About 3-party voting systems . . .
With the huge amount of interest in changing the way we vote, it would be good for us to look at Chapter 17 of Jordan Ellenberg’s book How Not to be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking. The entire book is worth reading, but Chapter 17, There is no such thing as Public Opinion, is particularly important for those wishing to fiddle with our elections, and especially those interested in elections with three or more candidate. It is fascinating how different candidates would win elections based upon different ways of counting the votes.
Now, as for the eliminating the Electoral College, I am adamantly opposed to changing it. In 2016 Hillary Clinton won 48.2% of the total popular vote to Trump’s 46.1%. If we had no Electoral College, Hillary would be President now. However, she won only 232 of the 270 votes needed to win (which includes the votes of 7 electors who failed to uphold their pledge to support the candidate winning the majority of the popular vote.)
Hillary won 487 counties nationwide, compared to 2,626 for President Trump. Hillary won wealthy, populous Democrat-majority counties who would have exerted an undue influence on the election absent the Electoral College.
The Electoral College is essential because it considers the winners in each state and assigns its electors to support that candidate. Without it – if we looked at only the popular vote – large swaths of the country would be unrepresented in national elections, which is to say that those citizens need not bother to cast a vote for President.
Posted on 01 Nov 2020, 13:22 - Category: The Electoral College and multiple candidates
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