Sunday, October 26, 2008

Rasmussen Reports electoral college breakdown

I always find the Rasmussen Reports electoral college breakdown to be an interesting and easy read.

Tim White

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The "Electoral College" should be looked at. I don't believe this is the right way. If all the votes go to the candidate that wins the popular vote in CT does my vote really count??? Each candidate should get a percent of the EC votes for the State. We might see all the candidates visit every State at least ONE time this way.

October 27, 2008 9:23 PM
Anonymous said...

I see it as "six of one, half dozen the other." But the effort in amending the constitution makes it not worthwhile.

Of course, we could just ignore the Constitution... as we seem to on so many other "important issues" nowadays where following the Constitution would slow things down too much. (snark)

October 27, 2008 11:55 PM
Chipmaker said...

States can set up EC vote distribution however they want.

Note, however, that this generally makes a state a much less desirable target for national campaigning.

Connecticut currently holds seven electoral votes.

In the winner-take-all distribution, the winner gets all seven. Easy.

In a pro-rated distribution, each candidate gets part of those seven. Since presidential general elections tend to have votes split pretty close to 50-50 -- say, 52-48 -- that means the winning candidate would get four, the runner-up, three.

Which effectively transforms Connecticut into a ONE-vote state. 4 - 3 == 1.

And a ONE-vote state isn't going to command much interest from a national campaign. There goes a lot of campaign spending, candidate visits, greasing of wheels, smoky back-room deals for whatever.

Staying with a winner-take-all distribution tends to favor the state's internal financial interests.

And it's always all about the money.

October 31, 2008 12:45 AM

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