First off, sorry if I'm hard to understand. Extremely tired and putting off going to bed.



I don't think it's better, but I don't think that just a small handful of states handing out EC votes based on popular vote is going to do much of anything in the real world to make our country better. Sure, it could mean the difference between having a "bad" guy elected and a "good" guy elected, but that possibility swings both ways. I know that we both swing further to the right on the subject of state rights than most, but I think that without the vast majority of states actually divvying up EC votes based on popular vote, the difference is going to be none to negligible. Maybe I'm too conservative here, but I'd rather not change the status quo unless there's a clear plan to make the status quo better.



And what tangible, real-world effect would said empowerment bring? Sure, if one state does it, then the next cycle 10 states do it, then the next cycle all (or almost all) the states do it, awesome. Cool. But forgive me if I've lost almost all of my faith in our ability to self-govern. The masses want kings that can make all their problems go away and say things that make them feel good, they don't want to have more control over their own state/country.



I'll admit my knowledge of the history of the electoral college is somewhat lacking (so long since high school already? o_o), but I would not be surprised at all if the "tradition" of awarding votes all to one candidate was born out of convenience.

I can't see a reason not to.

Frankly, I have seen nothing to change the opinions I set forth and updates I recommended a year ago. Rather than go on again at length and bore everyone, I'll just tell everyone to re-read what I said there if they are interested.

I will only say that I'm even less optimistic than I was then.

While those of you who have pointed out that "we're a republic, not a democracy" are correct as a matter of original intent, I don't think that's relevant any more. Because most Americans (a) don't know the difference, (b) believe in populist/progressivist enable-the-power-of-all "democracy" notions far more than they believe in Madisonian/Jeffersonian "limitation-the-power-of-any" constitutional republicanism, or (c) both.

Any constitutional change today, whether tinkering through individual amendments or radical change through open constitutional convention, facebooking, whatever, is going to follow paths formed from the ideals of populist/progressive/social democracy. Not the paths of Burke/Paine/Madison/Jefferson republicanism.

And we've got far too many people who are perfectly capable of being the next Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre.

I'm not sure we have any who are capable of being George Washington.

Update the constitution for what?

Like the current and recent administrations adhere to it anyway.

I have said for a while that the all or none electoral systems most states use isn't the way it should be.

Use CA for example, nobody campaigns there because it always goes Democrat. When watching the results live. When the CA polls closed, they gave Obama the win the next minute. 55 electoral votes, BAM. What should be done is, look at look at how much of the popular vote each candidate gets, and using percentage, divide and give the electorals.

Obama 59.3%, or 32 electorals.
Romney 38.3%, or 21 electorals.

Which is 53 leaving 2 unallocated. Any unallocated electorals would go to whoever wins the state popular vote.

This should remove the "My vote doesn't count" line of thinking because one vote could be the difference between getting 21 or 22 electoral votes. It would make each state important so candidates would need to go to them all.

The thing is, I've gone back and through Reagan, all results would have been the same. Close in most cases but still the same results.

I'm curious. Does your method here take into account that voting patterns might be different if people knew going in that electoral votes would be proportionately assigned? Would the popular vote in California fall into the same percentages if they knew vote counting would take more than a minute after poll closing?