In the US, a first-past-the-post plurality electoral system means that a state’s Electoral College votes for President go to whichever candidate gets the plurality of votes in that state. Every four years on Election Day, states report in from across the country. The result is the “blue states” and “red states,” states that go to Republicans or Democrats in each presidential election cycle. Democrats have pushed for a national popular vote achieved through a compact among states to honor the national popular vote results although such an initiative remains unconstitutional given the US Constitution’s explicit directive to use the Electoral College to select the President. There is an alternative to a national popular vote that is constitutional and has already been in effect for years in Nebraska and Maine: district voting.
Rather than a national popular vote, district voting offers an alternative way to effectuate popular will that could benefit both parties. Democrats widely promote the idea of a national popular vote, calling the Electoral College outdated. Since the 2004 presidential election, Democrats have won the popular vote in each round by a relatively narrow margin of one or two million votes, although the count of electoral votes by states means that Republican Donald Trump won the 2016 election.
In the district voting system, electoral votes are assigned based on the “at large” results mirroring a state’s two US Senators and then by the plurality in each Congressional district in the state. As a result, Nebraska has one of its electoral votes that usually goes to Democrats, and Maine usually contributes a single electoral vote—the only one in New England—to the Republican candidate. The problem with the existing Electoral College system is that it makes the nation appear more split along partisan lines between states than it actually is. There are huge numbers of Democrats in Texas and California has some of the highest vote totals for Republicans of any state. District voting would force national party candidates to diversify their campaigning to current “safe” states, which would benefit many currently overlooked states like New Jersey regarded as a safe source of votes for Democrats but likely a low policy priority.
In an ideal system, all the states might implement district voting. However, with fierce litigation battles over redistricting, it is unclear if federal and state courts are actually up to the task of managing district voting. Rather than a nationwide roll out, narrowly split states could benefit most from district voting.
With its referendum procedures it is possible district voting could be introduced in California. “Purple” states like Georgia, Minnesota, and Virginia are potentially good candidates for district voting because it stands to benefit both parties across elections. If Democrats are remotely serious about a national popular vote, district voting could be the most viable way to introduce such a system. For Democrats, states that are close to teetering toward Republicans like Minnesota, Wisconsin, and New Mexico might be good candidates for district voting, in the same way that formerly “red” states like Georgia might be good candidates for Republican legislators to enact such changes.
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