Basically, North Dakota has more electoral votes per citizen than Florida does, but Florida's got a much bigger chance of deciding the national election, while in most elections, it's completely irrelevant which way North Dakota goes -- there are very very few elections decided by three electoral votes.)

.....I'm almost certain that if you took into account percentages on how each state tends to vote, you'd end up that the voters with the most power are the ones in Florida and Pennsylvania and Ohio and other states like that -- states with relatively big populations that ALSO tend to have pretty close elections.

Umm two things. These arguments assume "counting" equals "your particular vote has the a mathematically greater probability of determining the winner". But the fact remains that Montana's voters are weighed more heavily per voter than New York cities in counting the votes. And if you are taking a game theoretic approach what you want is the highest probability, not of your vote being the determining one (very tiny probability: even in Florida 2000 changing ONE vote would not have changed the outcome). What you want is the best chance of your preferred candidate winning.

A system where (unlike the electoral college) the candidate with most votes wins means more people get the candidate of their choice elected than in a system like the electroral college where a candidate can win even with fewer votes than another candidate (as in Fl 2000).

However the game theoretic approach is the wrong approach anyway. Voting is a collective act anyway: as I said the odds of one vote determining the winner are very near zero. The non-voters actually have a tremendous argument that they are utility maximizers. Voting is something you do as a citizen; there is the hidden premise that "if only enough people do the same thing I do". You need to look at what is collectively rational - and of course the other people you are taking into account don't have to be within the bouhds of your state.

There is another related issue. Often the argument is that we had no electoral college politicians would ignore all but a handful of states (which is really what they do now). But in the absence an electoral college politicians would need votes regardless of what state they were from. The popular vote tends to be closer than the electoral vote. Given that we have had two elections in a row with very close popular votes, I don't think any politican would neglect any state. Yeah, Montana would get less candidate time than Ohio. But I think it does now, and in any case that is reasonable. In the absence of an electoral college you would have a lot fewer states ignored.

And yes, there are plenty of other problems in our system. But the electoral college is certainly one of them. (I'd say the way our Senate is set up is another.)

Ah, I have internet access. Did anything blow up while I was away?

These arguments assume "counting" equals "your particular vote has the a mathematically greater probability of determining the winner".

Right. I was specifically looking at voting power.

But the fact remains that Montana's voters are weighed more heavily per voter than New York cities in counting the votes.

But in a way that ends up not mattering. They've got more heavy influence over a much smaller number of votes -- a number so small that it comes close to having no influence at all. To take a smaller (and much more extreme) example, suppose there are two states. State A has 10 people, and one electoral vote. State B has 100 people and 9 electoral votes. Now, each person in state A can be said to be "weighted" with 1/10 of an electoral vote, and each person in State B with 9/100, so that each person in State A has a vote weighted more heavily, by your analysis. But it doesn't matter what anyone in State A actually does -- whoever has the majority in State B will win the election.

Your argument that voters in small states are "weighted more heavily per voter" would be valid if each state allocated electoral votes by percentage (though issues with rounding would lead to some interesting stuff there -- I'd have to play around with that to see what issues would come up.) But in our current system, the weight per voter isn't counted that way.

And like I said, I agree that there are plenty of problems with the electoral college. I just have not yet seen a convincing argument that "It gives too much power to voters in small states" is one of the problems.

(I don't like straight plurality, either. Way too much chance of several popular candidates splitting the vote. If I were in charge, we'd have some kind of preferential ballot system. Not sure which one, since there's no such thing as a perfect voting system, but just about all of the reasonable ones are preferable to straight plurality.)

Oh. Saws all. I get it.

Hee. In the college theater group at one point, late at night, some of us were sitting in the "office", and our friend Mike wanders in from the shop, to ask Jenn "Can I cut this (whatever it was) with the sawzall?"

And she looks at him and says "Mike. It's a SAWZALL. It...saws...all!"

Speaking of which, I have chicken thighs and leeks I need to use up. I should do something with chicken and leeks tonight.

I have a recipe for boneless chicken breasts and leeks, I think from t mumble, cough Rachael Ray, where you sautee the leeks a bit, then add the chicken and cook covered with a cup or so of white wine. At the very end you take off the lid and turn up the heat to thicken the sauce, adding a tablespoon or so of butter. Couscous or egg noodles make a good side. It's simple but tasty, and I think it would work with thighs, either boned or boneless.

As for the Electoral College, I think the greater weight given to a small state voter's vote is a problem, but the fact your vote matters more in a swing state of any size bothers me more. This will sound kind of silly, but we occasionally talk about moving to Oklahoma (where DH is originally from) so AB will be closer to her family and so we can take advantage of the lower cost of living. One of the negatives on my list (along with it's too hot, it's too flat, it's too far from dramatic rocky coasts, and there's no MLB team) is that I'd never cast a meaningful presidential vote again as a Democrat in a heavily Republican state.

As for the Electoral College, I think the greater weight given to a small state voter's vote is a problem,

But small state voters' votes aren't given greater weight. If the system were something like, "OK, Kansas went 60% Republican and 40% Democrat, and Kansas has 4 electoral votes, so that's 2.4 Republican votes and 1.6 Democrat votes," then those voters would have greater weight. But it doesn't work that way.

I'm currently a regisitered voter in New Jersey. I'm living in DC, but keeping enough ties and spending enough time in NJ (I had jury duty there a few months ago) that I can keep my voter registration there. If I've got a choice, I'd much rather my vote go toward deciding New Jersey's 15 votes than toward deciding DC's 3.

My own favorite suggested system is that whichever candidate gets the most votes in the congressional district gets that vote, plus two for whichever candidate carried the State as a whole.

My own favorite suggested system is that whichever candidate gets the most votes in the congressional district gets that vote, plus two for whichever candidate carried the State as a whole.

Well, if you're going to change the system I don't know why you wouldn't go for whomever gets the most votes wins.

That's my vote.

I dislike plurality voting because it's far too easy for, say, an election to have a strong liberal, a liberal-leaning centrist, and a strong conservative, getting 25%, 35%, 40%, respectively, leading to the conservative candidate winning, even though the second choice of many of the people who voted for the strong liberal would probably choose the liberal-leaning centrist as a second choice.