Slightly off subject, but applicable... (the system, state-wide votes)

greenspun.com : LUSENET : I-695 Thirty Dollar License Tab Initiative : One Thread

This electoral system that everyone in the country seems to think doesn't work is an idea that we may need to think about in our own state. We now have a Senator-elect that won 3 (I think) counties in the state and claims will represent the concerns of the entire state. We have had countless initiatives passed because of the population on the west side of the mountains. Is there any way we fix this system so that those of us on the east side have a voice?

I apologize if this has been discussed already, I just haven't visited the group for a while.

Eric

-- Eric (cavecanine@hotmail.com), December 06, 2000

Answers

Well it is an interesting issue, but short of Eastern Washington forming it's own state (which has been tossed around), I don't see how there could be any constitutional way of doing it for something like elected officials, as it would certainly violate the one person one vote rule. I do remember discussions about requiring a certain portion of signatures for initiatives coming from each region, but that actually received heavy opposition from people in Eastern Washington as well as several initiative supporters.

I would suggest that the problem isn't as bad as you might think. Slade Gorton held statewide elected office for several decades for the most part despite chronic heavy opposition in the Puget Sound area. I can also think of several initiatives that passed statewide without the support of the Puget Sound region, I-695 being one of them. So although it may seem sometimes that whatever Western Washington wants it gets, it is not necessarily the case.

The other thing is that there will ALWAYS be someone that appears to have more power than you. You bring up the east side vs. west side rivalry. There are tons of people on this side of the mountains who view the problem as a Puget Sound region vs. the rest of the state issue, and in the Puget Sound region it being King County vs. the rest of them, and in King County it being Seattle vs. everyone else. Even within Seattle it's divided within factions who think the others hold all the power. I don't know Eastern Washington all that well, but I imagine even if we were to divide power equally between the sides, that would just expose rifts between the more rural and urban areas there.

But trust me, Maria Cantwell won by what, 2,000 votes? If she doesn't show that she can represent all of Washington she will NOT be elected to a second term. It won't matter how much she carries the Puget Sound region by.

-- Informed Citizen (IC@IC.com), December 07, 2000.


Legally, the state can right now choose to elect electors to the electoral college on a congressional district basis. In other words, each congressional district can choose its own elector. This might've given Gore 6 electors and Bush 5. Or something like that. Of course, the down side is that the candidates wouldn't waste their time visiting us or running all those ads. Hey, wait a minute, that sounds pretty good after all.

But, my all-time favorite recommendation for choosing electors, is to select electors randomly from the population, like a lottery. You're a registered voter, and you're automatically entered into the ELECTORS SWEEPSTAKE. I suspect most people would've chosen John McCain or Jesse Ventura, if they were an elector.

The beauty of choosing electors randomly is that you nullify the need for expensive elections. Thus, you've accomplished campaign reform in one fell swoop. The down side is that you'll probably end up with Congress choosing the president (from the top 2 or 3 vote getters out of the electoral college), and that is guaranteed to be the worst choice of all.

-- Matthew M. Warren (mattinsky@msn.com), December 11, 2000.


The funny thing Matthew, is that the Founding Fathers designed the Electoral College in the hopes that Congress would choose the President more often than not. Although I agree, that's got to be the least desirable option nowadays.

When writing the Constitution, they considered regionalism to be the most likely deciding factor in national elections. They assumed that each state would most likely have its own candidate running for President, and that the citizens of each state would vote almost entirely for that person. If the election was based on the popular vote, the President would always come from a big state like Virginia. But with the Electoral College, they assumed that almost no one would gain a majority of the votes and the decision would have to go to Congress where compromises would create a coalition government. I have to say that the complete failure of the Founding Fathers to predict the formation of political parties was easily their biggest mistake (although they made very few mistakes).

-- Informed Citizen (IC@IC.com), December 11, 2000.


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