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Originally Posted by smooth
I support the Electoral College (despite the current advantage it gives the Republicans) and would like to see changes in two areas:
1) proportional awarding of electoral votes, from the state level as Colorado is considering
2) Instant run-off voting
I have read that another way to make the EC more representative (which I do not have a problem with) would be to raise the number of speakers in the House. One issue I have with that, however, is the cost of adding a few hundred more legislatures. Possibly this is the cost of 'democracy.'
I'm not convinced that the semantic corrections between using "Republic" versus "Democracy" serve much purpose. Everyone who is a citizen of this nation within these discussions knows the political reality in which they live. Democracy is not a single concept--there are many flavors of democracy around the world. When people speak to the country being a democracy, or that it ought to be more democratic, I find that they are usually speaking about empowering the electorate. Saying that we are a Republic or Representative Government does not undermine the claim that voters deserve or need to be more empowered, to my mind.
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Smooth, an excellent and substantive post, which I agree with a lot of as well.
I am a whole-hearted supporter of the EC, although I do think that like all good things, it can be improved. The basic premise may have originally been protection of smaller states from being overwhelmed by large ones, and that is partially true today. However, I think it is more important that we not allow candidates to merely curry favor among population centers, and instead be supported by broad based popular will.
I don't necessarily think that new moves, such as Colorado's new plan, are really the right way to go. Granted, it is up to each state to make its own game-plan, but I do think that the winner-take-all approach to a block of EVs is the key to the EC. I do however, support apportioning EVs on the basis of population versus number of Congressmen. This would not change the fact that one would need broad support as opposed to merely strong support amongst a limited, but populous set of states.
The proplem with breaking up the EVs of states is that it becomes simply then a more granularized popular vote, losing some of the moderating effect of the EC's current situation.