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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Don Lloyd who wrote (86565)	12/10/2000 4:13:14 PM
From: benwood	Respond to of 132070

Ok, thanks. Then we are on the same page for current conditions. I would still rather see a type of Electoral College that gave two votes per state, plus one for each district, with the per-district ones bound by percentage of votes in a particular state. For example, in Florida,Bush would then get 12+2 for Florida, or 14, to Gore's 11. This preserves the 2 votes per state, plus one for each population unit (akin to Senate vs. House). It does allow more room for 3rd parties to grow. I would not want the votes to be overridden, however, but be bound by law. With this system, a majority of states could not override a heavy majority of the population, and a slight majority overall could not override a majority of states. Rounding issues would have to be addressed, of course, but I'd favor a discrete system -- i.e. no partial votes. One thing I like that is different from the winner-take-all system is that states which are "losers" -- e.g. California to Bush -- cannot be completely ignored by a candidate because, as show above for Florida, a narrow loss would still yield a lot of Electoral Votes. A heavy loss would hand the other candidate a lot of votes. I think national debates would be deemed more relevant, and national issues would be addressed, because the lack of doing so could lose electoral votes all over the US. The current system promotes only those swing states from getting to hear anything (if even that) addressed, and much would be tailored directly to them, oddly shutting out the "confirmed" states. This business of a State Legislature being able to overturn the vote of all Americans (as threatened by the GOP in Florida, but clearly a real threat regardless for any future election) definitely should be eliminated. That is nothing but funny business to me, and a sham. There are cultures that have a high degree of integrity, and a high degree of accountability. I have no idea what it would take to get there for America on a national scale. Perhaps it as you suggest -- not possible. --Ben