03 November 2004

Quick bit of research I just did: if the 2000 electoral votes are assigned proportionally in each state, the tally is Gore 258, Bush 262, Nader 7, with 11 unassigned because of rounding. 262 isn't a majority (even of the reduced number), so the election goes to the House, where (presumably) Bush wins. If the votes are assigned with 2 to the overall winner in each state and the rest divided proportionally, then Bush's ability to win the small states makes it Gore 251, Bush 271, Nader 5 -- another Bush win. So there's pretty much no way to maintain any semblance of the Electoral College and have Gore win, unless you count shooting Nader a week before the election. And the Electoral College will never disappear, because you need 34 states to pass an amendment and there are at least 16 states that are small enough to benefit from the disproportionate assignment of power (17 states alone with 5 or fewer EVs).

BTW, not to offend any regular readers of this blog, but I'm wondering why Florida always gets blamed for the Gore loss when Nader got 21,000 votes in New Hampshire, a state Bush won by 7,000, and which went for Kerry this time.

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