Electoral College -Class of 2004

It almost went wrong again

This IS NOT a rant about the 2000 election. Bush became President and if Dems were in control of Fla. Gore would have - that's politics. Dems wouldn't have been any more "noble" and done anything different than the Republicans did. This is about the fact that the same thing almost happened again.

In 2000, Gore won the popular vote by 500,000 but lost the electoral vote. (Please let that go my Democratic comrades). This year Bush won by 3.8 million votes and won the electoral college. HOWEVER, if there had been a swing in Ohio of 75,000 votes, ie. Bush lost 75,000 votes to Kerry for a net change of 150,000, then Kerry would have won Ohio and won the electoral college. Even with Bush having won the popular vote by 3.7 million (once adjusted for the theoretical swing in Ohio). Even as a Democrat I would have to say that would have been WRONG and an outrage.

There is a big problem in the system in that right now 8 or so "swing states" elect the President and the rest of us just wait and see what they do. I am a Democrat in a Virginia, which is pretty consistantly a red state so it was pretty much a given it would go to Bush. Just as any Republican in California or New York would have to know their states would go to Kerry. Kerry won 55 electoral votes for California, about 1/5 of what is needed to win the electoral college even with 4.4 million people voting FOR BUSH. Add in New York and you have 2 states with 86 total electoral votes and about 7 million people who voted for Bush. That's a lot of opinions not counting. This can be frustrating and disheartening because in a system where 40 to 42 states aren't even "in play" a lot of peoples voices aren't being heard.

The problem is how to fix the system. First off, we are a representative republic, not a democracy. One man - one vote was never the intention of the founding fathers.On the surface this might seem to be an option, after all, Bush won the popular vote he should be President. There have been several other elections in history besides 2000 where the popular vote differed from the electoral vote, and even times there was a tie and the House decided the election (the possibility of which kept being brought up last week). Link This link shows those elections and the years they happened in.

Smaller and less populated states say that if the electoral college weren't in place, they wouldn't be fairly represented. This is a valid concern, when your state doesn't have the population of Los Angeles County, it is easy to be overlooked or taken for granted.

I propose that we adopt a system similar to what was voted down in Colorado this year where electoral votes are split on the basis of the popular vote. This way every electoral vote would be important, candidates would need to court, appeal to and campaign in every state. Large states would not be a huge "bloc" vote and be able to steamroll other states. If 40% of Californians voted Republican, they would get 22 electoral votes, the Dems 33. This would more reflect the opinions of the state, and the same would apply for Democrats in red states.

Of course this or any other change will never happen because both parties won't consider this something that will get them votes in an election, and that it's too risky to try something this radical to try to fix a system which if not in need of a overhaul, definitely needs a tune-up.

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