Editor: While our nation gets closer to its midterm election, issues that focus our attention towards the president are often discussed, as well. Here is a submission of an idea I wrote back in 2020 and I think it needs to be kept in our political discourse.
My idea is the follow:
The US Congress should amend the Constitution to make the Electoral College proportional by popular vote, thus eliminating ‘winner-take-all’. At present there are only two states that do not have a ‘winner-take-all’ Electoral College voting system are Maine and Nebraska.
What would a proportional Electoral College look like?
Let’s take California, for example, a so-called, “blue state”. If the Republican Candidate received 40% of the votes in California, a traditionally ‘blue’ state, while the Democratic Candidate 60%, then the electors will be divided accordingly.
By eliminating the ‘winner-take-all’ candidates couldn’t rely on traditionally ‘Blue’ or ‘Red’ states providing them with 100% of the electors, and thus, more representative of the electorate. In other words, making the Electoral College proportional, it would make every state ‘purple’.
What would be an outcome as a result of this reform?
Many who argue for removing Electoral College state the claim that the presidential nominees of the Democratic and Republican Party do not focus their attention to states with fewer electors, in other words, states with smaller populations. It is also likely that their campaigns won’t even send a surrogate to campaign in these states either. If the the nominees and their campaigns can no longer rely on ‘big’ states going totally ‘blue’ or ‘red’, then they would be encouraged, dare I say ‘forced’, to at least campaign in the states with fewer electors.
While I understand the motivation, to eliminate the Electoral College, I would suggest that reforming it in order to make it more reflective of the popular vote is more feasible.
—A.J. Jarrett, via letters@sentinelcolorado.com
Oh my god! I’ve been proposing such a system for years.
Yep!