
Ask HN: Will the US electoral voting system ever change? - fjahr
Obviously no elected president is motivated to change a system that brought him into office. Nevertheless it seems crazy that one candidate gets the most votes and another takes office. I am from Germany where 1 vote really means 1 vote. Am I missing ways that this process could be changed by? Or is this really on the president alone? What are the changes this will ever happen?
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r721
The surprisingly realistic path to eliminating the Electoral College by 2020

[http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/11/9/1594792/-The-
surpris...](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/11/9/1594792/-The-surprisingly-
realistic-path-to-eliminating-the-Electoral-College-by-2020)

~~~
mrgreenfur
And an oddly polite discussion in the comments, how strange!

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moyta
The United States is far different from Germany, each state acts internally
like a separate country in many ways, and we have a House & Senate to ensure
the less populous states do not get drown out by the larger states.

The electoral college was envisioned the same way, the founding fathers didn't
want the uneducated masses electing the president directly, so they set up
this arcane system where the governor of each state gets to appoint a certain
number of electoral college voters, then they vote for president. They can
generally vote how they please, to the point that a few have misspelled
candidates names and not been counted as having voted for any candidate.

What this system ends up creating is an area where in many states, your
individual vote literally does not matter since a vote in California is worth
nearly nothing compared to a vote in Florida or Michigan. Also, the US media
loves to dogpile on this and erroneously call states and guess at electoral
college votes months ahead of when they'll vote. Comparatively, where the
United States has set up democracies we do not do this, such as Iraq.

As to change, that is not going to happen short of people going out and taking
action to fight for the future. Us americans are very depoliticized and non-
participatory in our political parties, both major parties essentially lay
dormant till national elections come around.

We need to get out in the streets and fight for the future we want to see,
Martin Luther King didn't sit back at home and wait for a better America, nor
did the readers of Silent Spring. Change in America can be had, but it takes
activism, which most Americans think of as a dirty, unfamiliar thing with
serious risks (due to how our media portrays it). We need to mobilize &
empower Americans to fight for a better future.

------
iaskwhy
Not exactly what's being asked but I've seen some people (a lot?) incorrectly
implying Clinton got more than half the votes. In reality, at the moment,
52.3% didn't vote for her. This is relevant in the sense that in some voting
systems a presidential election in which the winning candidate gets < 50%
could allow a second vote (sometimes weeks later like in France; sometimes on
the same day, like voting for the London Mayor in the UK). In some cases this
could also allow defeated candidates to form a coalition for a new majority
aiming to replace the winning candidate.

One thing which is usually not discussed is the advantages of some systems
where the most voted candidate or party don't win the election like FPTP in
the UK.

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yaks_hairbrush
A lot of comments here are referencing the National Popular Vote Interstate
Compact (NPVIC). If it ever comes to fruition, it would be a rather clever
hack to get around needing a constitutional amendment to change/abolish the
electoral college.

Don't get too optimistic about it going places, though. We've got three types
of states these days: red states, swing states, and blue states. Let's look at
incentives:

Blue states are the only ones to go for NPVIC so far, and it's easy to see the
incentive: Blue states have twice in the last 20 years seen their candidate
get more votes than the other and lose anyway. So far, blue states have
contributed 165 electoral votes to the effort, and could maybe contribute
another 17 or so (CT, OR, DE).

Swing states are not incentivized to go for NPVIC. Presidential campaigns
bring lots of money to swing states. Swing states have contributed 0 EVs so
far, and according to Wikipedia three such states are considering it: AZ, PA,
MI. I expect each of these to fail. It would be big news if any succeeded.

Red states: They've seen their preferred candidate win while getting outvoted
twice in the last 20 years. They currently see the NPVIC as Democrats asking
for a rule-change to make it easier for them to win. I could see red states
start to go for this if a Republican loses while getting more votes. Until
that happens, the red-state contribution to the NPVIC will at or near 0 EV.

~~~
LeanderK
if i read it right, its really clever but also not very nice to the other
states.

For the NPVIC not every state has to join it, it comes active when the states
that joined the NPVIC have a majority of the electors. Then the electors do
not vote according to who won their state, but to who won overall. So if the
democratic states and enough swing states all sign the NPVIC to get to 270
electors, they changed the rules of the game.

