Many have suggested that it’s time to do away with the Electoral College.  I’m concerned, however, about how that will work.  So, I have some suggestions for making it more ‘democratic’.

Since the problems of the year 2000, I have worried that having a national popular vote would lead to us having to count ‘hanging chads’ all over the country.  Plus, if a lot of the very close swing states were to adopt mail-in ballots like those of California, the results of the presidential election would be greatly delayed.  Constitutional amendments would be required, which makes any such proposal of this kind almost chimerical.  But I will put some suggestions out there regardless.

1. Require every state to do what Nebraska and Maine have done:  assign one electoral vote to each Congressional district.
2. Disembody the electors; instead of human being electors assembling, each district would be given one electoral ‘point’.
3. Rather than the number of electoral votes being equal to the number of Representatives plus Senators, make the number equal only to the number of Representatives. That means every state would have two fewer votes than now.
4. Reduce the number of electoral votes of the District of Columbia to two. Why two?  Because the membership of the House of Representatives is an odd number, 435, while the number of the Senate is 100, an even number, their sum is an odd number, 535; and the addition of the three votes for DC made it an even number, 538, which leads to the possibility of a 269-269 tie. My suggested reduction would make the total number of electoral votes 437, an odd number, again.  It would be ‘219 to win’.

There is another way of dealing with the District of Columbia that would grant it representation in Congress without having to give it two Senators.  However, that would require an amendment also and would probably never pass.

Another suggestion:  the District of Columbia should, for the purpose of apportionment of Representatives, election of Senators, and electoral points for the Presidency, be treated as if it were part of the state of Maryland.

This would allow the residents of the District of Columbia to vote for and feel some ownership of representation in Congress, which they should have, as much as any other Americans.

As for Puerto Rico, many of them want to be independent rather than a state of the United States.   The desire for independence should be granted.

As for that, what are we doing with American Samoa?  I suggest that it should be ceded to the country of Samoa, which lies close by.