Alan Natapoff, Research Scientist
| Jan/18 | Wed | 04:00PM-05:30PM | 37-252 |
Enrollment: Limited: First come, first served (no advance sign-up)
Prereq: none
A democratic voting system must deliver unanimous consent, of both majority and minority, to its outcome. It achieves it by assuring each voter large fair voting power. Simple majority voting (SMV) can deliver that large power in a small, but not in any large realistic election. The Constitutional majority-of-majorities (MoM) Electoral College system has succeeded for 180 years at large scale, despite its imperfections. In 1888 and 2000 it elected the candidate with fewer popular votes which was, as baseball's season-scoring system is, consistent with its large goal. It did the same in 2016, but without achieving unanimous consent. The cure is to give all voters more power (especially in poorly-contested states) than they have now. This can be done by drawing districts that are smaller and better-contested than states, and giving them national weight equal to the total number of votes actually cast in them. We survey, briefly, the debate over presidential voting systems and the mathematics of voting power.
Contact: Alan Natapoff, 37-147, 617 253-7757, NATAPOFF@MIT.EDU