http://frankwarner.typepad.com/free_frank_warner/2004/08/new_york_times_.html

http://frankwarner.typepad.com/free_frank_warner/2004/04/should_us_senat.html

http://frankwarner.typepad.com/free_frank_warner/2003/12/nader_an_indepe.html

http://frankwarner.typepad.com/free_frank_warner/2004/08/on_the_electora.html

Also got racist white Southern Dems to vote for somebody NOT a Dem — so it was easier for them to go with Reagan; or back to Clinton Dem in 92.

Oh, and here’s the How Stuff Works explanation of the EC.

RTWT

“Math Against Tyranny”

By Will Hively September 30, 2004

“When you cast your vote this month, you’re not directly electing the president, you’re electing members of the electoral college. They elect the president. An archaic, unnecessary system? Mathematics shows, says one concerned American, that by giving your vote to another, you’re ensuring the future of our democracy.”

This mathematician shows that the electoral college actually makes your vote MORE powerful rather than less because you have more possibility to influence the election.

An the famous metaphor is there:

“In baseball’s World Series, for example, the team that scores the most runs overall is like a candidate who gets the most votes. But to become champion, that team must win the most games.

In 1960, during a World Series as nail-bitingly close as that year’s presidential battle between Kennedy and Nixon, the New York Yankees,

with the awesome slugging combination of Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and Bill “Moose” Skowron, scored more than twice as many total runs as the

Pittsburgh Pirates, 55 to 27. Yet the Yankees lost the series, four games to three. Even Natapoff, who grew up in the shadow of Yankee Stadium, conceded that Pittsburgh deserved to win. “Nobody walked away saying it was unfair,” he says.”

“Why worry how easily one vote can turn an election, so long as each voter has equal power? One person, one vote–that’s all the math anyone

needs to know in a simple, direct election. Natapoff agrees that voters should have equal power. “The idea,” he says, “is to give every voter the largest equal share of national voting power possible.” Here’s a classic example of equal voting power: under a tyranny, everyone’s power

is equal to zero. Clearly, equality alone is not enough. In a democracy, individuals become less vulnerable to tyranny as their voting power

increases…

The underlying problem is that Colorado is filling up with people who do not identify themselves as Coloradoans. They have come here from elsewhere, didn’t grow up here, don’t vacation here, didn’t go to school here, don’t particularly have friends, family, or ties here. Having their vote swamped by the native vote feels unfair to them so they want to change the rules and break their vote out separately.

In Minnesota, by contrast, there is a tremendous amount of state pride; people in Minnesota have often lived there for generations, their families and friends are all there, and they are justifiably proud of what they are producing in their state. It makes sense to them to vote as a block because they think of themselves in those terms.

The EC is like the World Series.

Can you win the WS even if you don’t score the most runs?

Yes you can.

It happened, the team which scored the most runs didn’t win the most games. They scored a tremendous amount of runs in the 3 games they won, but they lost the 4.

Would you want to change how the WS determines the winner?

So the popular vote came in the 18th century but the electoral college remained to give all states a say. Even today the large urban areas with the large numbers of electoral votes get the most attention but without the electoral college even more of the country would go without representation.

There is a difference between mob rule and representative democracy.

As a candidate looks at Colorado, the potential benefit from visiting Colorado and promoting Colorado-friendly policies is large. Colorado’s status as a swing state makes it very attractive to both candidates. If it were to drop the winner-takes-all rule, no one would care about the potential gain or loss of a single EC vote.

If you wanted to maximize your own influence you should establish a group of like-minded centrists who sign a pact to vote as a bloc. This kind of voterís union would multiply the impact of your vote, especially if it were a swing group with unpredictable decisions. Local politicians would beat a path to your door.