[Verv]

California has 52x the population as North Dakota, but only has 18.3x more electoral college votes. Why? This is nonsensical and undemocratic. And this is coming from me who thinks most people in California have gone batshit crazy politically.

It's entirely rational.

You just don't agree with the goal of the way the system was initially designed, and the principles behind it.

The Founding Father talk about "democracy" but they were afraid of "the people", and they wanted themselves (rich white male elites) to maintain control of the system. This is why they only allowed land-owning white men to have a vote, and why they didn't give "the people" control of the POTUS but gave it instead to the EC who reserved the right to vote against the popular vote in their state if they didn't vote the way the elites wanted.

This is total horseshit. They created a system with checks on "the peoples" votes, but where's the checks on the votes of the EC?

I think it was actually the case that they did want the electoral college to follow the local popular vote. I think the ability to differ from the local election results was intended to be a way of dealing with a crisis of immediate urgency or perhaps even fraud charges.

I think it is also the case that they wanted the country to be a reflection of their values and their people, and so the rules made perfect sense. Keep in mind, the land owners did include very regular men who were farmers and shopkeepers.

I would also like to point out... Your screen name is certainly a rich contrast to what you are arguing here .

[Unthinking Majority]

Because people don’t want tyranny. Other than that I don’t understand your post. What is arbitrary about it.

What tyranny? A minority not getting their way? Why should rural people or southern people or ANY group of people get disproportional power in their vote? Small states are already vastly over-represented in the Senate.

It's arbitrary because you can break down the US population into any variety of minority groups and scream "tyranny of the majority!" when policy doesn't go their way. Should black people have more power per vote than white people? No of course not, it's undemocratic.

[Finfinder]

What tyranny? A minority not getting their way? Why should rural people or southern people or ANY group of people get disproportional power in their vote? Small states are already vastly over-represented in the Senate.

It's arbitrary because you can break down the US population into any variety of minority groups and scream "tyranny of the majority!" when policy doesn't go their way. Should black people have more power per vote than white people? No of course not, it's undemocratic.

Should oligarchs that live in California and New York control the entire country, run their states at deficits and force the guy in North Dakota to bail them out?

If you were to get your wish the president will never ever have a need to step in North Dakota ever again. Lol

[Unthinking Majority]

It's entirely rational.

You just don't agree with the goal of the way the system was initially designed, and the principles behind it.

It made sense in the 18th century when the northern states had to make compromises with the southern states, along with things like slavery.

Things might be better with the EC today if most states didn't have a winner-take-all system, and where EC votes for any given state could be distributed according to how people actually voted.

I think it is also the case that they wanted the country to be a reflection of their values and their people, and so the rules made perfect sense. Keep in mind, the land owners did include very regular men who were farmers and shopkeepers.

Now do slavery LOL.

I would also like to point out... Your screen name is certainly a rich contrast to what you are arguing here .

Stupid peasants or corrupt elites? Tough call!

[Unthinking Majority]

Should oligarchs that live in California and New York control the entire country, run their states at deficits and force the guy in North Dakota to bail them out?

Oligarchs in NY or Cali only get one vote, those states are filled with regular people. Nobody lives in North Dakota so they aren't going to bail out anyone unless dirt and grass become currency

Texas and Florida both have more people than New York. Yee haw!

[Verv]

It made sense in the 18th century when the northern states had to make compromises with the southern states, along with things like slavery.

Things might be better with the EC today if most states didn't have a winner-take-all system, and where EC votes for any given state could be distributed according to how people actually voted.

I would love to see progressive states like New York & California start us off down that path.

Maybe we will join in later, right, guys?

Now do slavery LOL.

What do you mean?

You want us to start talking about a very complex issue not directly related to this thread because you think it invalidates the Founding Fathers?

Stupid peasants or corrupt elites? Tough call!

This is a false dichotomy.

[Finfinder]

Oligarchs in NY or Cali only get one vote, those states are filled with regular people. Nobody lives in North Dakota so they aren't going to bail out anyone unless dirt and grass become currency

Texas and Florida both have more people than New York. Yee haw!

LOL you’re trolling there’s 19 million people in the New York metro area alone what are you talking about.
Lol

[ralfy]

https://www.vox.com/21539173/electoral- ... rump-biden

Problems include electoral points not reflecting popular vote (i.e., you win, say, 51 pct of the popular vote in a state but you're rewarded all of its points), electors might not follow the popular vote (which should be the case because they should be voting based on free will), etc.

