Quote:
Originally posted by punkworld
Your statement that you don't find the population to be important somewhat scares me. Isn't the one main thing a nation exists for, and is ultimately subordinate to, its population? If not, dictatorship would be just as valid a form of government as democracy...
Now, as for what makes the EC outdated, I think the main thing is the "winner takes all" principle. In a rural society with states that had relatively low populations, the argument that a single vote could represent a state's overall position fairly well may have been somewhat valid. However, with states the size of California that simply isn't the case anymore.
Aside from that, the "winner takes all" principle adds a huge influence of random luck to the electoral process. As we've seen in 2000, a few hundred or a few thousand votes can determine the outcome. Those can literally be changed by a small breeze or a small amount of rain. This is also true if you use the popular vote or a proportionate distribution of electoral votes, but to a much lesser degree.
Now, as for the minimum representation, that is based on a society where the states had much smaller population differences and where mobility between states was much smaller.
However, these days there is no good reason anymore why someone from Wyoming should have 3 times as much to say about who becomes president as someone from California.
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"Your statement that you don't find the population to be important somewhat scares me". Quote me, PW. I have no idea what you are even talking about. I didn't say anything like that at all.
The population does matter. It matters a lot - on a state by state basis. It matters pretty much like it does in the UK or Canada.
The EC isn't supposed to approximate a state's population. It never was. It was created just so it
isn't proportional to each state's population.
The United States is a Republic.
You keep discussing this like this is the United Peoples of America. It's not. iIt's the United STATES of America. Akin in someways to the way the EU has started though it has evolved to be much more federal. Originally, there were the Articles of Confederation. This was found to be too weak of a central government. They then created the constitution intending to strengthen the central government but not to go too far.
The population differences at the founding of the Republic were very large indeed. Virginia was ten times larger than Rhode Island. Hell, Virginia had more people in 1790 than Vermont has today.