Talk Elections

These are the 2008 results if all states voted like Maine and Nebraska. If anyone has such results for any other elections, feel free to post.

Republican delegates won, by state:

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236 electoral votes

West: 91 electoral votes
South: 102 electoral votes
Midwest: 26 electoral votes
Northeast: 17 electoral votes

Democratic delegates won, by state:

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302 electoral votes

West: 91 electoral votes
South: 57 electoral votes
Midwest: 70 electoral votes
Northeast: 84 electoral votes


Gain in delegates for statewide loser by state:

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Net winner of delegates by state:

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302-236

That would give Obama 56.4% of EVs and McCain 44.1%. That would be much more representative of the popular vote, which gave Obama 52.9% and McCain 45.6%.

By contrast, the current winner-take-all system gives Obama 67.8% of the EVs and McCain 32.2%, way off from the popular vote results.

True, but in other elections such as 2000 and 2004 it is much less representative of the popular vote than the winner-take-all method. If the election is close (the only time in which the system used actually matters), it will almost certainly be less representative.

Also, if you think gerrymandering is bad now, just wait and see what it would look like under this system....

Good work.  I was hoping to see something like this.

It's more representative of the popular vote, yes, but still way off.  The problem with applying a system like Maine-Nebraska to the whole nation is that you're still maintaining a winner-take-all system; albeit on a slightly more localized scale.

For example, currently the people in, say, KS-01 who vote for Democratic presidential candidates have their votes completely ignored once the whole state of Kansas elects a 100% Republican slate of electors.  If Maine-Nebraska were implemented, the people of KS-01 would still have their votes ignored once the district votes for its sole Republican elector.

And then of course there's the gerrymandering factor.  The only way to counter this would be to have the House Representative-equivalent quotient of each state's electoral votes be elected proportionally rather than by the specific district.

But then of course you still have the argument that the states themselves could be considered gerrymandered.  In 2000, for example, Bush didn't win a plurality of the popular vote, and yet won nearly 59% of the actual states+DC.  That means that he won 60 of the Senator-equivalent electoral votes to Gore's 42, again having lost the popular vote.

It seems the only way to make the electoral college legitimately representative of the popular vote is to match it 1:1; i.e. to abolish it in effect.

Oh and also, look at Indiana and Missouri.  Obama won Indiana's statewide popular vote, and lost Missouri's by a margin of 0.13%, and yet in each case McCain won six districts to three.

There are a bunch more examples, and of course it all comes back to the gerrymandering issue.

Same information for the 2004 election. I'm just kind of killing time due to insomnia so if anyone spots any errors, let me know. Bush taking nearly 60% of Michigan's delegates seemed a bit strange unless I screwed up. Atlas only has Cong Dist results for some states so I had to resort to other sources.

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West: 115
Midwest: 57
South: 115
Northeast: 25
312 electoral votes

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West: 67
Midwest: 39
South: 44
Northeast: 76
226 electoral votes



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And, 2000...

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West: 106
Midwest: 51
South: 111
Northeast: 19
287 electoral votes

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West: 70
Midwest: 50
South: 44
Northeast: 87
251 electoral votes


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You see, Kerry loses MI, gets tied in MN, takes only 25% of OH seats despite losing the State by a 2% margin, and has only a 3 seats majority in PA.

Congressional districts suck.

There's no reason why voters in those congressional districts should have their votes disregarded just because another candidate won a larger artificial boundary they happen to be located within. If Michigan and Indiana happened to have been one state, I doubt you would think it fair that Bush took all the votes in all the districts of both states as he would under winner-take-all.

Congressional districts are far better than what we have now, and would be even better if we just stopped Republocrat gerrymandering.

The problem is that you won't stop gerrymandering. It's the congenital disease of every system using constituency voting.

But compare Nebraska and Kansas. Both states at-large voted about 56.5-41.6 McCain. Within them, however, NE-02 and KS-03 both voted about 51% for Obama. Nebraska cast one of its' electors to Obama and the people of NE-02 were represented. Kansas cast all of its electors for McCain and ignored the winner of KS-03. You think Kansas has the better system than Nebraska?

