As both Democrats, some Republicans and backers of third-party candidates look for ways to tweak the Electoral College for a different outcome to the 2016 presidential election, at least one picture is muddy. In particular, there is controversy over who, if anyone, would win the election if each states electors were divided proportionally according to the popular vote in that states.

Occasional Planet has previously written about a proportional vote of electors. If democracy is the popular vote of the people, which it is in the United States for every election except that for President and Vice-President, then proportional electoral voting is just another way of stifling direct democracy. But there are some political scientists, philosophers and practitioners who think that it is good policy because it reduces the total disparity between electoral votes and popular votes. For instance, in 2016, Hillary Clinton won 47.9% of the popular vote to Donald Trump’s 46.7%. That 1.2% difference in Clinton’s favor amounts to nearly 1.6 million actual votes. That is not inconsequential.

As for the electoral vote, it finally appears that Michigan will go for Donald Trump. That being the case, he will win 306 electoral votes or 57% and Clinton would garner 232 electoral votes of 43%. So the electoral college has a separation of fourteen percentage points, and in favor of Trump, but the popular vote difference is only 1.2%, and this time in favor of Clinton. So the electoral college is a distortion in terms of both quality (who won?) and quantity (by how much?).

When we examined proportional electoral voting in the 2012 presidential election, we found that Barack Obama would have won in such a system, just as he won the popular vote and the standard electoral vote. Using the same methodology as in 2012, our calculations show Donald Trump winning in a proportionally apportioned electoral college by a slender 272-266 margin. If the idea of a proportional representation in the electoral college is to make it more democratic or more like the popular vote, it would have failed. Below are the state-by-state results.

PROPORTIONAL ELECTORAL VOTES BY STATE, 2016

There is a different view of how the election would have come out had there been proportional voting in the electoral college. “rrk” commented to Occasional Planet, “I did the arithmetic for those of you who can’t wait for Mr. Lieber. No rounding. Multiply to three digits. for example, Rhode Island 4 votes, DJT 1.592, HRC 2.216. Final total was DJT 253.114, HRC 257.43. the 5% that is missing went to the third party candidates.” In this scenario, Clinton would have had the plurality of electoral votes, but still over twelve short of the majority. With no candidate having a majority, the election would have been thrown into the House of Representatives. The rules governing that are complicated, but they would have resulted in a Trump presidency, perhaps at a cost to Mr. Trump.

While there has been considerable interest in proportional voting in the electoral college, we can see that would give us neither a democratic nor proportional result. It leaves us with two possible solutions.

The first is a straight popular vote, which is the fairest, but would require a constitutional amendment. The main benefit of the constitution amendment is that it would be difficult to repeal. The other option is the “National Popular Vote” in which any combination of states with 270 electoral votes would decide to vote for whomever won the national popular vote. This could be readily accomplished before 2020, but the downside is that it could easily be changed.

Looking for a proportional electoral college vote is the kind of distraction that often keeps us from strengthening our democracy. We need to emulate all other forms of electoral democracy in the United States; the direct popular vote.

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What should be done about the Electoral College, now that, for the fifth time in US history, one candidate has won the popular vote, but lost to the candidate who won the electoral vote? How about giving Electoral College votes to the national popular vote winner?

Over the years, three strategies for Electoral College reform have emerged:

Abolish the Electoral College

The most prominent of these strategies is simply to eliminate the Electoral College and award the presidency to the winner of the national popular vote. Unfortunately, that is not a “simple” solution, both for Constitutional and political reasons. To do it, you’d have to pass an amendment to the US Constitution—and that is not likely to happen any time soon. It’s also a big stretch to think that Republicans, who will have control of all three branches of the federal government after Inauguration Day 2017, would even put Electoral College reform on their agenda: The Electoral College system worked perfectly for their candidate this time around. In these circumstances, abolishing the Electoral College—as fair as that strategy seems—is probably dead on arrival.

Proportional electoral votes

A second strategy would be to award electoral votes proportionately. In the current system, as was made painfully clear on November 8, 2016, electoral votes are a winner-take-all deal. In a proportionate system, states would split their allocated electoral votes according to the percentage of popular votes that went to each candidate. That change would be up to state legislatures. Unfortunately, with the majority of state legislatures controlled by Republicans—who have just seen the winner-take-all structure work to their candidate’s advantage—that’s not going to happen, either.

National Popular Vote

A third idea—which has not been as widely discussed recently—is to award Electoral College votes to the winner of the national popular vote. This is not a brand new idea: The National Popular Vote bill has been circulating in state legislatures for more than 10 years. Under this plan, states would award all of their electoral votes to the candidate with the most popular votes in the national tally. This process is different from the current system, in which states award all of their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote within their state.

According to the organization called National Popular Vote, the bill would:

 …guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes nationwide (i.e., all 50 states and the District of Columbia).

And it has momentum.

It has been enacted into law in 11 states with 165 electoral votes, and will take effect when enacted by states with 105 more electoral votes [for a total of 270, the amount needed to be elected President.].

The bill has passed one chamber in 12 additional states with 96 electoral votes. Most recently, in early 2016, the bill was passed by a bipartisan 40–16 vote in the Republican-controlled Arizona House, 28–18 in Republican-controlled Oklahoma Senate, 57–4 in Republican-controlled New York Senate, and 37–21 in Democratic-controlled Oregon House. One of the first states to pass it was Maryland, in 2007.

If you add it all up, the National Popular Vote agreement is already more than 60 percent on its way to activation.

Is this constitutional?

Yes, says Fair Vote:

The Constitution gives states full control over how they allocate their electoral votes. The current winner-take-all method, in which the winner of the statewide popular vote wins all of that state’s electoral votes, is a choice—and states can choose differently.

The drawback, of course, is that the National Popular Vote bill is contingent on enough states passing it.

According to Fair Vote:

This [agreement among states[ takes effect only when enough states sign on to guarantee that the national popular vote winner wins the presidency. That means states with a combined total of 270 electoral votes—a majority of the Electoral College—must join the compact for it to take effect.

And that’s the catch, unfortunately. If you’re a Republican legislator in a Republican-dominated state, and you want make yourself appear to be in favor of more fairness in the electoral process, you might just vote for it, because you’re pretty sure that it won’t reach its critical mass.

[Yes, that is a cynical view. But three days post-election, cynicism seems justified.] I admit that, before Election Day, I was glad that the Electoral College was in place, because I thought it would act as a circuit-breaker preventing a dangerous candidate from being elected by a duped population. But of course, it was my own ox that was gored this time, and as the night wore on, I switched sides. You can call me a hypocrite, and I can’t fight back on this one.

But we should all realize that the electoral-popular vote disconnect can happen—and has happened—to candidates of both major US parties. National Popular Vote seems like a doable, fair solution—which would best be enacted long before the next presidential election.

We just need to find enough state legislators who give a damn about fairness and democracy to make it happen—before the next time our screwed-up electoral system gets us into this mess again.

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