Electoral College reform

Nathan Newman nathan at newman.org
Wed Jan 16 11:32:35 PST 2002


----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Pollak" <mpollak at panix.com>


> The electoral college, due to its voting formula, gives disproportionate
> voting power to small states.

-Maybe I'm missing something, but as far as I can see, this isn't true. It -is true of Senate, because there there the votes are about dividing up the -pie.

I don't disagree with many of your general points, but here's the mathematics of the electoral college. Each state has a certain number of votes based on its proportion of the population PLUS two votes for each state.

Thus Wyoming's population has votes per capita equivalent to California's per capita voting power PLUS two votes.

So subtract the extra two votes per state, and Wyoming voters would have one electoral college vote to California's 56 (I think) votes, roughly proportionate voting power. But with the electoral college, Wyoming's voters triple their proportionate voting strength. While not great power either way, such small states recognize that they would be almost completely ignored if Wyoming had only as much electoral power as a city like Oakland or Jersey City (two cities where I've lived with similar populations to that state).

So they won't ever vote to undermine that power, unless as people note, the situation is so revolutionary that it's a pretty minor item on the list of revolutionary changes. So yes, if we organize the power for a mass constitutional convention to remake the economic structure of the country, we can throw it in at that point, but I just don't think it's a winning electoral issue in the short term.

The most promising reform in my mind is instant-runoffs, which would allow third party messages to get out without threatening greater-evil victories. San Francisco has it on the upcoming ballot for local elections and would be a good thing. Although the unintended consequence will be that it will assist non-party moderates in redominating the political landscape. But that's not a terrible thing-- the political spectrum will actually end up looking more like European parliamentary systems, dominated by moderates in the middle with perpetural coalitions, while not foreclosing the election of candidates on the extremes.

-- Nathan Newman



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