Electoral College

This does get around the problem of needing a constitutional ammendment to implement, as each state determines how their electors are proportioned (not all are "winner take all" btw, just most of them).Do you need to carry the division of electoral votes into decimals? My feeling is that rounding it to the nearest person is good enough (and I'm a liberal here)Your calculation also neglects to included Nader and other "3rd" party members, who would recieve enough votes in larger states to get some electoral college votes this way (and that could easily be used as a criteria for matching funds rather than the absurd arbitrary system we now have).In the event that no one candidate received a majority of EC votes, then each state eliminates it's last place finisher and recalibrates their results. In the event of a 50-50 tie the choice would then be made as outlined in the constitution -- or else you need a constitutional ammendment again, and that is unlikely for many reasons, not least of which is the current politicians not being willing to relenquish that decision.also see (my) other topics on vote reform
EvC Forum: VOTE reform ...
EvC Forum: A Voting Declaration of RightsThe other question is how do you hold a fair election with more than two candidates if you limit the voters to only one vote? consider an election with 3 candidates, two extremists and one moderate, with a 35% extreme A, 30% mod B and 35% extreme C backing in the population ... you will end up with either A or C with a one vote system every time. You can end up with C even though A and B are very similar.You see this in the primaries in each party.There has to be a better way.Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

that would require a constitutional ammendment that would require those states to agree to give up that (small) advantage. I don't think it is necessary.Consider instead a dividing of california into 3 states, division of massachusetts into 2 states, etcetera until the populations of the states are more equal.

Let's raise the ante on this issue -- rather than discuss what we can do to bandaid the US electoral college system, what about a discussion on what is the best way to construct a democratic form of government given all that we know now about the {workings\failures} of (our\other} systems.Take the opportunity that was presented with Afghanistan (before the invasion of Iraq and that whole side-track), where we had taken over a country from a harsh repressive regime with a people used to a feudal system of {petty-kingdoms\warlords}, and where there {was} a high degree of international support: what better place to instigate a program of transition from a {dependency\duty} mindset to an {independency\rights} mindset and to investigate what would be the rational way to run such a country (1) during the transition phase from war-torn to productive, (2) an interim phase to transition further from {old ways} to {a developed future model viable for the people concerned}, and finally, (3) what they could expect to set up in a fully realized modern application of the concepts of freedom, liberty, justice and equality.What should such a government look like?

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ps -- I think the UN would be a good place to work on model governments for new societies, including various transition models needed to get to the final results models.I also think the administration dropped the ball on this one big time, just as they are in the process of doing for Iraq (it is almost as if they don't really care what the government is or whether it fails).

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

but is it state-centric?or is it big-vote-block-all-or-nothing-state centric?do the states that do proportional apportioning of their votes get more or less attention from the big parties? if so, do they get their issues discussed in the process?certainly proportional apportionment is (a) more equitable to all the voters and (b) better represents the reality of the false {red\blue} image.the bigger question on politics in america is why the choice was between bush and kerry in the first place eh? would McCain have gotten more votes than Bush? I think so.