Did you know Kerry Lost Ohio by 1 vote per precinct in 2004?

[JSt0rm]

Originally posted by: Corn

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Yea you would Craig, you'd have to build a wall to stop people from leaving illegally.

In the period 1995?2000, 1,448,964 people moved into the state and 2,204,500 moved out, for a net loss of 755,536.

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and

Based on data from moving companies, California had the second-highest domestic population out-flow of any state in 2005, according to the report, "despite the beautiful weather, beaches, and mountains."

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and lastly

The U.S. Census Bureau, which bases its calculations on Internal Revenue Service data, estimated that between July 1, 2000, and July 1, 2006, 950,592 more people left California for other states than moved in from other states. Last year alone, 287,684 more people moved out than moved in.

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LOL..........

California shall rise again! :laugh:

Living here isn't cheap. I liken it (living in West LA) to living in NYC. You better be really good at what you do or your out. Living in Manhattan or Santa Monica or Marin is the pinnacle of this and you are at the top of your game.

 

[Stunt]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Stunt, decent idea but it would still make a few very populous states the focus of the campaign and leave half of the country out.

The top 10 states hold half of the countries people.
The top 15 cities alone hold around 100 million people or a third of our population.

Candidates would focus nearly all of their attention on those states and cities and practically ignore the rest of the country.

I disagree.
Right now there's only a few swing states (OH, PA, MI, FL, CO, NV, NM, MN, IA, MO, VA); the same number as your 'worst case' scenario with the highly populated states.

I am not advocating elimination of the electoral college in favor of popular vote, just equivalent electoral votes for the popular vote earned in each state. This way every vote in every state counts; a presidential nominee would be stupid to spend too much resource in large cities and populous states as the advertising is more expensive and it takes far less people in rural states to earn the same number of electoral votes.

I'd be interested to see what the results would be in the last 2 elections with proportional electoral votes...

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: Stunt
-snip-
it takes far less people in rural states to earn the same number of electoral votes.

No, I'm pretty sure that electoral votes are based on 2 things (1) senators (2 for each state) and (2) House members. House members are based on population. I.e., aside from from the 2 electoral votes awarded each state for senators, the rest are based on population.

Fern

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: Stunt
I'd be interested to see what the results would be in the last 2 elections with proportional electoral votes...

Sort of close to what you wish:
"In his successful bid for reelection in 2004, Republican George W. Bush won the popular vote in 255 of the nation's 435 congressional districts, a 75-seat edge over Democrat John Kerry?s 180. "

So if we did the 1 electoral vote per district thing that a lot of people favor Bush would have won the election easily.

255 congressional districts plus two votes per state for the 31 states he won = 317 electoral votes, a bigger margin than his actual total.

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Stunt, decent idea but it would still make a few very populous states the focus of the campaign and leave half of the country out.

The top 10 states hold half of the countries people.
The top 15 cities alone hold around 100 million people or a third of our population.

Candidates would focus nearly all of their attention on those states and cities and practically ignore the rest of the country.

As opposed to leaving all of the country out as opposed to about 6 states with far less of the population. Sounds pretty good to me. You realize that our electoral system is one of the things that gives our country its insane policy towards Cuba, things like that, right?

And you are more than welcome to keep saying the "Gore only won the popular vote in the US because more people in a state voted for him".

 

[MadRat]

I don't like how in Nebraska we have three Congressional districts and the lines are drawn up so Omaha basically dominates one of them when their sheer size allows them to already dominate the senator elections. I'd like the EC votes to get divided up East - West - North - South, giving the state four EC districts, and the popular vote winner would get the remaining EC vote. This way we get fair representation in the presidential race. As it is now all of the EC votes are to the winner. Even in the primary the delegates get split by fractions of the vote. The EC vote should largely work the same way.

I have a feeling if every state had a n-1 voting districts with the popular vote getter winning the odd EC vote, things would get much more interesting on election day. Rather than candidates working a few large swing states they could try to manage a few EC districts to turn the tide. And 3rd party votes would actually count for something!