In
the last few days I’ve seen a lot of … “discussion” over the Electoral
College. Some are demanding doing away
with it, while others are shocked at the mere suggestion of doing such a
thing. My opinion is that the Electoral
College is a flawed system. My
experience has been that many of the supporters of the college either flat out
ignore these flaws, or take the nihilistic view that any attempt to fix these
flaws would just create new flaws so why bother.
In
this atmosphere, I’ve come up with an alternate plan to “fix” the Electoral
College by making it random. By this I
mean that three months before the election, the various election officials will
get together and pick five states at random.
So let’s say that in August of 2020 they select Rhode Island, Tennessee,
Washington, New Mexico, and Florida. And
there would also be an alternate selection, say Ohio. What would happen is those five states would
decide who is President. The other
states would have elections for other offices, but they wouldn’t vote for
President. The people in the selected states
would vote in November and their Electoral Votes would be decided as
normal. The point of the alternate,
would be to cast a tie-breaking vote if needed.
Then in August of 2024, five other states would be selected. Selected states would be held out of the pool
for two elections, so the people in New Mexico might be selected again in 2032
to decide the Presidency.
Now,
if you find that idea offensive because vast swaths of the country would have
no voice in deciding who the President is, I would hope that you also oppose
the Electoral College. Because that is
what happens. Actually, what happens in
reality is worse than in my system. Most
states already have their Electoral Votes locked in: we all know that
California will go for the Democrat. The
Presidency is not decided by We The People of the United States, but by the
people who live in a handful of swing states.
My system would at least change these swing states every election.
