It's actually nine states, and it very well may be unconstitutional. Even if it isn't, it seems to me like a bad policy move anyhow. The effort spent on a reform like that would be better spent just moving to a pure popular vote.

Which, let me say, I don't support. Do we really want to have to recount the whole country's votes rather than just Florida's?

I never really understood the popular vote discussion; the system in which small states have a somewhat larger vote seems really quite reasonable to me - and I live in an area that would be lightly disfavored if ever such a system were introduced here.
One thing that has always puzzled me, however, is the thing with the "electors". I don't understand why the math isn't simply worked out on Washington without the "electors" intervening; just directly choosing the President based on what the electors *should* vote seems faster and fairer, no?

Redhouse - well - hope I'm getting this right - the electors are there in case nobody secures enough votes to actually win the election. The first time they vote, they are obligated to vote for whom they are there to represent. But, if nobody get's enough votes to win, then the horse trading begins...the candidate can direct his/her electors to vote for someone else, or they can just go off and vote for who they want.

Not really how it works, krellin, but the right kind of idea. At any rate, this is a complication that wouldn't arise under a popular vote. If in the reform they use the same first-past-the-post process that's used at virtually all other levels a candidate could win with just a plurality of the popular vote. Do we really want to put the country through a run-off when the Democrat got 49% and the Republican 48%?

@krell
It's also not a complication that would arise if - and that's what I believe happens most of the time - if somebody does secure enough votes to win an election. You can always put these guys on "stand by", only to actually go be an elector if the results demand it? Anyways, I never really got it.

Invictus - it's a complication that has only arisen like twice ever anyway.

"Do we really want to put the country through a run-off when the Democrat got 49% and the Republican 48%?"

If noone gets over 50%, I say we just leave the White House empty for 4 years, and decree that no law can be passed until the next election. Shut down the government, everyone go home.....Businesses would boom with 4 years of stagnation knowing there would be no government meddling, allowing businesses to plan at whatever tax rates/regulations were in play.

krellin, only in some states are the electors bound to vote for who their state supported.

More parties in our current Montesquieu inspired government format would be a recipe for total paralysis. So long as the minority can block whatever it wants in the Senate, dividing the system further will only lead to trouble. And even in a parliamentary system, more parties means coalitions between groups who do not get along.

those groups already exist within the current two parties. It just might allow a little bit more compromise/hrse trading between smaller parties to gain a majority

Small parties will be too doctrinaire to coalition with larger parties.

So what you end up with is even more moderate government (coalitions between the leftovers of the mainstream parties ala Germany or Ireland), when usually the ideologues are the ones who want more parties in government.

'Small parties will be too doctrinaire to coalition with larger parties. ' why? Assuming smaller parties can't get anything done without a compromise and majority... which is kinda ho the US fed works anyhow.

Yeah but some small parties would rather not be in government and remain "principled", albeit small. I highly doubt any libertarian party would coalition with anybody.

This talk about whether third parties would be too doctrinaire is a waste of time. Sustainable third parties CANNOT arise in a first-past-the-post system like we have.

Americans who don't have political science degrees probably don't even know there are other ways to structure a voting system. Whether or not that's true, the fact that there is ZERO movement for voting system reform in this country means that this talk of a third party is hot air. If people were serious about the need for another party they'd focus their efforts on reform.

Most people understood this to be a hypothetical question.