Intro

First some background: The legislative branch is composed of two houses -- the House of Representatives which allocates representation to each state dependent upon population and the Senate which allows each state to have an equal number of senators, namely two. All legislation must pass approval by both houses and must be signed by the president to become effective law. The president can veto legislation denying its passage, but his veto can be overridden by a 2/3 majority of the Congress via both houses. Such is part of the system of 'checks and balances' that keeps our government self-regulating against undue powers and tyranny or at least impeding them (in theory at least).

Having a Senate and a House of Representatives as described above was a compromise which kept small states from being totally drowned-out when voting on national laws while still retaining the just advantage of more populous states which is their greater net representation in the national congress. This bicameral compromise addresses both concerns and splits Congress half-and-half. Each house has a say on national legislation and each effectively has half of the power of Congress when it comes to the passage of laws -- one house votes with states as equals and the other house with states allotted votes according to relative populations.

Checks, Balances, Legislatures

Now if you oppose the electoral college, then you are also opposing a seedling of the nifty House and Senate compromise. Plus you are opposing the college's intermediary checks and balances and the opportunity for us to get the states to more closely match the mathematical function of the House and Senate when choosing a president. This is because the electoral college allocates to each state a number of electors for choosing the president which is equal to the number of senators and representatives that state has by both houses. So, if we constantly use that type of allocated representation for the passage of our national laws, why would we not employ similar mathematical principle in choosing a national leader?

The Constitution grants every state legislature the sole power to determine how those allocated electors are selected on behalf of their state to the electoral college. State legislatures used to appoint US senators and they ratify amendments to our constitution. So legislatures have intended function at the federal level. Until 1824, over a quarter of state legislatures were choosing presidential electors. Our earliest presidential races had substantially higher proportions than that choosing electors as opposed to total popular election of electoral college electors as we have today. Now you see that state legislatures choosing presidents directly is not out of the question.

As the archival presidential elections show, the founders desired not just checks and balances between government branches, but they also wanted checks and balances between government and the people as well -- functioning in both directions. This is because the founders knew the people could be swayed by radicals and mass movements possibly of tyrants or anti-Christ figures. An electoral college would possibly serve as an obstacle or delay to the acquiring of the presidency by such individuals since electors are not subject to office privileges or re-election nor are they the people voting directly. They can opt to act on their own accord thus serving as an intermediary check on presidential prospects. Electors too are subject to check and balance as they can pay penalties for not providing their promised vote. So when someone is about to essentially become a third of our national government, shouldn't the above elaborate system of checks be utilized on their acquisition of power? Shouldn't that choice be subdivided by states and by state populations just like our national government structure?

The privilege granted to you to vote for electoral college electors is an accommodation of your state legislature who feels you can be trusted at this time and thinks the masses are of stable enough mind, within sound reason and perceives the society as functionable and at relative peace. However, with today's goings on you have to begin to wonder if this is still a valid perspective or if ever allowing for a sole popular vote determination should ever have been dabbled with.

As stated above the checks and balances can work in reverse direction as well. Say if a group of electors were chosen by a state legislature and that group votes against a candidate where the people feel all this was done in an air of frivolity or without due regard, the people will focus their punishment on the state legislature in the following (or concurrent) election. Ideally, legislators with scruples would more likely only take such risk of retaliation if they felt that the people's interests were bent or the Republic faced trouble with a prospective national leader.

Powers of Representation

Before trying to do away with our important electoral college check, consider Canada. They determine their prime minister through the majority or by the plurality of seats won by a particular party in the representative house. While they do have a senate, the representative body is usually where the prime minister is derived from. Since this house is based on population, the national leader and the executive direction can solely be determined by the more populated eastern provinces while the western provinces garner substantially less influence. Thus, their national leaders are more skewed towards the views and concerns of the big east provinces. This is one reason there are growing secession sentiments and movements in western Canada. Without more electoral college balance, America may suffer in a similar fashion with New York, California, Texas, Florida and several other big states solely determining the outcome for president. It would be worse than it is now without an electoral college to give some boost to the smaller states. Actually, the current electoral college form usually does agree with the popular vote most of the time except for a few occasions. So why should popular vote purists bother to get rid of it altogether? The few times it has diverted from the popular vote it was probably a needed check to do so.

If you wish to complain about the electoral college, you should do so by focusing on the method your state legislature allows for elector selection. Mathematically, most states employ the all-or-nothing mode whereby all electors to the electoral college for a state are unanimously determined by winner of the state's popular vote. There are some advantages to having all-or-nothing in the current system. It will make candidates for president cater more strongly to the interests of your state or its majority in order to get all your state's electoral points. If your state is a smaller state it keeps you more competitive with the larger ones within that system. However, what if an opposing candidate wins? If they only have support of the minority in your state, they will have less incentive to accommodate your state in governing. If it is not as close a race in your state, will they opt to campaign in other states with closer races instead of vying for your state? Will candidates see your state as one big blob and carry a watered-down, disingenuous, common denominator stance towards you or would it be better if they could appeal more to the various regional issues in your state? You may wish to consider the pros and cons as there are many possible outcomes.