There is an realistic chance for it to succeed. I wouldn't give it 84% ;) But
it's not impossible.

~~~
yaks_hairbrush
But where's the NPVIC going to get the 270 EVs from? The blue state
contribution is just about maxed out, while swing and red states have no
incentive to join it.

------
MichaelBurge
States have gotten weaker relative to the federal government, so most people
identify as being a US citizen rather than a citizen of their state. Keep in
mind that Germany is smaller than California, a single US state; and Germans
will send representatives rather than vote directly in the EU.

If you view yourself as a citizen of your state, then you want to avoid the
problem of largely-populated states overruling everyone else. The Constitution
split the House and Senate to avoid New York setting law for the whole
country.

There are some bigger problems: States have a winner-take-all system to
magnify their impact in the election. This encourages politicians to spend all
their time on a few key battleground states.

I wouldn't mind seeing a Constitutional amendment that says, "The people
voting for a member of the House also vote for a member of the electoral
college, who is assigned to the same district". Then you'd see a few
Republicans win in California, and a few Democrats win in Texas. And it'd be
easier for 3rd-party candidates to get some visibility. There would still be a
statewide vote for the electoral college members tied to the Senate.

There was also an amendment proposed along with the Bill of Rights related to
the number of representatives. It was never passed:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Apportionment_Am...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Apportionment_Amendment)

 _Anti-Federalists, who opposed the Constitution 's ratification, noted that
there was nothing in the document to guarantee that the number of seats in the
House would continue to represent small constituencies as the general
population of the states grew. They feared that over time, if the size
remained relatively small and the districts became more expansive, that only
well-known individuals with reputations spanning wide geographic areas could
secure election. It was also feared that those in Congress would, as a result,
have an insufficient sense of sympathy with and connectedness to ordinary
people in their district._

~~~
Thiez
> There are some bigger problems: States have a winner-take-all system to
> magnify their impact in the election. This encourages politicians to spend
> all their time on a few key battleground states.

That sounds like a tragedy-of-the-commons type of situation.

Anyway, so it seems that your vote means more depending on which state you
happen to live in. Suppose we wish to preserve that property, why not simply
weigh all votes in each state by the number of representatives that that state
would have today, add everything together, and on those numbers decide which
candidate becomes president?

Edit: For example, we have states A and B. State A has 3 representatives and
100 inhabitants, and state B has 2 representatives and 50 inhabitants. We have
candidates X and Y. In state A, X receives 60 votes, and Y receives 40 votes.
In state B, X receives 20 votes, and Y receives 30 votes. Now we calculate the
winner:

X receives (3 * 60) + (2 * 20) = 220 "votes"

Y receives (3 * 40) + (2 * 30) = 200 "votes"

X wins.

~~~
MichaelBurge
One reason I'd oppose that is because you're making the federal government
choose how each state votes. You can already go to a small state and campaign
for changes to the voting method. Moving it to the federal level takes that
power away from your local community or state. If you forced every state to
vote the same way, I predict that method would never be touched by any
politician ever again.

As an example, Maine just passed Ranked Voting, as did Benton County, Oregon.
That kind of incremental change would be impossible if you moved it up to the
federal level.

[http://www.fairvote.org/maine_voters_adopt_ranked_choice_vot...](http://www.fairvote.org/maine_voters_adopt_ranked_choice_voting)

~~~
Thiez
I see your point, but the current system encourages states to use a winner-
takes-all system because it maximizes the influence of that state, which is
hardly ideal. It'd be a shame to pass up on a good system (or one that is
better than the one you are using now, in my opinion) just so you can forever
experiment around with individual states. "Perfect" is the enemy of "good" and
all that.

~~~
taejo
You can also prevent the tragedy of the commons, without federal interference,
through an inter-state compact (basically a treaty/contract between states).

------
joeclark77
It is meaningless which candidate won the most votes, because the election was
not about winning the most votes. If it were, millions more Republicans in
hopelessly blue states like California might have voted, and similarly on the
other side. We do not know who would have won if it was understood that
victory depended on total votes.

~~~
r_smart
This is a really important point. Currently both parties (and voters)
strategize based around the rules that are in place. Once the rules change,
the strategies will change too. You'll still lose elections, and you'll still
end up outraged roughly half the time.

------
stevesearer
A bigger issue is that there are far too few representatives in the House.
With more reps (say 1:50000) there would be room for more diverse views to be
heard and represented (and likely additional parties).

As it stands right now, it is impossible for one person to reasonably
represent the views of 1M people.

Edit: also Eectoral votes are tied to the number of representatives + senators
+ DC, so there could be an effect there too.

------
exabrial
I feel like if we eliminated the Electoral College, presidential candidates
would only visit areas like La New York City Boston Chicago Atlanta to teach
the maximum number of voters.

