Plunk Everyone

Every election year, the Electoral College gets debated once again, because let's face it - it's weird, and confusing, and people like to make a big deal of the "popular vote" and so forth. But, I think the real problem with the Electoral College is that it apportions votes based on congressional representatives, which are based on state populations. When you base something as important as the electing of the US President on state populations, all you're doing is rewarding the ability to grow your population. Is that really still an important goal at this point? I think not, and I'm basing that assumption mostly on the number of people in cars between me and where ever I'm going. There are too many of them. This population growth also has the effect of driving up the price of baseball tickets, parking at baseball games, and the length of lines at concession stands at baseball games. All because states want to have more people in them so they can have more electoral votes.

So, what if we base our system of electing the President on something important, like each state's ability to produce baseball players who can get hit by a lot of pitches? This encourages more baseball, and the selflessness and team-first attitude that we'd like to see in those who are elected into higher office. Maybe this would convince the occasional politician to put the countries interests ahead of their own once in a while, the way some baseball players put their team ahead of their own well being by letting a speeding baseball strike them in the body, just to get on base.

I propose that instead of the current system, we apportion electoral votes based on how many HBPs have been collected in the Major Leagues by players born in the last 50 years in each state.

Here's a table showing the old system and the proposed system of votes:

State	Current Electoral Votes	Total HBPS	New Electoral Votes
Alabama	9	266	7
Alaska	3	38	1
Arizona	10	271	7
Arkansas	6	162	4
California	55	6546	149
Colorado	9	44	1
Connecticut	7	267	7
Delaware	3	132	3
Florida	27	2029	46
Georgia	15	941	22
Hawaii	4	82	2
Idaho	4	4	1
Illinois	21	1232	28
Indiana	11	519	12
Iowa	7	151	4
Kansas	6	202	5
Kentucky	8	368	9
Louisiana	9	344	8
Maine	4	7	1
Maryland	10	462	11
Massachusetts	12	382	9
Michigan	17	445	11
Minnesota	10	125	3
Mississippi	6	348	8
Missouri	11	232	6
Montana	3	4	1
Nebraska	5	83	2
Nevada	5	58	2
New Hampshire	4	26	1
New Jersey	15	549	13
New Mexico	5	22	1
New York	31	1849	42
North Carolina	15	344	8
North Dakota	3	110	3
Ohio	20	853	20
Oklahoma	7	357	9
Oregon	7	458	11
Pennsylvania	21	565	13
Rhode Island	4	122	3
South Carolina	8	248	6
South Dakota	3	46	2
Tennessee	11	142	4
Texas	34	1054	24
Utah	5	12	1
Vermont	3	19	1
Virginia	13	285	7
Washington	11	546	13
West Virginia	5	9	1
Wisconsin	10	276	7
Wyoming	3	76	2
Washington, D.C.	3	45	2

Each state's new electoral vote total was based on the states percentage of total US player HBPs, multiplied by the current electoral total of 538 votes. However, all fractions were rounded up to prevent Idaho, Maine, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, Vermont and West Virginia from being left vote-less. But if any state goes 50 years without producing a player who gets hit by at least one pitch, I think we can all agree that we know longer care about that state's opinion of who should run the country. It's only logical.

Obviously the big winner in the new system is California - they stand to gain 94 more electoral votes over their current total. 27.5% of all plunks recorded by players born in the US in the last 50 years were recorded by Californians, so it's only fair that they should get that big a say in who is elected president. Obviously this will be recalculated every election year, so as soon as other state's players start stepping up, they can gain more influence over the election process. And, if you think one player can't make a difference, look at New York. They gain 11 electoral votes under the proposed system, but 6 of those are entirely due to the contribution of Craig Biggio, and his 285 career HBPs.

If this new HBP based system had been in place for the 2008 elections, Barack Obama would have one by an even wider margin - 431 to 133 votes, instead of the 365 to 173 margin he really won by. But, however you feel about that outcome, you shouldn't allow it to influence your opinion on this proposed new system - because really, it just makes too much sense not to do. Right?