A month or so ago, I was talking with a guy in my pace group during a run about politics in general and at one point I made a flippant remark about how the Electoral College system for our general election is an outdated & rotten one that should be trashed - a position he disagreed with. While neither he, nor I, had any particular specifics to convince the other at the time (I’m kinda amazed that we were able to discuss the topic given the fact that I think we were running 16 miles at the time), it’s something that’s kind of hung in the back of my mind. For those friends that follow politics in a way that informs them as to the general workings of the Electoral College and its weaknesses, this was the first time in recent memory that I could recall speaking with someone who didn’t have a problem with the EC.

I was just skimming through some old posts (as previously mentioned) and tripped over the “Quote of the Day” discussion Erik Barzeski of NS(Log); was having about the EC. I only sporadically visit his blog primarily because a lot of his interests (hunting, golf, etc) are not mine and I don’t really agree with his views on politics (Why do I go there? Well, he does have some interesting posts & I’m always interested in seeing what percolates in the minds of other Mac folks), but the discussion reminded me of this earlier discussion. While Erik suggests that the EC is pretty screwed up in its proportionality (which I agree with), he initially suggests a “fix” that just blew my mind due to the fact that it would fix nothing. In the comments, he eventually comes around to my own personal viewpoint - why shouldn’t we abolish the EC and move to a popular vote? With the crisis in abysmal voter turn-out, why keep in place that which pretty much reinforces the unlikely-voter’s impression: that ultimately, no, that individual’s vote doesn’t really count?

Alternatively, why not move to instant runoff elections (a.k.a ranked choice)? I remember first hearing about such a proposal when Peter Camejo was running for governor with the whole California recall mess - it’s a system that the Green Party backs (surprise, surprise). Basically, you rank the candidates in order of preference whom you think should get the job. Once the polls close, they count each candidate’s #1 votes and if there is no majority winner, they toss the candidate with least number of #1’s. The #2’s from those ballots then get redistributed to the other candidates. Ballots are recounted and the process begins anew until there is a clear majority winner. This way everyone’s vote is counted and there aren’t any spoiler candidates (read: Nader). In fact, I had just found out in researching this that San Francisco has implemented this system for their local elections.

In kinda-related news, Colorado is considering moving from a winner-take-all to a proportional approach for their EC votes.