Anyone want to do the exercise of figuring out what candidate would win with a proportional Electoral College?

I was thinking that each state could have 10,000 electoral votes, applied by percentage, to the 100th of a percent (.00), to each candidate.

I meant the actual amount of votes allotted for each state. I might work on it a little tomorrow afternoon, and see how far I get.

I gotcha. If a state had 66.66% of it’s peoples votes for a candidate, that candidate would get 6666 electoral votes from that state, and so on for the rest.

Wait, if it’s proportional, why wouldn’t it exactly mirror the popular vote? Why would you need an electoral college at all? The whole point of the Electoral College was to weight votes so the populous urban centers didn’t control everything.

@Jeruba I think it might not be exactly the same. Like NY is 56% Biden and 43% Trump and 29 electoral votes. So 16 votes for Biden I guess, but 16 is different than actually counting every person, because when you reduce it down to that small of a number there is a lot of rounding.

I’m curious because I went to a lecture a year or so ago about the EC, and how some of the states were trying to change their rules to the EC vote matching whatever the national popular vote is. When I suggested the compromise of each state doing a proportional vote the presenter said that the way she understood it, it would not help the Democrats win.

Well, what would be the point of introducing that distortion? Just count ‘em.

I guess the reason is states could divide electoral votes proportional to their popular votes without amending the US Constitution.

All the talk of changing the electoral college would be unnecessary of we just retuned to a House of Representatives that was apportioned the way the framers intended.

Be an Originalist. Expand the House to be one Representative for every 300,000 people. That would give California a proper number of 124 Representatives. And a total of 126 Electors.

I did this for 2016. Clinton wins, no surprise, she won the popular vote. The result is 540 electoral votes, not the correct 538, due to rounding.

For example, a mechanism would be needed to decide how to split 4 votes in Hawaii. Clinton won 62%. That is right between 2/4 and ¾. Does she get 2 or 3? I just let Excel round it to 2.

Actual Electoral College result
304
227 Clinton
7 Other

Proportional within each state
252 Trump
258 Clinton
30 Other

2016 Proportional Vote by State
EV = Electoral votes
R = Trump votes
D = Clinton votes
Other = Other votes

State…....EV…....R…....D…....Other
AK…....03…....51%.......37%.......12%
AL…....09…....62%.......34%.......04%
AR…....06…....61%.......34%.......06%
AZ…....11…....49%.......45%.......06%
CA…....55…....32%.......62%.......07%
CO…....09…....43%.......48%.......09%
CT…....07…....41%.......55%.......05%
DC…....03…....04%.......91%.......05%
DE…....03…....42%.......53%.......05%
FL…....29…....49%.......48%.......03%
GA…....16…....51%.......46%.......04%
HI…....04…....30%.......62%.......08%
IA…....06…....51%.......42%.......07%
ID…....04…....59%.......27%.......13%
IL…....20…....39%.......56%.......05%
IN…....11…....57%.......38%.......05%
KS…....06…....57%.......36%.......07%
KY…....08…....63%.......33%.......05%
LA…....08…....58%.......38%.......03%
MA…....11…....33%.......60%.......07%
MD…....10…....34%.......60%.......06%
ME…....04…....45%.......48%.......07%
MI…....16…....47%.......47%.......05%
MN…....10…....45%.......46%.......09%
MO…....10…....57%.......38%.......05%
MS…....06…....58%.......40%.......02%
MT…....03…....56%.......36%.......08%
NC…....15…....50%.......46%.......04%
ND…....03…....63%.......27%.......10%
NE…....05…....59%.......34%.......08%
NH…....04…....46%.......47%.......07%
NJ…....14…....41%.......55%.......03%
NM…....05…....40%.......48%.......12%
NV…....06…....46%.......48%.......07%
NY…....29…....37%.......59%.......04%
OH…....18…....52%.......44%.......05%
OK…....07…....65%.......29%.......06%
OR…....07…....39%.......50%.......11%
PA…....20…....48%.......47%.......04%
RI…....04…....39%.......54%.......07%
SC…....09…....55%.......41%.......04%
SD…....03…....62%.......32%.......07%
TN…....11…....61%.......35%.......05%
TX…....38…....52%.......43%.......05%
UT…....06…....46%.......27%.......27%
VA…....13…....44%.......50%.......06%
VT…....03…....30%.......57%.......13%
WA…....12…....37%.......53%.......11%
WI…....10…....47%.......46%.......06%
WV…....05…....68%.......26%.......05%
WY…....03…....68%.......22%.......10%

@Call_Me_Jay The 2016 numbers are interesting, thanks for that. I don’t think the states will ever move to proportional, but I have always been curious. I feel firmly the EC will get more and more blurred and messy and eventually Republicans might be the ones asking for a direct vote.

@Call_Me_Jay What? No totals??