The Washington Times of September 23 has this interesting analysis of various tricky outcomes for the upcoming presidential election, in relation to an electoral college tie, and other odd possibilities. Thanks to Professor Ronald Gaddie for the link.
I suppose that the most likely way for this particular malfunction of the awful Electoral College system to happen this year would be through a tie. But in 1992, it would have been more likely that Clintion and GHW Bush would have had different numbers of electoral votes, but neither with a majority, because of Ross Perot. What is far more likely this year is that, like in 2000 (with a boost from a very partisan Supreme Court), one major-party candidate will get a popular plurality but the other will win the presidency by getting an electoral vote majority. And of course then the witchhunting would begin about Nader, Barr, Baldwin et. al. as “spoilers.” Eliminating the Electoral College as we know would not be as important a democratic reform as doing away with the duopolistic regime in ballot access, but it would be an important one.
And the federal electors from Guam, PR, Samoa, the Virginial Islands, and the District of Columbia?
Since Honolulu, 1883 we sure have been acting like an empire, not a country!
Dave, if it wasn’t for the “awful” Electoral College we would have had to go over every vote, in every county, in every state of the U.S.
Michael, I don’t quite get your point. Counting all votes, and then recounting them until the count is accurate, is what democracies are supposed to do.
Read the comments below that article and you’ll see the inaccuracies have been pointed out and the WaT article is basically junk.