(sorry...I have been on vacation, so I'm a little late in keeping up)
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Actually, Bubs...if they go to votes by CD, it would not make the states themselves worth more or less, no matter the size, because each district is roughly the same size everywhere...I believe the number is 600,000 per district..
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So try it this way...each CD is worth a vote...which means 8 votes available in Wisconsin and 435 total for the other states. Throw in the delegate votes for territories and Washington DC brings it up to 440. To win, a simple majority takes it...221 votes.
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Is it perfect? No, I realize that it isn't, but I think that it would be better than the crap shoot that we have now.
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Any system that allows a person to LOSE the popular vote but still win the election is not a system that is fair to the people that are voting. When I vote, I want my vote to actually count for something, even if it just to let the winner know that s/he does or does not have a "mandate".
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Just a thought

Madman,
I don't necessarily think you're wrong, I actually agree with you somewhat and don't care that much for the electoral college. I do, however, also see potential problems with other systems also. I'm not completely convinced that we would gain that much from any other system.
Giving electoral votes by CD popular vote, for example, does intuitively make more sense to me. But one criticism of the electoral college is that it gives too much emphasis to sparsely populated states. This could increase the focus on sparsely populated Congressional Districts in those sparsely populated states. I don't know that this scenario is actually any better than the current one.
The system is complex, frustrating, and all sides appear (at least to me) to have reasonable arguments.

RetiredAirForce Nov 1, 2008 at 10:07 a.m.
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Unfortunately, the same people that “automatically” give themselves pay raises, are the same ones who would vote on term limits:
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H. J. Res. 2 [105th]: Term Limits resolution
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd...

Feingold = another great reason for term limits.

Thank you very much I_C_Y for your explanation.
Kudo's to you !!

jviers77 Oct 31, 2008 at 3:38 p.m.
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So then, this really didn’t happen???
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October 14, 2008
BOGUS VOTER BOOTED AMID PROBE OF ACORN
4,000 OF LEFT-WING GROUP'S SIGN-UPS ARE SHADY
http://www.nypost.com/seven/10142008/new...
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…Investigators probing ACORN have learned that an Ohio man registered to vote several times and ....cast a bogus ballot ....with a fake address, officials said yesterday,…

gwendt Oct 31, 2008 at 6:36 p.m.
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The math is actually this way:
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538 / 2 = 269 (Which would be an even split)
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270 gives a simple majority

madman1961 Oct 31, 2008 at 6:51 p.m.
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Actually..
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What is the difference between the winner-takes-all rule and proportional voting, and which States follow which rule?
There are 48 States that have a winner-takes-all rule for the Electoral College. In these States, whichever candidate receives a majority of the vote, or a plurality of the popular vote (less than 50 percent but more than any other candidate) takes all of the State's electoral votes.
Only two States, Nebraska and Maine, do not follow the winner-takes-all rule. In those States, there could be a split of electoral votes among candidates through the State's system for proportional allocation of votes.For example, Maine has four electoral votes and two Congressional districts. It awards one electoral vote per Congressional district and two by the state-wide, "at-large" vote. It is possible for Candidate A to win the first district and receive one electoral vote, Candidate B to win the second district and receive one electoral vote, and Candidate C, who finished a close second in both the first and second districts, to win the two at-large electoral votes. Although this is a possible scenario, it has not actually occurred in recent elections.
http://www.archives.gov/federal-register...
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There are 538 members of the Electoral College. How could that number change without amending the Constitution?
The number of electoral votes is set at 538, based on 435 members of the House of Representatives and 100 members of the Senate, plus 3 electoral votes for the District of Columbia under the 23rd Amendment. The Electoral College could become larger if a new State were admitted into the union (adding two new Senators and one or more Representatives until the next redistricting), or if the House of Representatives expanded. The size of the House is set by law, not by the Constitution (2 U.S.C. 2).

I really respect Feingold, but I don't get how having more poll observers could possibly prevent legitimate voters from voting.