Technically, perhaps the current all-or-nothing system may have been thought of as a safety back in the day when travel was harsh, there were no instantaneous mass communications and there were no computers. Today, however, all of these amenities exist. Campaigns can travel anywhere quickly and the issues are more exposed to the masses. Ballots can be counted quicker and easier. So there is less cause to unanimously round up elector counts each state. Thus the more regional interests could shape races and hold their sway in close or not-so-close elections. If we were awarding a state's allocated electors by some kind of proportional showings, candidates would take interest in your state whether or not their polling was sufficiently beyond 50% as in today's system.

Considering relative representation amongst the states, the smaller states are boosted via electors in the electoral college but there is a stronger leaning towards population share in comparison to the Congress. For advancement, one plan we would consider is adhering the electoral college selection more closely to the proportions and original principle of the Senate and House compromise. So, during normal peaceful times with the masses of sound mind, we would encourage each state to select its allotted electors by allowing half to be determined by the state legislature. The other half would be chosen such that the proportion nearly reflects the popular vote of the state either by congressional (or smaller) districts or just the popular statewide vote. The former by district is more of a demographic method that reflects political distribution and densities, trends or infrastructure. It may indicate how a state politically operates at a closer level -- the majority momentum of communities on the ground.

Popular Vote By Districts or Statewide Proportions?

The district method provides an incentive for candidates to address majority concerns parsed through non-sovereign entities of equal populations within a state which can reflect the weight of regional issues. From a national vantage point, it is noticeably different from having vast sovereign states of various sizes acting as unanimous blobs to their common-denominator. An intrastate district method is consistent with how the U.S. House Representatives are selected. However, in some cases the district method could conceivably vary greatly in outcome from the popular statewide vote and go more towards unanimity due to effectively binary races with intra-district results that favor one candidate against any of the others across almost all districts. Thus, the latter method of employing the statewide popular vote result to the second half of electors presents an option. One may prefer this option as a check or counter balance to the district method that is used for the actual U.S. House selection. It also acts as a counter to the concerns of gerrymandering.

While it recognizes the contribution of every single ballot, a popular vote could be more prone to any concerns over statewide populism. Because of that, one may still prefer use of the district method which again provides for a consistency with the congressional selection scheme. Note that when the results of a race in a particular district do not yield a (threshold) majority or a threshold plurality victor, that district's tally will simply resort to the popular vote proportions for the candidates in that district. Generally, it depends on numerous circumstances whether the popular or district method better reflects the political interests of a state. For a compromise, average both together. Regardless of which option chosen, another version of the plan is to allow a third of the allotted electors to be selected by the state supreme court. Should some electors be chosen by a governor? It is interesting in itself to debate the possibilities.

Overview and Our Demand

The advantages to this plan are substantial for consideration. The nation would less likely be held hostage to just a few swing states during close elections. The several states would be more empowered because electors from each state are also allocated by state legislatures which brings state concerns and issues to the table. The legislatures' choice and the partitioned popular vote by each state can put more emphasis on regional topics. Also the smaller several states have a greater number (and perhaps proportion) of state governments for candidates to contend with and to be discerned by as opposed to just dealing with the fewer larger states' block vote. State legislators gain with their races garnering more attention since they will have an effect on presidential outcomes which means voters have even more incentive to turn out for state level elections. Overall, voters are more adequately represented using the conjunction of an intrastate popular or district vote along with the voter-determined state legislatures choosing electors. This is opposed to the current all-or-nothing popular vote across a state currently in use which gives no electoral voice to the minority.

There is a caveat to our plan. Originally, the U.S. Senate was intended to be comprised of senators who were chosen by state governments so that state governments would have representation and a check with the federal level. That would include a check and balance with the direct representatives of the people elected to the House. Today, we have no such thing since we elect senators by popular vote. Despite the Senate having some unique impeachment and other functions, it's popular make-up basically results in a functional two-house redundancy check-and-balance wise. Also, wouldn't senate appointments by a state insulate against large statewide, big-money campaigns that many complain about?

With the case being that the general populace has total monopoly in voting for the legislative and executive branches and perhaps until we re-establish state appointment of U.S. senators -- then the electoral college should be determined totally by state legislatures. State legislatures need some amount of voice and power returned to them at the federal level. Once senatorial appointment is resumed, then our aforementioned plan of combining popular vote with legislature-determined electoral college electors half-and-half by state would be initiated. (During the period of state legislatures totality, you will still have voice towards presidential selection because you determine the make-up of your state legislature. As noted above, popular vote determines 2/3 of national government, the states 0/3. By this caveat, that would rebalance it 1/3::1/3)

At any rate, we support the preservation of the electoral college while considering revamping it at state level to more closely resemble the congressional House and Senate compromise taking into account their effective bicameral proportions.

TAKE SPECIAL NOTE OF THIS: We consider the current times to be thwarted, skewed and have long been unfairly biased in favor of the Republican and Democrat candidates for decades through government campaign funding and manipulated ballot access. Thus to make up for all the years of untrue elections, we believe it fair and proper that for the next presidential election all of you pressure your state legislatures to allow only the selection of third-party and independent electors for president (or at least vice president) in the electoral college. This is on account of the long past and current electoral grievances. This would be a proper, compensatory check and balance.