Former President Donald Trump and Republican Gov. Jim Pillen have called on lawmakers to change the state’s Electoral College vote allocation to a winner-take-all system.
I have mixed feelings on the electoral college, but imo “winner-takes-all” voting should be unconstitutional. That particular implementation of the electoral college carries the potential to nullify 49% of the votes in our current two-party system, and it gets even worse when you have more than 2 parties. If there were 3 major parties, “winner-takes-all” has the potential to nullify 66% of the vote if it’s split 33%-33%-34%, and becomes more egregious as the number of major parties increases.
Which completely deprives them of representation. Even if they only got 10%, that 10% of people will have no voice.
It needs to be more like Nebraskas current method but in every state, along with ranked choice voting. Winner takes all, let alone FPTP and the EC as a whole, are horribly stupid.
It doesn’t matter how you change the voting system. Only one person can be president. And once a president is chosen, by whatever means, anyone who wanted someone else “has no voice” by your definition.
The president almost always gets a majority of the popular vote.
Of course I think the president should always, not almost always, get a majority. But that just requires switching to a national popular vote, not one of the various other schemes under discussion.
While we’re changing things that should be one of the things we change as well. There should not be a unitary executive with ability to override the will of the people. There should be a council or something similar where a group of views are represented and a decision come to. Making things more democratic is always a worthy goal.
I have mixed feelings on the electoral college, but imo “winner-takes-all” voting should be unconstitutional. That particular implementation of the electoral college carries the potential to nullify 49% of the votes in our current two-party system, and it gets even worse when you have more than 2 parties. If there were 3 major parties, “winner-takes-all” has the potential to nullify 66% of the vote if it’s split 33%-33%-34%, and becomes more egregious as the number of major parties increases.
Absolutely. Its taking an already flawed undemocratic system and making it even worse.
A losing vote is not “nullified”. It is simply a losing vote.
Regardless of the voting system, when voting for President there are going to be people who vote for a losing candidate.
Which completely deprives them of representation. Even if they only got 10%, that 10% of people will have no voice.
It needs to be more like Nebraskas current method but in every state, along with ranked choice voting. Winner takes all, let alone FPTP and the EC as a whole, are horribly stupid.
It doesn’t matter how you change the voting system. Only one person can be president. And once a president is chosen, by whatever means, anyone who wanted someone else “has no voice” by your definition.
@FlowVoid @Soulg true, but then it won’t be the *majority* of people who didn’t “have a voice” which is a stark improvement over the current situation
The president almost always gets a majority of the popular vote.
Of course I think the president should always, not almost always, get a majority. But that just requires switching to a national popular vote, not one of the various other schemes under discussion.
While we’re changing things that should be one of the things we change as well. There should not be a unitary executive with ability to override the will of the people. There should be a council or something similar where a group of views are represented and a decision come to. Making things more democratic is always a worthy goal.