This is second of several emails discussing various alternative proposals for electing the President.
Under the congressional-district method of awarding electoral votes, one electoral vote is awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in each of a state’s congressional districts. Maine and Nebraska currently use this system.
● The congressional-district method would not accurately reflect the nationwide popular vote. In 3 of the 6 presidential elections between 2000 and 2020, the winner of the most popular votes nationwide would not have become President if the congressional-district method had been used nationwide.
● The congressional-district method would not make every voter in every state politically relevant. It would worsen the current situation in which most voters in the United States are ignored in the general-election campaign for President. Under the congressional-district method, campaigns would be focused only on the small number of congressional districts that are closely divided in the presidential race. The major-party presidential candidates were within eight percentage points of each other in only 17% of the nation’s congressional districts (72 of 435) in 2020. In contrast, 31% of the U.S. population lived in the dozen closely divided battleground states where the candidates were within eight percentage points of each other in 2020. So, the congressional district method would be worse than the current system.
● The congressional-district method would not make every vote equal. There are six sources of inequality in the congressional-district method, and each is substantial.
- 3.81-to-1 inequality because of the two senatorial electoral votes that each state receives above and beyond the number warranted by its population,
- 1.72-to-1 inequality because of the roughness of the process of apportioning U.S. House seats among the states,
- 3.76-to-1 inequality because of voter differences in turnout between districts across the country,
- 1.67-to-1 inequality because of voter turnout differences at the state level,
- 1.39-to-1 inequality because of population changes during the decade after each census,
- 7.1-to-1 differences, from district to district, in the number of votes that enable a candidate to win an electoral vote within a state.
● In short, the congressional-district method of awarding electoral votes would make a bad system worse because it would not accurately reflect the nationwide popular vote, would not make every voter in every state politically relevant, and it would not make every vote equal.
● The congressional-district method would also increase the incentive to gerrymander districts.
