The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #28674   Message #359845
Posted By: McGrath of Harlow
19-Dec-00 - 11:59 AM
Thread Name: Tricky Dicky's Revenge
Subject: RE: Tricky Dicky's Revenge
The obvious way to change it would be for all the States to to have the same system as I believe Maine and Nebraska, where the elctoral college votes are split proportionally to the popular vote.

Theoretically you could still get a situation where the candidate who got the most votes didn't win, but it'd be very much less likely to happen. Moreover it would mean that there'd be some point in voting if you lived in a non-swing state. (As it is, what is the pouint in voting in a state where the margin of victory form either side is large?)

It's been suggested that this would mean that small states would lose influence under that system, but I can't see it. In fact,it'd be the other way - it would mean there'd be an incentive on candidates to take more notice of the states where they knew they had relatively little support.

I think that the Supreme Court, in giving such importance to the principle of uniformity of counting, may have opened a can of worms. The logical corollary is surely a voting system that gives some eqality of importance to voters in all parts of the USA.