Instead of removing it, are there ways we can improve it?

~~~
hga
Bingo, and this has been thoroughly analyzed.

The election would reduce to 8-10 urban areas, which also makes cheating a
_lot_ easier.

While we're at it, why don't we remove the other part of the great compromise
that gave each state 2 Senators (#electors = #of House of Representative
Members + 2)

And that's one reason it'll never happen, you won't get enough state
legislatures to vote their states out of relevance.

~~~
chdsbd
I'm curious. Why do you say this would make cheating easier?

~~~
exabrial
For a cheater, these are lucrative areas: Areas with low income and education
rates, where the populace doesn't typically vote. Stuffing the box won't go
noticed due to low election turnout.

In Kansas, we have a system to prevent ballot stuffing. You must show state or
federal issued ID. Your name must be in the pollbook for the location and pre-
registered before election day.

They have two areas: The first, you show your ID and they check your entry in
the location's pollbook. The fact that you showed up to vote along with the ID
you presented is recorded electronically statewide and is public information
instantly.

They then print an anonymous "voting ticket" and you're taking to a separate
area or room. A smart card is exchanged for your voting ticket is put into an
air-gapped system and you cast your ballot. Your smart card is removed and
tallied on a third air-gapped system. When the poll closes, the tally machine
is handed over to the county.

This system makes it nearly impossible to stuff the box, because the number of
votes cast at a location cannot exceed the number of IDs presented at the
checkin location. It doesn't protect from changing votes, which would require
a much more sophisticated attack on the machines themselves.

It's not perfect, but it is fairly good at stopping unsophisticated
opportunistic attackers. I would feel much better if all of the USA adopted
such a protocol if we go to a popular vote, but that's unlikely to happen, so
I can't say I'm comfortable moving away from the electoral college either.

~~~
maxerickson
Wait, what states don't use election rolls (id checks do vary by state)?

I'm a lot happier with paper ballots + electronic tabulation than I am with
electronic ballots, what do you think those parts of the process you describe
are adding?

~~~
hga
Right now it's nearly impossible to clean election rolls of dead etc. voters,
e.g. the Feds fight this hard.

However, state and Federal issued IDs have a subsidiary feature, perhaps even
more important that on the spot election verification now that I think about
it, in that they expire, and I'm sure some of them also have revocation
measures after the ID holder dies. This is much more true for people moving.

Agreed on the paper ballot + electronic counting, and very glad my county in
neighboring Missouri uses that system, I never trusted the totally electronic
or electromechanical systems I used in Arlington, VA or Brookline, MA

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mrfusion
We're closer than you think. Check it out:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Inters...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact)

Hopefully more states will come on board after this election.

~~~
smt88
Unlikely. Republican-controlled states have no incentive to do that, as a
national popular vote would help Democrats (the country is mostly more liberal
than the Republican platform). You see this reflected in the makeup of the
states that have signed so far.

------
sharemywin
There's another solution. Stop concentrating wealth in a few cities around the
country.

------
551199
The country is mostly red. Even though Clinton got 200k more votes I'm sure
you can see why the the electoral system is in place.

I like to add there is still 4 million votes that are being counted.
Projection even from CNN is that Trump wins the popular vote.

[0] [https://mishgea.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/geographic-
lands...](https://mishgea.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/geographic-lands..). [1]
[http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-10/trumps-
geographic-l...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-10/trumps-
geographic-l..).

~~~
dllthomas
> The country is mostly red.

One sq mile, one vote!

------
ars
See here:
[http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/](http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/)

It's getting closer.

------
samfisher83
Its going to be very hard. You need a constitutional amendment. You need to
first need 2/3s of congress and the house to approve it and then 3/4ths of the
states. Good luck with that ever happening. We have had popular and electoral
votes split a few times before and that hasn't changed the constitution.

------
greggy
Deal with it!

The election was won according to the previously set rules. That's why no one
paid any attention to California. If the rule was to win the popular vote, you
would see a lot different campaign with both the candidates paying much more
attention to states like California.

------
greggy
BTW, Trump is going to win the popular vote as well according to CNN -
[http://edition.cnn.com/election/results](http://edition.cnn.com/election/results)

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aibottle
I'd like to add to the question: How could Trump gain more than 50% of the
Electoral Votes given he had even less than 50% of the absolute votes?
(According to:
[http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/president](http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/president)
)

~~~
npiazza83
[http://imgur.com/a/5GTem](http://imgur.com/a/5GTem)

------
boznz
Fair = 1 person, 1 vote.

Unfair = !Fair

