by Matthew Venia

Created on: April 29, 2008

Refined, yes. Abolished, no. While having it's flaws the electoral college does serve the important purpose of making votes is flyover country count. The idea is every state cast a ballet with size based on population. Therefore the smaller states aren't completely ignored, but the larger state do, rightfully, earn more attention.

Everyone remembers Al Gore lost Florida. What everyone forgets is Gore lost New Hampshire, Missouri, Ohio, Nevada and Tennessee (his home state) all by less than 4%. In fact if Al Gore had won any of those small, insignficant merely 3 vote states, he would have been president.

This isn't debating the Florida recounts, it's showing that the electoral college did it's job and the half million people in Wyoming had their votes count.

If we were to change and go with just the popular vote half of the states would become irrelevant. All a politican would have to do is campaign in California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Georgia to reach 50% of the nation. If a politican could get half of Cal, Tex, NY, FL and Ill to vote for them they would have as many votes as Gore had in 2000. With just a popular vote only about a dozen city would need to be visited: LA, NY, Houston, Miami, Chicago, Phily, and a few others. No need to visit small cities like Pierre, Green Bay, or even Portland.

Another idea is the equal congressional representation. Remember that T-Shirt that showed the country being 90% red and only blue in big cities? That's what it would look like. While that would favor my party, it's not the right approach.

The real problem with the electoral college is how much weight to give the larger states. This is known as the Clint Eastwood problem. Yes it is a real example used in college math courses. The states with the most crime coincidently have the most people and the most votes. So in November its McCain, Hillary and Clint Eastwood. Since Eastwood gets in late he only campaigns in the eleven biggest states. He promises to be tough on crime. He's Dirty f-ing Harry, of course he's going to be tough on crime. 34% vote for Eastwood in those states, while the rest is split between McCain and Hillary. Every other state votes for Hillary because McCain picks Barry Bonds to be his veep, but it is too late. With just eleven states and only 19% of the popular vote Eastwood has 271 Electoral votes. Highly unlikely, but does show the potential flaws in the current system.

The solution that I would prefer is adjusting the number of votes each states gets using the Banzhaf power index. Another nerdy math term, look it up on wikipedia.org. It measures how much power an individual has in swinging a particular contest. In the current system California measures 3.4 and New York 2.4 while Oregon is 1.2 and Kentucky is 1.2. In other words a vote cast in New York is twice as likely to effect the outcome as a vote in Oregon or Kentucky. California is three times as likely.

Refining it so every state is closer in value will most likely upset Californians, but it would produce a fairer election. Not to mention keeping the tradition of being a federal nation. Senator Clinton and Senator Obama are in Indiana today, but only because of the primary. If we had a populus vote in the national election they wouldn't need to return.

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