Aren’t there some states whose electoral votes are proportionally awarded? This seems to make the most sense to me. Is the fact that each state has control of their own electoral process what is preventing this? Would this have changed the outcome in either the GorevBush, or ClintonvTrump descision?
To clarify and simplify, If a state has four electors, and 75% vote for candidate x, and 25% vote for candidate y, couldn’t the results be candidate x: 3- Candidate y: 1?
The best compromise is for each state and DC have true proportional voting within their state. And no … first past the post in congressional districts is not true proportional voting
No. Nebraska and Maine have first past the post by congressional district (+2 votes to statewide winner but let’s ignore that for now). To see why this is not proportional assume in each district 51% of the votes go completely to a Dem or a Pub and 49% goes Libertarian. Then all of the electoral votes will go to the Dem and Pubs and the Lib gets no EVs despite having almost half of the vote.
Okay. Ignorance fought. So, there should be some way to properly apportion the votes so that the “first past the post” situation doesn’t occur? If the state is split 51%-49award one EV more to the winner maybe?
It obviously wouldn’t be truly proportional, but fairer I think.
Upon re-reading Cad’s post, I Have to say I’ve misunderstood. While this situation is probably not likely, with proportional voting statewide, it should work out, no? If, in some circumstance, the Libertarian won 49% of the popular vote, then she should be awarded the electoral votes accordingly. So say in a state with ten EVs, 6 would be split accordingly between the R and D and the other 4 would go to the L.