In my last post I said that most alternatives to the Winner Take All system of electoral college voting methods for selecting the electoral college voters have been shot down by the courts with most of the cases going all the way to the Supreme Court. For that reason in most of my lifetime all of the states had chosen the winner take all approach. So why not just play it safe rather than be sorry because your wham doozle new way for divvying up the votes is just going to get shut down by the courts? Invariably the reason they all got shut down was because just one party created the new wham-doozle system. Two elections ago they lost and then in the last election they prevailed. So they hurriedly have been working since they have become the top power to forever establish it in their favor.
That has changed and quite recently. This method called the Congressional District Method was tested just once with the Supreme Court giving it the thumbs up. Here is one URL on it:
Congressional District Metnod
In case it disappears here is another one that is at present an archive and is thus even more liable to disappear too soon for my taste:
Congressional District Method at FairVote.org
Basically, Maine was the first to get fed up with the Winner Take All system. They were able to get the Congressional District Method and get it approved by the courts in time for the 1972 election. Nebraska followed suit almost two decades later. The first time they used the Congressional District Method was in the 1992 election.
Has it resulted in a split vote for either state? Yes. It has given a split vote in both Maine and Nebraska. In fact the one in Nebraska occurred in 2008 and was the first time since 1964 that any of Nebraska's Electoral College votes was for a party other than Republican. Can you imagine how disillusioning that is to non-Republicans who know their vote will never count for the highest elected office in the land? That doesn't apply to just the two major parties either. The minor parties will never have a chance of their President and Vice President candidates winning unless one of the two major parties ceases to exist (Federalist, then Whigs for example).
In my entire voting lifetime, my state's Electoral College voters have always been for the Republican party's candidates. I never voted for that party's candidates. Sometimes I voted for the Democrats, once for an Independent and other times for another minor political party's candidates. That means I always lost. Have you ever heard the advice "vote or else you have nobody else to blame but yourself"? I have but when your choice is guaranteed to always lose I will spit that advice right back in your face. And that is the problem with the Electoral College voting system. For millions of people who are not members of either the Democrats or Republicans their vote will never count. So why vote? Eventually, Libertarians and others just stop voting. There is an advantage to that. They will never be called up for jury duty. It is for that reason I oppose the automatic voter registration proposed by the Democrats. I also oppose the Republicans Jim Crow-like policies to prevent minorities from being registered and voting.
Would I approve of the Congressional District Method as a be all, end all solution? No. It would be better than what we have now and I would encourage all states to do it immediately. But please do it without gerrymandering of voting districts. At one time the Democrats were worst at doing that. But right now it seems the Republicans are the worst at that game. That condition can flop back and forth forever. That is the reason why the Congressional District Method is not a comprehensive solution.
The only solution that would be fair is a popular vote. If you want to cure the apathy and get rid of the ignorance of voters that is quickest and best way to do it. Addressing the negatives I will answer just a few questions / complaints:
1. But wouldn't that allow a larger state to have more clout and make smaller states meaningless? My anwwer is no and here are the reasons why. No state has voters all of just one party. But this really isn't a state issue as I see it. It is a voter issue from my point of view. Nobody wants to have their vote never count. Besides, haven't you heard many of the non-voters answers for why they aren't voting? It is because they don't like either of the two major parties.
2. This would break up our two party system. Guilty as charged. That is why the popular vote would need an amendment that would change the majority requirement from a set majority limit to a simple majority. I must warn that a popular vote will shatter both major parties. The first to come apart would be the Democrats losing the working class people to a Workers party. Most Republicans never did care about the working class. The Democrats haven't cared about worker rights for over 40 years now. Noam Chomsky agrees with me on that one. Similarly, the religious right would form their own party. There would be no more voting for an adulterer because the alternative from the other party is even less palatable. Greens would form their own party just like it is in Europe. We would need coalitions just like Merkel had to forge a government in Germany. The "party purity" message would be thrown to the scrap heap most of the time. The reason why is you would have to give a little to get a little rather than dictating to others what is going to be done. That didn't happen in England with its Brexit. What most people in the United States missed is that most Scottish people voted for a specific Scottish only party. Scotland doesn't want to leave the EU! Look forward to Scotland having yet another vote to leave the UK and become a separate country.
3. Will the Popular Vote get rid of all the problems that a Electoral College Vote has? I don't think so. If what you are after is a perfect voting system I don't believe there is one. All I am saying is that for what ever positives you are giving up with the Electoral College Vote you will be gaining even more positives with a Popular Vote that replaces it. Further, you will be eliminating lots of negatives that accompany an Electoral College system. It depends on your own personal preference whether you see more viable political parties is a positive or a negative. But if both of the present two parties are not to your liking what can you do. Many voters have finally got so angry and disillusioned with both of only two viable parties they finally just gave up and left. That is what we have right now. Is that a positive? I don't think so.
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