sly279 wrote:
The_Walrus wrote:
TheSpectrum wrote:
4 or 5 big cities do not/should not runneth America.
There would be no prospect of that even if America switched to the popular vote.
Donald Trump received 61 million votes.
The population of the 20 biggest cities is only half of that, even before you factor in Republican voters, non-voters, non-citizens, and children.
My initial back-of-the-envelope calculation that Clinton needed support from 49 out of 51 territories in order to win the popular vote was a little optimistic, but it was still well over 40 territories.
In any case, I'm not sure why giving people in cities a proportional degree of representation is such a bad thing? Or why is it any worse than the system which means about 10 states "runneth America"?
Most if not all of her majority over him is from California and New York. Most other states the majority voted for trump. So they'd been overruled by 1 million Californians
Which is exactly why we have an electoral college and exactly why we're a republic not a democracy.
What if it was the other way and red states had more population and state of Texas provided 1million more votes for trump, but democrats won the electoral college? Would you feel safe letting the state of Texas decide the future of California or newyork?
This is a rather silly way of looking at it. California and New York can't win on their own. Only 10 million people voted for Clinton across those two states. That's the same number as voted for
Trump in California plus third party nationwide.
Yes, I outright support the abolition of the electoral college. Maybe sometimes that means that bad candidates (of all stripes) will win instead of good candidates. Oh well, such is democracy. A direct vote is the best way to determine a presidency.
To be honest I think presidencies are stupid because they're winner-take-all, so even under AV you can end up with 49.9% of the country completely unrepresented. If I were redesigning the American system, I'd scrap the Presidency altogether. I'd probably keep the House as it is to ensure that all states are represented, but I'd have the Senate elected nationally and proportionately (i.e. no "Senator from California", rather "Libertarian Senator #5"). Not sure which I'd give governing powers... probably the Senate.
Some semantics:
Clinton got more votes in Florida than New York.
There is no contradiction between "republic" and "democracy". The USA is both a republic and a democracy. The electoral college is not the central way in which it differs from a pure democracy; the constitution and supreme court are.