Possible Reform

"On similar ground it may be proved that no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation. They may manage it then, & what proceeds from it, as they please, during their usufruct. They are masters too of their own persons, & consequently may govern them as they please."

Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 6 September 1789

Option 1: Go The Way of Maine and Nebraska

Better, but with a big problem

The Structure of Option 1

Rather than a winner-take-all system in each state, the electors are distributed based on the following two steps:

Whoever wins the popular vote within the state will receive the two "senate" electors.
Whoever wins the popular vote within each congressional district receives one elector for that district.

If this were to take place, this is what the election map would have looked like in 2020

Instead of the 2020 Electoral College map looking like this, using 48 winner-take-all states

Notice that roughly 31 states would split their electors if we went to this form of elector allocation.

Below is a map of which candidate won in each House district in 2020. Keep in mind, some of the population density is hard to see through the map, due to densely populated Democratic districts.

The final results would have been: Districts won by Biden: 224. Districts won by Trump: 211.

When it comes to the winner of each state's popular vote, Trump won 25 states, and Biden won 25 states (+D.C.). Putting the final results at:

Trump: 261
Biden: 277 (274 plus D.C.'s 3 electors)

In other words, this system would not have changed the results of the election.

Map from https://www.arcgis.com/apps/instant/minimalist/index.html?appid=015c7b795c50419d81298673128cb39d

Pros of this system:

It could possibly lead to more voter engagement within minority districts that exist within contrasting states (i.e. a Democratic district within a Republican state, or vice-versa)
This new method would make the election results more proportional to the will of the general public

Cons of this system

This method leaves the presidential election entirely vulnerable to gerrymandering. State legislatures control the district boundaries within their respective states, and can arrange them in a number of "creative" ways to get the results that they want. This has a drastic and forceful affect on the House currently, and to allow the Presidency to become susceptible to the same tampering could be disastrous. To see how much gerrymandering is at play, and where it's the worst, feel free to check out the Princeton Gerrymandering Project's Redistricting Report Card.
Population hubs would become the sole target for campaigns, leaving much of the country out of the courtship process of candidates. Candidates would spend all their time on cities where they can access several districts, rather than spend any time in smaller states, where they can really only reach one district at a time.
The possibility of recounts within each district would mean that we wouldn't know the results of the election for several days or weeks.

Option 2: A Proportional Distribution of Electors Within Each State

AKA "the Hahn Proportional State Plan"
(The best possible reform)

The Structure of Option 2

Rather than a winner-take-all system in each state, the electors are distributed based on the percentage of the vote a candidate gets within the state, following this protocol:

Whoever wins the popular vote within the state will receive the two "senate" electors.
The person who loses the popular vote must pass a percentage thresholds to obtain electors. Those thresholds are different for every state, depending on how many representatives they have.
- The threshold is determined with the formula 100/# of representatives
  - As an example- if a state has 5 representatives, the threshold a candidate must get to in order to receive one elector is 20% of the popular vote within the state, then 40% to receive two.
  - If a state has 25 representatives, the threshold is 4%. Meaning at 4% they would get 1, at 8% they would get 2, at 12% they would get 3, etc.
- A candidate MUST reach the threshold to receive the elector.
After the person who lost the popular vote has been awarded their electors, the winner will receive all remaining electors.

See the breakdown and full details on this spreadsheet

Would this system change results?

Probably not. Or at least, not that much. Using historical data, here's how it would have affected the past 6 elections.
(Actual results are in parenthesis, bolded numbers are the winners)

2024
Trump: 287 (312)
Harris: 251 (226)
2020
Trump: 252 (232)
Biden: 286 (306)
2016
Trump: 270 (306)
Clinton: 268 (232)
2012
Obama: 281 (332)
Romney: 257 (206)
2008
Obama: 295 (365)
McCain: 243 (173)
2004
Bush: 291 (286)
Gore: 247 (251)

As you can see, the results of the elections don't change, but the elections are much closer.

Well, if the results aren't changed, then why change the way it works?

With a winner-take-all system, voters living as a minority voter in a state don't have incentive to participate in a presidential election.

With this system, voters in every state are incentivized to participate, because their preferred candidate needs their vote to reach the next threshold to receive an elector from their state.

All while preserving the principles of Federalism and the advantages of the Electoral College currently has, as explained on The Arguments page.

How does this plan differ from Maine and Nebraska?

Maine and Nebraska do divide up their electors, but not proportionally. In those two states, the following happens:

The winner of the state popular vote gets the 2 senator electors
The winner of the popular vote in each congressional district wins the elector that equates to the representative from that district.

The Maine and Nebraska way of dividing up electors is better than a winner-take-all approach but still leaves the whole process susceptible to tampering- most notably from gerrymandering.

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