OK...I slipped while typing...538 electoral votes, not 511. Not sure where the 511 came from...I had a brain cramp, I guess.
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HOWEVER...
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Altho the numbers happen to be the same as congressional and senatorial seats, they are not the same thing, since you win or lose the whole state, not a share of the votes.
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So my thoughts on this is to use the congressional districts...each district is equal to a vote. There are 5 non-voting members of congress...they cover Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, Washington DC and the US Virgin Islands. The Northern Marianas will get a delegate this year.
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SO...come election say, you win one of those votes...the senate seats aren't used in this at all, just congress.

As always, complaining about the system but not willing to do anything about it except blame the other side. If elections are this much trouble, why bother with them? Throw out the rules and regulations. Let people vote once or a hundred--no one seems to care as long as they can use it as an excuse as to why the other guy won and theirs didn't. If this is the way to run an election then it is understandable why many nations would reject it for their elections. Maybe we should vote like they do in Zimbabwe (sorry about the spelling). I'm sure neither party wants its candidate elected by fraudulent means but this is not the way to solve it. It is your right as a citizen to know your vote counts. It is your right as a citizen to know that all votes are honest. But of course, this is just a pipe dream isn't it? We all know that fraud, illegal voters will continue on and the next election will be the same with both sides complaining bitterly about it. Can't wait for the next election----save all the various comments, it will save you time having to come up with something new to say. Some day, if it goes on like this, we won't have to worry about voting since someone else will have voted for you, made the decision for you. Not a very pretty picture but it has happened in other countries--WHY NOT HERE? WHY NOT NOW? You want your vote to count do something to stop the fraud.

??? on CNN they say 270 votes needed to become president. 270 + 270 = 540. Adding the 100 Senators to the 435 Congressional Representatives = 535. Where do the remaining 5 votes come from?

gwendt...there are 511 electoral votes...435 congressional districts...not the same thing. And the fact that if you win a state by one vote, you get ALL the electoral votes form that state. What I was saying was to win a share of states votes...if you get 75% of the vote in a state, you get 75% of the votes from that state.
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The way it is now is an all or nothing game.
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Bubs...I didn't exagerate, I NEVER said anything except that the electoral voters COULD vote however they wanted to.

As for the number of congressional votes...
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"As provided by the United States Constitution, each of the 435 members of the House of Representatives represents a district and serves a two-year term"
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not 438 votes.

As to candidates ignoring small states, they gain nothing by doing that if they are going after districts, since each district in the country is suppposed to have the small number of citizens as any other district.
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I never said that an election has been decided by faithless voters, just that they COULD. And yes, there are some states that require the votes to go the way the people of the state voted.
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I did say that a person could win the popular vote and still lose and that is the biggest problem I have with the electoral college system.
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And just because it's in the constitution doesn't mean that it can't be fraud...there was a time in the country that is was legal to OWN another man and this was upheld by the same court that decides what is or isn't constitutional.

Madman,
While there are problems with the electoral college and I'm not a big fan, you greatly exaggerate the problems with the electoral college.
Yes, there are occasionally "faithless" electors. Some states have laws that forbid electors from voting for someone other than who they pledged to vote but for the most part, they aren't needed. Faithless voters are infrequent and have never swung an election.
Although some presidents have been elected with a majority of electoral votes but a minority of the popular vote, most often that is not the case. Your proposition that we assign electors based on Congressional districts might help some but it would still be possible to have the same outcome. It would be especially likely if gerrymandering formed more majority-minority districts.
Although the electoral college has its problems, getting rid of it has potential risks as well. If candidates were going for the popular vote, they might be able to essentially ignore small states. Campaigning and running ads in large media markets and large cities would likely net them more votes. In addition to small states, rural areas might get ignored. The electoral college might make things easier in the event that a president elect dies before electors cast their votes. Most importantly, we would likely never get enough small states to ratify changing the Constitution to get rid of the Electoral College.
Again, I'm not a big fan of the electoral college. It makes the popular vote somewhat unimportant, it favors swing states, it discourages turnout (especially in "safe" states), electors from small states represent fewer people which gives voters in those states more effective power, and it may help discourage third party candidates. While I'm not a big fan, you present an extremely unlikely scenario that actually presents the Electoral College as worse than it really is.
Worst of all, part of your post is blatantly wrong. There are currently 538 electors which means that there can be a tie with only two national candidates. If there were actually an odd number, you could still have a tie if there were a serious national third party candidate.