You clearly misunderstood my post if you think I believe that Kansas has the better system than Nebraska.  People who live in KS-03 who voted for Obama had their votes disregarded, but if Kansas used the Maine-Nebraska method, then the people in KS-03 who voted for McCain would have their votes disregarded instead.

As I said before, the only way to ensure that nobody's votes are disregarded is either to ensure parity between the electoral college and the popular vote, or abolish the electoral college altogether.

Libertas, how were you able to modify the numbers? Which sources did you use? Because I'd like to know how to make an EV map candidate by candidate. :)

But those are the two systems being compared here. One is used in 48 states, and the other, in 2.

One benefit of the Maine-Nebraska system, even if it didn't match up perfectly with the popular vote, is that it would make it worthwhile for candidates to spend time in places other than the big swing states. Obama had reason to pay attention to NE-02 (in fact I recall at one point the Obama campaign believed that winning that district was the key to coming out on top in a 269-269 tie they foresaw happening). A lot of districts in "safe" states would actually get some attention from the presidential candidates, since every single district would count equally.


What about proportional representation?

You can modify the numbers manually.

When you put the map in your post, you'll see all the state abbreviations followed by three numbers. Change the second number.

AL=2;8;8

Sure, but I'm picking holes in both systems because I don't think that either of them are really any good.


I can agree that that's certainly an improvement, but opening up Republican localities in otherwise safe Democratic states (and vice versa) is also a feature of electoral college abolition.


As I pointed out already, that would certainly help counter the gerrymandering issue.  However, look at states with small populations.  Distributing the electoral votes proportionally in states like Montana (McCain 49%; Obama 47%) doesn't really work when McCain still wins all three votes.  Even in states with only four EVs, a narrow margin of victory for one candidate would still cause a 3-1 distribution of the electors.

The Michigan 2004 results help to illustrate how well the GOP gerrymandered the districts here in the last round of redistricting.

Yes, some congressional districts would become more important under the district system (swing districts in non swing states) but just as many would become less so (non swing districts in swing states).

Why would a candidate spend a lot of time in safe districts anyway? I don't think there's any sensible system that would make it worthwhile for a candidate to focus a lot of resources on the Bronx or the Oklahoma panhandle.

Why is it any less sensible to attempt to get these votes than the votes of anyone else?

Popular vote. Could you imagine the rallies Obama could put together in the Bronx if he wanted to? On second thought, it's probably better not to...

The electoral college is an anti-democratic anachronism that needs scraped in favor of pure popular vote. While in theory the ME-NE system is slightly more democratic, in practice it's only purpose for nationwide implementation is to ensure Republicans win the electoral college even if they lose the popular vote by several million.

If someone is willing to build on Libertas's work to determine at what point in the national vote (assuming each CD vote tracked national changes) it would take McCain to win the EC, or Gore in 2000, you'll see my point quite vividly.

Well, for one thing, those voters aren't sensible to begin with.  McCain could have spent the whole campaign in D.C. and still not broken out of the single digits. Obama could have spent the whole campaign in Oklahoma and still not have broken 40%.

The candidates should focus on undecided voters who are willing to become informed on the choices they face, not on party-line hacks.

I said sensible system. Thank you for illustrating another reason why using the national popular vote would be such a terrible system.

For Gore to win in 2000 under the Maine-Nebraska method, he would have needed to pick up 18 electoral votes. Assuming a uniform swing from Bush to Gore and no change in third party votes, these 18 votes would have been the first to flip:

FL (Statewide) (0.01% margin) 2 votes
VA-4 (0.20% margin) 1 vote
FL-8 (0.28% margin) 1 vote
MI-10 (0.53% margin) 1 vote
WA-3 (0.85% margin) 1 vote
PA-21 (0.90% margin) 1 vote
NH (Statewide) (1.27% margin) 2 votes
IA-3 (1.40% margin) 1 vote
AR-2 (1.42% margin) 1 vote
MN-1 (1.68% margin) 1 vote
MN-6 (1.97% margin) 1 vote
FL-7 (2.06% margin) 1 vote
IA-4 (2.08% margin) 1 vote
CA-44 (2.45% margin) 1 vote
AZ-5 (2.46% margin) 1 vote
OR-5 (2.47% margin) 1 vote

