The impact of gerry-mandering on Congressional districts makes the use of the NE/ME method too risky - it could lead to States which are currently very sensible about their redistricting, being targeted by national parties for gerry mandering.
A much preferable system is the system proposed as
Colorado Amendment 36.
For example, if a State has 5 EVs and the result is as follows:
Bush - 55%
Gore - 45%
then each 20% gained by a candidate gets one EV, so Bush and Gore both get 2 to start with.
Then we go to the residual %s:
Bush - 55-40 = 15%
Gore - 45-40 = 5%
Bush has a higher residual and gets the final EV.
Total:
Bush - 3
Gore - 2
Certainly it overcomes any gerry mandering argument, and any districts which go Dem/Rep by lop-sided margains tend to be evened out by other districts in the State.
According to the great Dave Leip's
own calculations, the EC in 2000 would have gone:
Gore - 269
Bush - 263
Nader - 6
The academic, yet interesting question, is whether Nader's electors might have gone faithless...