madman1961 -THAT is exactly what the electoral college does, 1 vote for each congressional district, exactly as you proposed after berating the same system. Who is your dealer, because he does have some "hot stuff" there.
Don't forget the boxes of ballots & voting machine tapes they found in the trash cans behind the polling places in Florida last election.
Also, the discrepancy between the actual vote & the pre-election polling- you could slide a semi-truck through that gap!!

jviers: If Acorn registered Mickey Mouse at a Janesville address and you show up and say you are Mr Mouse at that address they must allow you to vote. No ID required as Doyle has vetoed that at least 2 times. No check on whether Acorn filled out that reg or someone else. Now Use John Johnson in Milwaukee and see how many precincts one person can vote in in one day. That is exactly the way it goes down.

Do you really think ACORN is good for this country? If so how?

ACORN did not register phony voters, they turned in false registrations. When somebody fills out a registration form, it can't be altered by anyone regardless the name on it, i.e. Mickey Mouse. That is why workers reported the forms. Every registration from has to be processed. C'mon, folks, do you really expect someone to try to vote in a Mickey Mouse cotume?!
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And, to maybe put this ACORN b.s. to rest, John McCain gave the keynote speech at an ACORN function in 2006, praising the organization for the good work they do. C'mon, righties, you can't have it both ways.

The electoral college is not exactly "fraud" if it's written into the U.S. Constitution. I mean, everyone can find a copy and read it. It may not be direct democracy but it is both small-D democratic and small-R republican. If we want to change it, though, we certainly can, which is the ultimate demonstration of democracy.
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Keep in mind that in the Founding Fathers' day, only male property owners were considered eligible to vote (and let's not get into how African-Americans were counted).
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There are a number of different ways the states (which are sovereign in this regard) allocate their electoral votes, such as Maine and Nebraska breaking out their Congressional districts (although I don't know the last time any of these were different from the state popular vote). There is a proposal to allocate electoral votes in individual states based on the national popular vote, which would be enacted by state-to-state compact to take effect after a certain number of states (representing 270 electoral votes) approve.
http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/
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It's at least an interesting approach to reform.

If anyone really wants to worry about the fraud against U.S. democracy, let's start with the electoral college.

Consider if you will, if you are running for president, you are elected not by the people voting for you, but by electoral votes. We, the people don't choose who holds and casts those votes and they aren't bound by law to cast them as the vote in a state says they should go. If Wisconson, with 11 electoral votes, goes 48% obama and 52% McCain, the electoral votes that WE said should go to McCain could go to Obama...just because the 11 people that cast those votes THINK that that is what would actually be better.
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And if they vote the way the people vote, there is still a very good chance that the wrong person gets elected. If the states you lose, you lose HUGE, but you just barely get by in the states you win, after the votes are tallied, you could very easily WIN the popular vote but still lose the election.
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If there is a good reason for using a "block vote" system such as the electoral college, then at least make it tied to the actual vote results. Go by congressional districts...432 votes in total...if you win the Wisconsin first district, you get a vote for that...if you lose the second district, guess what? your opponent gets the vote.
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There is an odd number of votes available, so there can be no ties.
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And you will have a much better chance of the winner actually winning.

Write in Ron Paul for President and get yourself kicked out of the polling place by both factions of the Republicratic Party.

These people will be on the look out for all those falsely registered voters like Mickey Mouse, Or Donald Duck (I hear Minnie is not Voting this year because Hillery is not on the ticket). Of course isn't fake registering to vote a little meaningless in Wisconsin anyway, since we can just register on election day? I think all this talk of registration fraud is just much ado about nothing. The real voter fraud was committed in 2000 and 2004 by Bush with the help of diebold.

What is Feingold afraid of? I supposed he's afraid that all the phoney voters that ACORN registered wouldn't be able to vote. Don't worry Feingold, there are so many phoney voters and votes that it would require an army to stop them all. In my opinion, this election is a fraud and a joke. The fraud is against U.S. democracy, the joke is on the honest, law abiding electorate.

Where was Sen. Russ Feingold in 2004 when the then A.G. also sent out people to watch and answer any questions? Maybe Russ feels left out this year.