For McCain to win in 2008 under the Maine-Nebraska method, he would have needed to pick up 34 electoral votes. Assuming a uniform swing from Obama to McCain and no change in third party votes, these 34 votes would have been the first to flip:

NC (Statewide) (0.32% margin) 2 votes
CA-3 (0.48% margin) 1 vote
CA-48 (0.75% margin) 1 vote
CA-44 (0.94% margin) 1 vote
IN (Statewide) (1.03% margin) 2 votes
CA-25 (1.11% margin) 1 vote
WI-6 (1.19% margin) 1 vote
NE-2 (1.22% margin) 1 vote
VA-4 (1.53% margin) 1 vote
MI-1 (1.82% margin) 1 vote
MI-4 (1.90% margin) 1 vote
VA-2 (1.96% margin) 1 vote
FL-18 (2.19% margin) 1 vote
NY-19 (2.28% margin) 1 vote
NY-24 (2.36% margin) 1 vote
KS-3 (2.58% margin) 1 vote
TX-23 (2.69% margin) 1 vote
FL (Statewide) (2.81% margin) 2 votes
CA-24 (2.85% margin) 1 vote
NY-20 (3.00% margin) 1 vote
NJ-7 (3.47% margin) 1 vote
NY-1 (3.82% margin) 1 vote
WI-1 (3.95% margin) 1 vote
FL-22 (4.04% margin) 1 vote
CA-26 (4.07% margin) 1 vote
FL-10 (4.13% margin) 1 vote
CA-50 (4.18% margin) 1 vote
MN-1 (4.37% margin) 1 vote
CA-45 (4.58% margin) 1 vote
OH (Statewide) (4.58% margin) 2 votes

Obama's nationwide margin of victory in the popular vote was 7.27%, so in this scenario, McCain wins the electoral vote while Obama wins the popular vote. Furthermore, had North Carolina, Indiana, Florida, Ohio, and NE-2 went to McCain in RL, Obama still would have won the electoral vote 291-247. Therefore, it is clear that the Maine-Nebraska method gives an advantage to the Republican over both the current Electoral College system and the popular vote system.

Exactly. And has already been mentioned, implementing such a system nationally would likely encourage this disparity to get worse via gerrymandering.

And the rebuke there about rallies in the bronx is just silly. As if Obama finds he should rally in the Bronx, McCain might be encouraged to rally there too as obviously Obama is worried about getting enough votes out of New York to help in a national popular vote. The same could be said of McCain rallying in Oklahoma City. Obama's folks might of figured that as votes are votes, no matter where they might be, might as well try to persuade them, and follow suit.

Allot of critics of a national vote plan point to the idea that candidates would only go to big cities to campaign. Well... they already kind of do that, except its not just big cities, but its big cities in certain states. And sometimes more rural areas, but in the current makeup of political climates in the US, those rural areas are again in just the swing states.

A real national vote system wouldn't have had Obama and McCain chasing the margins in Ohio, Florida, and Missouri. You'd of seen them sweep through all fifty states and do some serious campaigning. What more, this would likely change drastically the political climate nation wide as suddenly both parties have organizations going on in all 50 states that are all essential to victory.

As for the congressional district method/proportional method in general, my final comment is that they are fake attempts to move towards a true national popular vote. A compromise designed to be poison at the end of the day, that is more likely to reward entrenched interests who hold the keys to the map room than it is to actually empower voters.

Ah, so the mask is off, I see. You are wise enough to know which voters are more important than others and whose votes should decide the outcomes of elections.

Thanks for educating us rubes who are naive enough to believe that all men are created equal and should be treated as such.

Nice work, Vazdul. Thanks!