Fixing The Electoral College


Everyone wishes that the winner of the popular vote will be the next president. That's fair. But in a close election, the electoral college may give the presidency to someone else. That's not fair.

What to do about it? Well, the Constitution doesn't tell states how to run these elections. So each state can pass a law saying it will give its electoral votes to the person who won the national popular vote. As soon as enough states do that, then the elections are fair.

There is an interesting question about whether this is fair when some of the states have adopted it, and some haven't. This can easily be fixed. Just make the law not apply until some percentage of other states have an identical law. Then the laws will switch everyone over at once.


Last modified: 27 November 2009

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