One person, one vote ... an alleged principle of our "democracy." Except for the electoral college.
I've cranked some numbers based upon the 2004 population statistics and electoral college results.
If one person should have one vote, our system is seriously deficient. Each state receives one electoral vote for each of its two senators, plus one for each representative, with a minimum of one representative, no matter how low the population.
I did some calculations for the various states comparing the number of electoral votes contrasted with the size of the population. The extreme case, of course, is comparing California with Wyoming. California, with a population of 34 million, gets cheated of 15% of its electoral votes, based on population. Wyoming, with a population of less than a half million, receives over 3 times as many votes as its population would merit. So a vote in Wyoming is worth almost 4 votes in California (3.81, to be exact).
Reforming the electoral college system through constitutional amendment is probably impossible. Under the current system, 33 states receive more electoral votes than their population merits, while the 17 most populous receive less. Few states will vote to surrender their undue influence ... certainly not 75%.
Which brings us to the idea proposed in California ... to amend state contitutions to commit all electoral votes to the national winner, like Gore in 2000, by a half million votes. The amendment would only take effect when other states with enough electoral votes to win the election adopt similar rules.
My spreadsheet shows that the states that receive less than their fair share of electoral votes, based on population, total 62.8% of the total electoral votes, which sounds encouraging. Unfortunately, these states include Texas, Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina ... most of which are unlikely to approve such an agreement, especially while brother Jeb rules Florida and Dubya courts the oil barons.
Subtracting the numbers from these states leaves us with slightly less than 50% :( But perhaps some states and entities that receive undue influence would join ... Oregon, Hawaii, Delaware, Vermont, DC, etc.
I won't hold my breath :)