The US Politics |OT|

[LuccaCardoso1]

Bofferbrauer2 said:

LuccaCardoso1 said:
I've been wondering... What are the arguments for keeping the Electoral College? It's probably the least democratic voting system I can think of.

The electoral college wouldn't be quite so bad if not for 3 things that make it the absolute worst:

1. Winner-takes-all in almost all states. If there were a proportional system or at least a highest averages system in place which would split up the vote of any state proportionally between all the persons running for office, it could actually be somewhat decent.
2. The 3 electoral votes minimum per state, which gives states with a low population way too much power as it currently stands. Doubly so as the electoral votes are calculated proportionally and then added 2 votes on top for everyone instead of doing it in one go, which further reinforces smaller states.
3. The fact that you only vote for electors, which are not obliged to follow the people's vote.

Also, as far as I know, the electoral college is enshrined in the US constitution and thus exceedingly hard to get rid off.

My proposition for a temporary solution would be to expand the amount of electoral votes from 538 to something like 599. Not only would an uneven number help avoid a potential nightmare of having both candidates with the same amount of electoral votes, the expansion would mostly go to the bigger states and thus lessen the influence the states with a small population have by a lot and thus strongly weakening the impact of point number 2.

If you remove those three aspects, it would not be an electoral college anymore, it would just be popular vote but with the final numbers divided by x.