vote for all of the USA. WHich then means that the larger states would dictate government policiy which isn't a very democratic method in a diverse country
Source(s): http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/results/ - visibleholsteinLv 41 decade ago
The electoral college exists precisely BECAUSE there is more to this than the popular vote. The intent was to make sure that all areas and lifestyles of the country have a fair shot at influencing the election.
If the College were changed as you suggest, we could get rid of the College entirely and just go by popular vote.
If we did that, the densely populated areas would completely control who wins elections. LA, NT, Chicago, etc ---- all the large urban areas would contain so many more people than small-town America, that small-town America may as well no longer bother voting.
Why is this bad? Because very different types of people live in urban vs rural areas. If you want your small-town folk, your farmers, your rugged individualists, people who hunt, fish, and enjoy a much more "uncitified" type of life to have no say in who the President is, that's your choice.
But I sure don't want NY and LA dictating who our President is.
- Anonymous1 decade ago
The college was formed to ensure that the rural and less populated states received equal value in the voting process, thus keeping a french like mob rule from happening. If only the popular vote were to count or the college to have non-descript weight then it would be likely the votes of Cal. and NY would be the only votes that counted. This was very important also to ensure states rights and keep each state in equal value.
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- harbqllLv 41 decade ago
The electoral college system is defined in the Constitution; writing your Congressman won't change a thing - unless you think you can get an Amendment rolling.
However, if memory serves, there are a few states that split their electoral points proportionately. Vermont, I believe, is one. Maybe New Hampshire. It's one of those teeny little northern states, but I forget which one - they're pretty much all alike anyway, aren't they?
(And yes, my dear slow-witted readers, that last bit was sarcasm.)
- 1 decade ago
I don't know but its an antiquated system anyway and we should not be using it anymore.
A true democracy would allow us to vote for candidates that we wanted to vote for...not the two major parties.
If we did away with the primary system and the electoral college we could move to a system that allows all viable candidates to make it to November and give us real choices like Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson, Sam Brownback, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, etc.
- Anonymous1 decade ago
The electoral college does not -have- to vote the way its constituents vote. That's why this is a Republic, and not a Democracy.
In a true democracy, anybody can become President, which is nonsense. Many people elect popularity rather than principles. There's no way a true democracy is realistic in a country as large or powerful as ours.
- Anonymous1 decade ago
You fail to realize that we are a Democratic Republic. Each state is an independent entity in the general elections. The electoral college cannot be proportionally distributed for that reason.
- Anonymous1 decade ago
so that small states have the same influence as large states in the choosing of the president. if not new york, texas and california would choose the president.
