Electoral Vote Predictor
 

Here's another one
 

Election Projection 2004
Click on the map for details

Last updated: 09/12/04 Current Projected Tally: Electoral Votes: Bush 285, Kerry 253
Popular Vote: Bush 51.1%, Kerry 47.0%

http://www.electionprojection.com/elections2004.html

Still a "long" time until election day (ugh!). A lot of things can change. These "predictors" are silly.

Agreed. Especially when they differ by more than 30 electoral votes. That's a heck of a margin of victory.

Maybe it's because one counts the swinging chads and the other doesn't?

I agree with ktsnake agreeing with DeltAlum.

There is a movement afoot in Colorado to end the "Winner take all" situation regarding delegates to the Electoral College, and doing it by actual percentage of the popular vote.

That way, it wouldn't be possible (at least in theory) to win the popular vote and lose in the Electoral College process.

My question is why hasn't it always been that way?

For one thing, it forces Candidates to really run their campaigns on a state by state scale rather than on a national one. I guarantee you, if we go to a popular vote, states like Oklahoma, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, etc. with smaller populations will cease to matter. Everything will concentrate even moreso than now on California, Florida, etc.

I'm a big fan of the current system. I don't really think it's broken.

But, I'm sure that candidates would cease to campaign as hard in Colorado if this happened due to the fact that they could almost count on it being around a 50-50 split instead of an important block of votes.

I believe that Maine and Nebraska did away with "winner takes all" for presidential elections. The winner does take all for two votes, and the other electoral votes correspond to the congressional districts. A candidate must win each of the votes, one district at a time.

That's an even worse way to do it. Most congressional districts are drawn in such a way that they include a majority population that is heavy Democratic or Republican leaning. This would be almost certain to guarantee that these states are ignored when the election occurs.

Let's hear it for the famous Gerrymander.

Named after a MA congressman...not that that's a good thing.

Thought he was the governor -- but it's been a long time since I learned about that.

He was a governor in Massachusetts.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A632990
Gerrymander - In 1812 Governor Eldridge Gerry of Massachussets revised local Congressional boundaries so as to prevent his fellow Democrats from suffering an ignominous defeat. The painter Gilbert Stuart saw a map of the area in question while working at the Boston Centinel newspaer, declared it to resemble a salamander, and promptly augmented it with wings, claws and a beak to create a cartoon. His editor, Benjamin Russell, decided that Gerry-mander was a more appropriate name for it, and the word almost immediately became the popular term for any unfair adjustment of electoral boundaries, as the Gerry-mander cartoon (2497x5372 image here: http://memory.loc.gov/rbc/rbpe/rbpe0...0100/001dr.jpg) was subsequently copied extensively in political literature. Stuart's other, greater claim to fame is as the painter of George Washington's portrait as used on the one dollar bill, and Gerry emerged from the scandal relatively unscathed, going on to be James Madison's Vice-President.

The founding fathers wanted a buffer between the populous and the government. They didn’t trust the people to pick the right leaders

And it still works today for different reasons. People in low-population states such as mine definitely need to be against something like that. It would make us nearly worthless in presidential elections.