Colorado: another nail in the elctral collg coffin

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

It just changes the method of how electoral votes are counted...not the end of the college itself...infact if all 50 states used this method Bush would have won by a larger margin in 2000...

If every state casted their EV's based on the popular vote of their state, the results would have been:

Bush - 259 EVs
Gore - 258 EVs
Nader - 7 EVs
Other - 14 EVs

**** Damn . . . that was a pain in the butt spreadsheet to come up with.  hehehe ****

Who is getting these other electoral votes?  The only place where anyone got more than 2% besides Bush, Gore, and Nader was Buchanan is North Dakota, which would have just split 2-1 for Bush.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Here's the results I get using the proportional method nationwide in 2000:

Gore - 264
Bush - 263
Nader - 11
Others - 0

Nader gets 2 EVs in California, and 1 in CO, FL, IL, MA, MI, NJ, NY, OH, TX.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I tried to calculate this myself, for California and Colorado.  I have some problems with the math.

California- 54 electoral votes:
Gore- 53.45% * 54 = 28.86, round to 29
Bush- 41.65% * 54 = 22.49, round to 22
Nader- 3.82% * 54 = 2.06, round to 2
29 + 22 + 2 = 53.  Where does the missing EV go?

Same thing in Colorado- 8 electoral votes:
Bush- 50.75% * 8 = 4.06, round to 4
Gore- 42.39% * 8 =3.39, round to 3
Nader- 5.25% * 8 = 0.42, round to 0

I guess NickG gave 23 to Bush in California, and as he said 1 to Nader in Colorado.

You don't round, you truncate.  This will leave you with 1 or 2 left over EVs in every state...you assign these to the one or two candidates with the highest remainders.

So in California:
Gore - 28.86
Bush - 22.49
Nader - 2.06

28+22+2 = 52, so you have two EVs left to assign.  These go to Gore (remainder .86) and Bush (remainder .49)

Gore 29, Bush 23, Nader 2 in CA.


In Colorado:
Gore  - 3.39
Bush - 4.06
Nader - 0.42

3+4+0=7, so 1 EVs is left to assign.  This goes to Nader, because he has the highest remainder.

So Gore 3, Bush 4, Nader 1 in CO.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Question:

Let's say in 2012 afetr re-aportionment, Colorado has 10 EVs (or any even number will do)

Suppose the vote is say 54/46 - ie somebody has a fairly clear win.

A 5/5 EV split is closer than a 6/4 split.

Does this mean that even though you won a state by 8% you get exactly the same number of EVs as the guy who lost it...?

I think this is how it would work.   If Nader is able to get around 5% in CO this year, the state could split 4-4-1.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Out of curiosity, I ran the spreadsheet for using this system in all states in the 1996 election:

Clinton - 267
Dole - 224
Perot - 46
Nader - 1 (in CA)

Meaning this election would have been thrown into a Republican-dominated House and Senate!  Of course, I could definitely see the Nader elector and a couple Perot electors defecting to Clinton in this case...but this is still alarming.

Of course, this system in 1992 would also have thrown the election into the House, but Clinton would have almost certainly won the House vote that year.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

In 1980, under this system, Reagan avoids a House vote narrowly:

Reagan - 276
Carter - 223
Anderson - 37
Clark (Lib) - 2 (CA & NY)

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Having this system nationwide would actually be a HUGE benefit to the small states, because it would make it MUCH more likely that they election would be thrown into the House.  And when that happens, each state gets one vote, no matter the size.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

There is a lot of speculation here about how the electoral votes would be split up if this passes.  The text of the proposed amendment is here:  http://tinyurl.com/48u77

Here's the process:  

1.  Multiply the proportion of votes for each candidate by the number of electoral votes for Colorado (this year, 9).

2.  Round these numbers off to the nearest whole number.

3.  If the total is too big, take electoral votes away from the last candidate receiving electoral votes until the number is right.  If, after taking away all of the last candidate's votes, the number is still too big, take electoral votes away from the next-last candidate.

4.  If the total is too small, give any unallocated votes to the candidate receiving the most votes.

In 2000, it would have gone this way:

Bush:  .5075 x 8 = 4.06, rounded to 4.
Gore:  .4239 x 8 = 3.3912, rounded to 3.
Nader:  .0525 x 8 = 0.42, rounded to 0.
Browne, etc. all round to 0.

4+3+0=7, which is too few.  Bush won the state, so he gets the extra vote.

Bush 5, Gore 3, others 0.

This is a poor way to do this allocation.  It should really be done the same way the census allocates congressional seats (and electoral votes) to the states, which I believe is the "truncate-plus-largest-remainders" method described earlier.  

In the case of CO above, both Nader and Gore were much closer to getting the final electoral vote than Bush, yet it is still awarded to Bush.  

With a large field, the distribution could get even stranger.

Consider a 5-candidate field in a state with 10 EVs:
A - 36%
B - 24%
C - 14%
D - 13%
E - 3 %

Under the "Colorado" system, the EVs would be allocated like this:

A - 6
B - 2
C - 1
D - 1
E - 0

While under the "truncate-plus-remainder" system, they would work out this way:

A - 4
B - 3
C - 2
D - 1
E - 0

Which seems much more logical to me.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

So is Colorado going to use this system or not? Or is it still being decided from within the courts?

It will be decided by the voters on elections day.  If it passes, it will probably also have to be decided by the courts...but only with respect to whether it applies to the current elections or not. If Maine and Nebraska's systems are constitutional, I don't see how there would be anything wrong with this one in general.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I support reforming or abolishing the electoral college and changing the way our votes are counted, but after reading the text, this amendment seems deeply flawed.  

It is plainly illogical for an referendum to specify the method by which it will be potential recounted in the text; this text should only be effective once the amendment has already passed!  

And there is no reason why the electors should be chosen randomly...they should be ranked just like the party lists used in other countries with proportional representation.

The point made by jimrtex about your vote for president meaning something different whether this amendment passes or fails is also a good oone...people need to be clear on what they are voting for before being made to cast their vote.  And as I mentioned above, the algorithm for actually assigning electors is illogical and seems to have been made up on the fly rather than using existing models, like the one used in the US census.

Having said all that, I would still vote for the amendment were I a Colorado voter.  Whatever my problems with the amendment, I have far more problems with Bush, and would cast my vote in whatever way would make his political demise more likely.