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Ask HN: Will the US electoral voting system ever change?

31 points by fjahr ↗ HN
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?

47 comments

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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.

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...

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...

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

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.
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.

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 )
taejo
Because most of the votes Hillary got didn't help her win electoral votes: if you get 80% of the vote in a state, that gets you just as many electors as 50%+1. The remaining 30% is "wasted".
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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?
hga
Many many fewer precincts and political domains.

The US has a total of 3,143 counties or equivalents per Wikipedia, obviously divided between 50 states and D.C., each a separate political domain, both counties and states. Corrupting enough of those under the Electoral College's constraints is a lot harder.

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

jlangemeier
Because you're going directly off of the vote, instead of a representation of that vote via the elector for that area. It's a subtle difference, but one that brings to light some of the fears with direct election.
yongjik
On the other hand, under the present system the governor of, say, Florida can tilt the election by reducing/increasing the number of voting places in strategic locations. It may only affect 1% of the voters, but it can be enough.

The same action will move popular vote by only 0.06%, which means there's a much smaller chance of it changing the outcome of the election. As a result it would also discourage state/local governments from trying something funny (not enough incentives).

hga
On the other hand, under the present system the governor of, say, Florida can tilt the election by reducing/increasing the number of voting places in strategic locations.

Really??? That's not handled at the county level? It sure is in Missouri (http://www.moga.mo.gov/mostatutes/chaptersIndex/ChaptIndex11...), and I've never heard of it being done at the state level before---that would seem to be prima facie evidence of a discriminatory voting system---but maybe my education in this is lacking.

Hmmm, seems to be the same for Florida: http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Displ...

tbrock
Instead, today they mostly visit swing states. Is that any better?
hga
For one, it discourages polarization. Yeah, I'm sure many in California are happy it's a near 100% Blue State due to the coastal cities aside from San Diego, but that has consequences in being taken for granted or worse.

And anyway, speaking as someone who lives in a true 100% Red State part of Missouri (Jasper County in the extreme SW), that just changes which election matters, the primaries are were the action is. E.g. this year every county position I could vote for, plus my state house rep, was unopposed a couple of days ago. But that was most certainly not true in our August state primary!

ubernostrum
The counterargument is to look at current patterns of candidate visits. They already concentrate a huge amount of time, effort and money on a non-representative sample of the US, because the electoral college system prioritizes that non-representative sample.

Replacing one arbitrary non-representative sample with an arbitrary more-representative sample is not necessarily bad.

desdiv
CGP Grey's video addresses this point: https://youtu.be/7wC42HgLA4k?t=197
exabrial
I think CGP Grey ignores the elephant in the room and doesn't account for the metro areas of such cities... And there's the fact the eastern seaboard is one giant city from NYC to DC basically with no breaks between townships.
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.
joeclark77
What's more: if the shoe were ever on the other foot, say if the popular vote went for the Republican but the electoral vote was due to the Democrat, there isn't a chance in the world that the blue states would keep their end of the bargain. They would immediately sue and block it. The NPVIC is only meant to be binding on red states, and everyone knows it.
ubernostrum
Imagine telling a Republican "hey, how would you like all those rural Republicans in California to have their vote actually count for once?" Right now there's close to no point for a CA Republican to vote for president, because the state's going for the Democrat no matter what they do. Same is true for many states which go for Democrats: outside of the major cities they have significant Republican populations, who are aware their votes don't matter but suddenly would under a popular-vote system.
sharemywin
There's another solution. Stop concentrating wealth in a few cities around the country.
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.

boznz
Fair = 1 person, 1 vote.

Unfair = !Fair

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.