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We’re just days away from what looks like will be a razor-thin margin of victory in the presidential election, and like a lot of people, I’m worried. Not that there might be another Florida, but that this time, there might be more than a half-dozen Floridas.

Remember that in 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote by a half-million votes but lost the Electoral College vote (and the Supreme Court vote, too, of course). Unfortunately, President Bush doesn’t have much incentive to change the system that worked to his advantage four years ago. That’s a shame, because we could once again see the winner of the popular election lose, which doesn’t exactly build faith in the election system.

People who don’t live in swing states already have much less incentive to vote. For example, if you live in Alabama, which is destined to go to Bush, or California, which will go to Kerry, the mantra we hear in Iowa that “every vote makes a difference” just doesn’t ring true.

So here’s are five solutions that we should consider:

1) Let’s eliminate the electoral college and go with the national popular vote for president, so our elections aren’t about trying to influence the voters in a few swing states while virtually ignoring voters in others.

2) Or, if you are a diehard fan of the Electoral College, why not have all 50 states and the District of Columbia (as Colorado voters might choose to do in November) proportionally assigning electors according to the vote in that state, instead of a “winner takes all” approach. With this approach, Iowa’s seven electors would be split between candidates, based on their percentage of the popular vote in the state. I know some folks in Iowa might feel that we will get less attention if we’re not a swing state, but a shift to the popular vote or proportional assignment of electors would ensure that all Americans get an opportunity to have their votes really make a difference.

3) Perhaps the best reform to the system is instant runoff voting. In this approach, voters would rank their preferences instead of voting for just one candidate. If no single candidate gets a majority, the candidate with the lowest tally of votes is eliminated, and the votes for people who selected that candidate are recounted by tallying their second choice. The process is repeated until a majority is reached for one candidate.

The nice thing about instant runoff voting is that someone will ultimately end up with a majority – no court decisions needed. It also allows for voters to make a protest vote for a third party candidate (e.g., Ralph Nader) without spoiling the candidacy of their next favorite candidate, or giving an advantage to their least favorite candidate. Instant runoff voting is gaining support. It will be used in San Francisco for city elections this November, and its national supporters include Senator John McCain and former Vermont Governor Howard Dean.

4) Same-day voter registration. We talk so much about how important it is that everyone votes, but the current system actually depresses voter numbers. States have varying and confusing deadlines for registration – some 30 days before the election (such as Ohio), some 10 days before (such as Iowa). Guess which states had the most people turn out to vote in the 2000 presidential elections? The six states with same-day voter registration. Minnesota, with 25 years experience doing same-day registration, had 68.8 percent voter turnout in 2000, compared to 50.3 percent nationally. The nonpartisan Alliance for Better Campaigns calls this the most important state-level procedural reform to enhance voter turnout.

5) One last thing that would help to enhance our democracy: a national holiday for Election Day. We are the busiest workers (in total hours worked per year) of any industrialized country. It would be nice to celebrate democracy with time to thoughtfully exercise the right to vote, instead of having to treat it like just another stop on our list of errands on the first Tuesday in November.