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[feelotraveller]

Who is it you think decides how states apportion their EC's if not the party in control of that state?

Anyway don't bother to engage with my figures.  Campaigns will spend all of their money for the best return on investement which happens to be in those states that are not proportional.  Whilst all are not proportional those are the swing states.

[Reelya]

Because that isn't correct.

45/50 states don't get any attention because the gap is too big for them to matter.

So, 90% of states would get more funding if they switched to proportional voting. How well you're doing in 90% of states is entirely inconsequential right now, so any state that switched to proportionality would matter more than it does right now.

However the powers that be in those states don't want that, since their personal power is tied up in those states not being proportional. It means you can effectively double your votes for free and treat people in your state like shit and it doesn't matter, since the other party isn't interested in your state so they treat people there like shit, too.

Democrats don't spend anything in Texas since they know that they can't swing it Blue, and Republicans don't spend anything there either, because they're sure that it's not going Democrat. Hence, both parties neglect Texas, and nothing changes since they're equally neglecting it, people's opinions of both parties declines equally, so it remains Republican.

It economically harms those states but benefits whichever party has the monopoly in those specific states.

[SOLDIER First]

Wait, I have a better idea. We should give every state voting power equivalent to its population. The more people in the state, the more votes it gets.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Sentient Bowtie was later sentenced to 100,000 years imprisonment in the heart of the sun by popular demand.

[MrRoboto75]

The sun is a deadly laser

[Random_Dragon]

The sun is a deadly laser

Not anymore there's a blanket

[feelotraveller]

So, 90% of states would get more funding if they switched to proportional voting.

But only if they all switch.  If some don't then those that don't get more of the funding* since their results overwhelmingly determine the outcome of the election.  And guess what, each state (and since you seem not to get what I'm saying that means, in short, the party in control of the state) decides for itself how to apportion EC votes.  And that is precisely why even though [edit: nearly] all states would be better off under proportional EC allotments virtually none of them are doing it.


* On average and with the caveats I mentioned above.

[Reelya]

But only if they all switch.

That doesn't actually make any sense.

If Texas switches to proportional voting, then says it's now 55% Republican and 45% Democrat. Democrats can then look at it and realize if they allocate a little extra money to Texas, they might get that up to 47%, which would then add to their national vote, so it would matter. However, then Republicans would see that as a threat so they'd spend more in Texas too, and an arms-race would entail with both parties ending up prioritizing Texan voters of all stripes more. What other states are doing at this point in time would be completely irrelevant.

Whether or not any other state switched to proportional wouldn't matter. In fact, if only Texas switched to proportional, then it would matter more not less. Since, say both Texas and California switch to proportional, then you'd have to decide how much money to spend in California and/or Texas, so you're priorities would be split, so the money would be split. However, if only Texas switched then it wouldn't matter if Republicans spent $1 or $1 million dollars in California, so they wouldn't spend anything there, but Texas would be competitive. So not only is it not correct that this only kicks in "if they all switch" it is in fact more beneficial to be the first one to do it, if nobody else does it.

If some don't then those that don't get more of the funding

I really think you just don't get it. Democrats don't spend anything in Texas now and Republicans don't spend anything in California, since no matter how much money they spend they're not going to flip those states. If other states switch to proportional then the winner-take-all states that are solidly blue or red don't get money "reallocated" because the situation is still the same - no amount of advertising spending in California is going to get a majority voting for Trump, and no amount of advertising spending in Texas is going to get them voting for Biden.

However, if a state is proportional then a proportionate amount of money spent will pick up some votes, reliably. Winner take all states are all or nothing, so unless they're right on the knife's edge, neither candidate bothers with them right now. But say if Texas goes proportional then spending a few million will pick up a percentage or two, it would be a better bet in terms of risk/reward than doing a full on media blitz costing billions of dollars trying to flip a hardcore red or blue state.

[feelotraveller]

If Texas switches and nowhere else then the Democrats are much more likely to win the election.  Funding for the state is secondary, the purpose of the party system is to win elections, and very much by and large these are national parties following their national interest.

