What if the Electoral College voted proportionally for each state?

As the electoral college votes today on Monday, December 19th, 2016, a lot of rhetoric has focused on the Electoral College in the weeks after the 2016 Election.

Both sides have focused on “respecting the will of the voters” — on one side, people have pointed to Hillary Clinton’s 2.8 million margin of victory in the popular vote and argued that the Electoral College should focus on reflecting the country’s vote at-large.

On the other side, people have pointed to Trump’s victories in 30 states and argued that the Electors should each focus on reflecting the votes of their individual states.

At least two states — Maine and Nebraska — give their electors a little more guidance in this process. Their electors are decided in what’s known as the “Congressional District Method”, which basically means that they split their electors depending on the votes in different districts of the state.

Well, what if each state had a perfectly proportioned electoral system like this? The 2016 election would look something like this:

In this system, if a Democratic candidate won 66% of the vote in a state, and a Republican candidate won 33% of the vote, the Republican candidate would still get 1 out of every 3 electoral votes. In this way, even votes in large states matter, because large minorities of voters are still counted — such as the millions of usually-ignored Republicans in California and Democrats in Texas.

That way, electors have a clear responsibility — to represent the will of the voters in each of their states — but the result is much closer to the actual popular vote numbers.

In 2016, this would mean that the electoral college ends up tied between Trump and Clinton.

With neither candidate achieving the required 270 to win, the contest would be voted upon in the Republican-dominated House of Representatives. However, ALL candidates with at least one electoral vote would be eligible for votes, including Libertarian Gary Johnson, Jill Stein of the Green Party, and Independent Conservative Evan McMullin. With the rhetoric that was thrown around in the throes of the last election month, it’s not impossible that Evan McMullin may have exited a surprise winner.

All in all, a proportional electoral college wouldn’t decidedly change most elections, but it would be a more accurate representation of each state’s voters, would make all votes important in federal elections, and would provide some more guidance for the 538 humans trying to decide how to cast their electoral votes today.

For more on better ways to represent electoral votes, check out my post “A Better Map for Purple America” by clicking below!

Google Sheets Math for Electoral Proportioning:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bEQpa6AkjjfZGvzN7AfrInkD3GlT2bc2LHq0dNs0FAE/edit?usp=sharing