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[eastmen]

To be honest , I think the biggest problem is the money being used in these elections. I think each election the canidates should get x amount of money . No outside money can be used no super pax no nothing. Just this pile of money given by the government. The government should give equal funding to 5 different parties .


That is the real way to fix the mess we have.

 

[Squirrel Killer]

?

If you're a voter in WY, you have a 1 in 1,000,000 chance (POOMA) of effecting your state's Electoral College vote. If you're in CA you have a 1 in 5,000,000 (POOMA, probably closer to 1 in 10 mil) of effecting your state's Electoral College vote. So yeah, a WY vote is heavily weighted than a CA vote, but...

The WY vote still only effects 3 EC votes while the CA vote effects 55. Hell, make the WY vote 20x as weighted as the CA vote, and he's still only going to effect 3 EC votes. Take all of the 3 EC vote states/districts, and you're still less than 10% of the way to 270.

 

["God's Beard!"]

We should base the electoral college on GDP rather than population. Pull your weight, little states.

 

[Kettch]

I don't understand the placing of importance on where the candidates visit. What does that even matter anymore? We live in the Information age with television and the Internet. Where the candidates are located physically is an archaic notion.

We can hear them and they can hear us without having to actually be in the same room.

The candidates visiting isn't the point, it's simply used to illustrate that the candidates don't give a single shit about those states.

If there's an important issue in Ohio, the candidates are going to be all over that. Promises will be made, the issue comes to the forefront of the election.

If there's an important issue in California...who cares? The candidates don't need to waste any time on it because it's irrelevant.


Personally I think that handing out electoral votes proportionally would solve the largest issues without causing any huge problems in return. The most important change will be that your decision to vote for a candidate will be worth about as much as any other citizen of the US. That it a huge difference from the current system where someone's vote can be worth 100x as much as another person's.

 

[rohlfinator]

Here's one compromise that I haven't seen bandied about too much... remove the Senatorial EC votes. That is, assign EC votes just based on the number of House of Representatives, that would get rid of most of the inequality while preserving the advantages of the EC. Also, I'd make the Electoral College vote more perfunctory, get rid of the possibility of faithless electors.

Heh, I was about to suggest something like this. Although I'd also get rid of the winner-takes-all system and assign electoral votes proportional to the popular vote.

It would basically be a slightly abstracted popular vote, with the advantages being:

1) States would still get full representation in the case of lowered turnout due to unusual scenarios (like Sandy)
2) It removes the need for a nation-wide recount if the popular vote is too close

I'd maybe add another elector to break ties (does it really need to be tied to the Senate/House membership numbers?)