[Random_Dragon]

It would be an advantage to that state, yes. But not to whichever party reliably holds it, hence why they don't have that initial nudge to switch. If "it would be good for [insert state here] to switch to proportional voting" mattered to the people with majority in that state, then it'd be a different story.

The question thus becomes whether the benefits of more state-level investment will actually convince enough of any given state's majority party to actually go for it, i.e. whether they can be made to think there's something to gain that's worth giving up a monopoly on that state. Hypothetically, if you CAN find some way to get juuust enough of the majority party to see it as in their best interests to vote for proportial voting, then you might be able to combine that with the minority party having more desire to switch to that system and thus get it through via a bipartisan majority.

But these days...even if you did get a big enough chunk of any given majority party to decide that the outcome of switching electoral method will benefit them more than retaining the status quo, I'd half-expect it to be killed through partisan bickering the instant it becomes clear that that section of the majority party has to vote alongside the minority party to get it to pass. :/

[Reelya]

Yeah that's entirely the point. Being proportional would bring money into the state as both parties try and gain incremental amounts of votes, but whichever party hold the majority there wouldn't see a benefit. So the current system benefits the parties to the detriment of the actual people who live in those states regardless of who they vote for, which was my original point.

EDIT: it's also a bit contributor to the partisan bullshit in the USA. For example a Republican can say everyone in New York State and California are "baby-eating satanists" and that plays well with their base. The fact that they lose more votes in NY and California is entirely irrelevant, since they had less than 50% support there to start with. So 49% of people supporting you is the same as 0% so it doesn't matter at all how much you demonize the other half other country as long as it whips up your base.

Getting rid of the winner takes all stuff would do wonders to moderate the crazy.

[Random_Dragon]

Which suggests the best remedy is to either:

• Figure out some sufficient incentive that will nudge enough members of the dominant party to form a bipartisan majority.
• Torch the system and start over with a few less fuckups to begin with.

[Reelya]

Because of the issue of neither side being willing to start this, is why the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is probably the most likely way to fix this. Effectively that just side-steps any need to get everyone to agree to fix this. The NPVIC states currently control 196 EC votes. If they get additional states to sign up such that they have 270, they can automatically call any election without the EC mattering.

EDIT: Or, you'd think that some of the extremely poor states (Alabama and Mississippi) would benefit from switching to proportional voting, since then both parties would invest money trying to secure votes there, to the vast benefit of people who actually live there - a dirt poor person's vote counts the same, but smaller amounts of money would clearly benefit them, making those places more attractive places to court votes. However, they're kept deliberately politically noncompetitive (and poor) to maintain the power of the party that runs those states.

The fact that the dominant party in those states don't consider this really shows how they put themselves ahead of their population. At least California and New York invest in their own people, the Republicans keep 'em both poor and irrelevant because it secures their personal fiefdoms.

[feelotraveller]

Which suggests the best remedy is to either:

• Figure out some sufficient incentive that will nudge enough members of the dominant party to form a bipartisan majority.
• Torch the system and start over with a few less fuckups to begin with.

Oh definitely 2.  Both easier and more effective.

[Reelya]

In Georgia, Mr Trump’s vote total “almost exactly tracked the vote totals for the Republican Senate candidates, separated by merely 818 votes out of 2.43 million votes”, Mr Cortes said, but Mr Biden “saw an astounding surplus of 95,801 votes over the Democratic Senate candidates”.

This is being held up as a red flag: people in Georgia who voted Trump also voted for Republicans in the Senate etc, but those who voted Biden were less likely to vote Democrats in "closely contested" senate races down-ticket.

So apparently the claim is that it's pro-Democrat fraud because the people filling in the ballots were too lazy to vote for all the Democrats on the ticket. Firstly, that makes very little sense as it would be a poor strategy for the fakers. If you were filling in fake ballots for the Democrats wouldn't you care about all the "closely contested" seats on the ticket?

A far more likely and simpler explanation suffices: these ballots were filled in by Georgian Republicans who just want Trump out, so naturally, they're not voting Democrat all the way down the ticket. It's not really hard to contemplate that many Republicans would like to get rid of Trump but aren't necessarily going to vote Democrat in the Senate and House of Representative elections.