[Unthinking Majority]

LOL you’re trolling there’s 19 million people in the New York metro area alone what are you talking about.
Lol

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_s ... e_rankings

[Finfinder]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_and_territories_of_the_United_States_by_population#State_rankings

Are you purposely trying to miss the point of where the populations are located in the states versus the population of the entire state.

[Goranhammer]

Constitutional monarchies have been more successful than direct democracies throughout history on damn near every quantitative level. A direct democracy of a nation with a third of a billion people will be costly, confusing, and [more] prone to corruption.

The Founding Fathers structured it this way for a reason. They knew that democracy was two wolves and a sheep debating on what to eat for dinner, and it goes right along with Churchill's very appropriate "five minute conversation" view about democracy.

I personally don't want 5 or 6 cities determining the outcome of 50 states.

[Unthinking Majority]

I personally don't want 5 or 6 cities determining the outcome of 50 states.

How could they? The Senate is based on equality of states, and the House of Reps goes by district.

[Unthinking Majority]

Are you purposely trying to miss the point of where the populations are located in the states versus the population of the entire state.

Why does it matter where populations are located? Why are urban populations deserving of less rep by pop than people in rural ares?

Why are people complaining about urban and coastal takeover when the Senate has equality of states and the House of Reps is made of districts?

[Oxymoron]

Electoral college sucks people. This needs to be changed to reflect a more democratic system.

Are you pro or con?

We need a less Democratic system as far as individuals go as this will move us toward a Tyranny by majority.
What we do need to do to bring civility, and good governance back to our society is lower the amount of people voting.
We need to raise the voting age to at least 25 for starters.

[Goranhammer]

How could they? The Senate is based on equality of states, and the House of Reps goes by district.

You did read the title of this thread, right?

[Unthinking Majority]

You did read the title of this thread, right?

This doesn't answer my question.

[Steve_American]

You did read the title of this thread, right?

This doesn't answer my question.

I hope you remember I'm on your side.

Goranhammer apparently thinks that the small states need to determine who is President. He doesn't think that having 90 of 100 Senators is enough protection.
That is, there are just 5 states with 18 or more Reps. in the House, if we take them as the "large states", then 5x2=10 and 45x2=90 Senators from the small states & 10 from the "largest" states. If we reduce the large states to those with 12 or more Reps. then, there are 11 of them. So, 11x2=22 and 39x2=78 Senators from these smaller "largest" states.
He thinks that having 78% of the Senate from the small states is not enough protection. Or maybe, he thinks that Delaware and Rhode Island need to be considered large states.

I really don't get his problem. The 3 largest states are Calif., NY, and Texas. They have 53+27+38 Reps. = 118 total Reps. So, 118/435 = 27.1% of the Reps and therefore, 27.1% of the popular votes for the President. This is hardly enough to win the election against the other 72.9% of the votes. [I'm assuming that the num. House Reps. are close to the ratios of the populations of the states, close enough anyway.]
Besides which, Texas is a red state.
.

[Heisenberg]

Electoral college sucks people. This needs to be changed to reflect a more democratic system.

It doesn't need to be "rethought"; it just needs to be abolished. It's an utterly preposterous system that reflects a time when the US was a loose collection of quasi-independent states, rather than a single country.

While we're at it, reform the senate as well. The idea that Wyoming and California both have two senators is absolutely ridiculous.

[Rugoz]

Constitutional monarchies have been more successful than direct democracies throughout history on damn near every quantitative level. A direct democracy of a nation with a third of a billion people will be costly, confusing, and [more] prone to corruption.

The Founding Fathers structured it this way for a reason. They knew that democracy was two wolves and a sheep debating on what to eat for dinner, and it goes right along with Churchill's very appropriate "five minute conversation" view about democracy.

I personally don't want 5 or 6 cities determining the outcome of 50 states.

Without the electoral college the US would still be a bog-standard representative democracy, not a direct one. The question is whether Americans feel first and foremost as Californians/Texans etc. or Americans. 200 years ago the answer was probably the former, nowadays probably the latter.

Besides, in terms of cultural heritage I don't think there's ever been a more successful civilization before the modern period than classical Greece, with Athens as its center. A civilization that despised monarchies. Just saying.

[Goranhammer]

The question is whether Americans feel first and foremost as Californians/Texans etc. or Americans. 200 years ago the answer was probably the former, nowadays probably the latter.

I'd beg to differ with that. If you asked the garden-variety Californian and Texan about their political positions, desires, aspirations, fears, etc. I'd argue that they'd be diametrically opposite. I'm no Texan (anymore) but I can honestly say that when I look at a typical Californian, it's with a look of disdain and angst.