Thread: the electoral college is fixable.

Currently, the EC gives a pretty tangible benefit to GOP. In 2016, Trump's Evote outperformed his pop vote by 10.8%, while Hillary under-performed by 5%.

2 main reasons for this:
Winner Take All EVs &
Reapportionment Act of 1929

Winner Take All EVs is pretty self explanatory, but it's the process where a states winner gives ALL of their electoral votes to the winner, no matter how close it was.
Win MI by 10k? All 16 EVs!
Win CA by 3M! Still all 55.

This... has an effect on the results.

The Reapportionment Act of 1929 sets the limit on the US House at 435 Representatives. This means states have to not only grow, but vastly outpace the nations growth to get more reps but small states are locked at 1 or 2. This widens the gap of representation, esp in the ECollege

"But Robin what about counting Senators in the EC?"
A:There are 13 states with only 1 or 2 rep(s). 6 are red and 7 are blue. 5/6 Red states are 3 EVs, 3/7 Blue "states" are 3 EVs. Kinda a wash.
The GOP senate advantage is mostly in the sheer number of 5-8EV red states.

So what are the solutions?
1st is simply allocating state EVs proportionally. Chuck out candidates who don't reach the 1 EV threshold, then do some rounding.
This changes the 2016 Election result from
306-DJT, 232 HRC to
267-DJT, 266-HRC, 3-GJ, 1JS, 1, EM.

Closer to actual!

Next you want to raise the House Reps to better reflect population. There is a proposal called the Wyoming Rule, which would state that the # of people per rep is set at smallest possible entitled unit, currently WY. So 500k per seat instead of 700k

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming_Rule

This would raise the house to 547 seats. This doesn't do a whole lot by itself, 2016 election looks about the same, but coupled with proportional EV allocation, the 2016 Election looks like
325-HRC, 319 DJT, 3 GJ, 1 JS, 2 EM.

For fun, I made a Chart of the 2016 & 2000 Elections

Why keep the EC?
Well, for one, it would require a constitutional amendment to abolish it.
Two, 50 state elections seem less susceptible to manipulation, especially when thousands of votes only move 1 or 2 EVs.
Three, EVs are based on *total* population, not just who shows up!

Our Gov is kinda like a car or a house. Without some routine maintenance, everything starts to look so busted we think a complete replacement is necessary.

I'm not saying this is the end all, I'm for a huge overhaul (RCV, Multi Seat districts, 10 amends), but its a start!