There is one middle ground to this dilemma, a solution which will not require a Constitutional amendment. State Legislatures, who already have the right to do this, need only to individually adopt the EC structure now in existence in Maine and Nebraska. Those two states award EC votes this way -- two for the winner of the statewide popular vote (representing each U.S. Senate seat) and one each for the winner of each Congressional District.
Nebraska split its EC votes in 2008, with one going to Barack Obama. Maine this year, for the first time in its history, split its four EC votes, awarding Trump one EC vote from the 2nd CD, while Clinton won the other CD and won statewide, giving her the remaining three EC votes from Maine.
As another example of how EC votes by Congressional District would work, let's take California, a solid Blue State. California has 53 Congressional Districts, and thus has 55 EC votes. This year, Clinton won the entire state, and all 55 EC votes. But 14 California Congressional Districts elected Republicans to go to Washington. If California adopted the EC votes by Congressional District, and assuming that the presidential vote in each district mirrored the votes for House, Clinton would have 41 EC votes (39 CDs plus two statewide) while Trump would have had 14 EC votes.
On to Texas, with 38 EC votes. This year, Texas sent 11 Democrats and 27 Republicans to the House of Representatives. If EC votes were awarded by Congressional District, Trump would have won 29 EC votes, and Clinton 11. Instead, Trump got all 38 votes.
Here's the national overview. All seats in the House of Representatives are up for election every two years. This year, nationally, Republicans were elected to 240 House seats, Democrats to 195.
Assuming, again, that Congressional Districts would mirror Presidential votes in those districts, if the EC votes were parceled out by CDs instead of statewide totals, Trump would have won those 240 House EC votes, plus 60 more EC votes for the 30 states he won statewide. That comes to 300 EC votes for Trump. Trump wins.
Clinton would have only 195 CD votes, plus 43 for the 20 states plus Washington DC that she won, giving her total 238.
Actual totals for 2016, at least of this writing, are 290 for Trump, and 232 for Clinton, with Michigan's 16 votes still up in the air but leaning Trump.
Check out this map of this year's House election results. Still a whole lot of red on this map.
The charm of this compromise solution is that it can be done now, state by state, in each state Legislature, as they choose. It would get us closer to the "one person one vote" concept while still recognizing our nation's unique political structure.
And it would eliminate the Solid Red, Solid Blue and Battleground State concept, since each Congressional District would suddenly be in play. (Usually ignored by Republicans, Maine's 2nd CD saw a lot of Trump this fall.)
The opposite would be true if campaigns ran to win the national popular vote. Battleground States would become Battleground Urban Areas, with campaign efforts concentrated in densely populated cities and states on each coast, ignoring the entire heartland.
Awarding EC votes by Congressional District would better reflect the actual will of the people. And we would still be the United STATES of America.
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