[Vision2020] Proportional State Electoral Votes

[Tbertruss at aol.com]

Donovan et. al.

This is not boring at all.  These electoral college voting issues can 
determine the life and death of Americans, even local women and men who may face 
going to war in Iraq, or are there now, not to mention the price of gas, education 
funding, social security, health care, etc.  And of course change is needed 
to encourage participation in voting: how many people do not vote in states 
dominated by one party, because they know all the electoral votes for the 
presidency go only to the winner?

With some states allowing awarding split electoral votes and others not, 
there is the potential for what might be thought unfairness in the results.  If 
the states doing proportional electoral votes were concentrated to allow one 
candidate to "peel" electoral votes away from their opponent, while the states 
with winner take all electoral votes "stole" electoral votes from the same 
opponent, though by very small margins, this seems very unfair.

It does seem chaotic to allow states to award electoral votes by different 
systems that can radically change the impact of voters on the presidency.  

If Idaho had proportional electoral voting, consider how much more motivated 
Democrats would be to gain an electoral vote from Idaho for the Democratic 
candidate!

I think that it would overall be a benefit to the Democratic process to have 
proportional electoral voting, but perhaps best if it was mandated for all 
states.

Consider that if Florida had proportional electoral vote allocation in 2000, 
Gore would have won the presidency.  It would take some calculating, but I 
wonder if all states had awarded proportional electoral votes, would Gore have 
won in the 2000 electoral college?

Ted Moffett
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