Current Events > 10 votes in Ohio has more power than 2 million votes

(+) Yeah! (+)

How is this a reasonable efficient election system for a country like the USA? In addition, why are the citizens okay with such a state having so much more voting representation than them?
---

Founding fathers liked political diversity
---

But did you ever think about land's feelings? Land is people too
---

A lot of us arent ok with it, and it is one reason why so many of us dont vote. It is also partly why Republicans are actively suppressing minority votes in these areas especially. Our elections are shams and no one is working to fix it.

Damn_Underscore posted...

Founding fathers liked political diversity

That doesnt seem like political diversity to me
---

Damn_Underscore posted...

Founding fathers liked political diversity

As long as you were a white male
---

According to some quick math, only about 42% of americans voted in the 2016 election.

The current population of the United States is about 372,000,000 right now. Which would mean about 156,000,000 people voted that year.

In 2000 the u.s population was about 282,000,000. According to some reports only about 50% of registered voters voted that year. Which would be 141,000,000.

Now if someone wanted take the time to find the rounded percentage increase from 2000, to 2016. That would be interesting to know.

These are loose numbers, but good enough. And I'm not even taking into account how many actual registered voters there are those two separate years.
---

The electoral college protects vulnerable minorities from the tyranny of the majority.
---

friendbuddypal posted...

The electoral college protects vulnerable minorities from the tyranny of the majority.

What "vulnerable minorities"?
---

The electoral college was created for slave holding states. Look it up.
---

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpr_KaaRjW0" data-time="
---

hockeybub89 posted...

But did you ever think about land's feelings? Land is people too

This land is my land, this land is your land...
---

Crono99 posted...

Wasn't that stuff negotiated as a condition for all these states to join the union in the first place?

https://time.com/4558510/electoral-college-history-slavery/

At the Philadelphia convention, the visionary Pennsylvanian James Wilson proposed direct national election of the president. But the savvy Virginian James Madison responded that such a system would prove unacceptable to the South: The right of suffrage was much more diffusive [i.e., extensive] in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes. In other words, in a direct election system, the North would outnumber the South, whose many slaves (more than half a million in all) of course could not vote. But the Electoral Collegea prototype of which Madison proposed in this same speechinstead let each southern state count its slaves, albeit with a two-fifths discount, in computing its share of the overall count.
---

Federalist Paper #68 is a good explanation for why we have the Electoral College. Basically a tyrannical majority is a thing, going back as early as Plato, and would vote for Santa Claus over George Washington.
---

brestugo posted...

The electoral college was created for slave holding states. Look it up.

So, Democrats.
---

Solar_Crimson posted...

friendbuddypal posted...

The electoral college protects vulnerable minorities from the tyranny of the majority.

What "vulnerable minorities"?

white people in ohio

definitely not black people in ohio they get suppressed by the majority in ohio specifically

darkjedilink posted...

brestugo posted...

The electoral college was created for slave holding states. Look it up.

So, Democrats.

neither democrats nor republicans existed at the time
---

AngelsNAirwav3s posted...

Federalist Paper #68 is a good explanation for why we have the Electoral College. Basically a tyrannical majority is a thing, going back as early as Plato, and would vote for Santa Claus over George Washington.

Yes, it's easy for rich, white slave-holding plantation owners to consider the rest of the country to be the tyrannical majority.
---

darkjedilink posted...

brestugo posted...

The electoral college was created for slave holding states. Look it up.

So, Democrats.

There were no parties at the time. You are correct with your dogwhistle that Democrats were the conservatives during Reconstruction and during Jim Crow. Conservatives have always defended racism in this country. Thank goodness the parties switched ideologies.
---

lydiaquayle posted...

AngelsNAirwav3s posted...

Federalist Paper #68 is a good explanation for why we have the Electoral College. Basically a tyrannical majority is a thing, going back as early as Plato, and would vote for Santa Claus over George Washington.

Yes, it's easy for rich, white slave-holding plantation owners to consider the rest of the country to be the tyrannical majority.

Actually Alexander Hamilton was a pretty outspoken abolitionist believe it or not
---

hockeybub89 posted...

But did you ever think about land's feelings? Land is people too

You jest but it could force the population to spread out, increase the private sector, lower living costs

AngelsNAirwav3s posted...

Actually Alexander Hamilton was a pretty outspoken abolitionist

Ok, so he only checks 2 out of 3 boxes.
---

defauIt posted...

You jest but it could force the population to spread out, increase the private sector, lower living costs

(Sub)Urban sprawl increases living costs overall. Making things taller and compact is more efficient than spread out, and using arable land for non-farming uses.
---

lydiaquayle posted...

defauIt posted...

You jest but it could force the population to spread out, increase the private sector, lower living costs

(Sub)Urban sprawl increases living costs overall.

Yeah in reality it would

Evol posted...

Our elections are shams and no one is working to fix it.

pretty much
---

AngelsNAirwav3s posted...

Federalist Paper #68 is a good explanation for why we have the Electoral College. Basically a tyrannical majority is a thing, going back as early as Plato, and would vote for Santa Claus over George Washington.

That's true, and a valid concern. However at the convention what drove the adoption of the electoral college was protecting the interests of slaveholders.
---

brestugo posted...

That's true, and a valid concern. However at the convention what drove the adoption of the electoral college was protecting the interests of slaveholders.

Let's not forget that the Athenian Greeks, then Romans were slave-holding, rich, 'white' men, as well.
---

lydiaquayle posted...

AngelsNAirwav3s posted...

Actually Alexander Hamilton was a pretty outspoken abolitionist

Ok, so he only checks 2 out of 3 boxes.

Maybe you should try to leave ad hominem out of your political discussions, you are more effective when you don't use fallacious arguments
---

AngelsNAirwav3s posted...

Maybe you should try to leave ad hominem out of your political discussions, you are more effective when you don't use fallacious arguments

Dude, wtf are you blabbering on about?

You're SUPPOSED to look at one's biases in order to evaluate their arguments. The fact of the matter is that the Athenians, Romans, early American politicians -- they were PREDOMINANTLY rich, or upper-middle-class slave-holding, landowners. OF COURSE, they're going to argue for a system that benefits them the most.
---

I thought the Electoral College was a system put in place so that every state counted towards votes in the election. I mean, I'm not a political science enthusiast, but that was always my layman's knowledge of it.
---

EverDownward posted...

I thought the Electoral College was a system put in place so that every state counted towards votes in the election.

Every state already gets counted by virtue of a popular vote. The goal of the electoral college was to give disproportionate representation to smaller state governments. Back then, the US federal government was relatively weak and de-centralized, so there was very little incentive for new states and territories to join the Union.
---

lydiaquayle posted...

AngelsNAirwav3s posted...

Maybe you should try to leave ad hominem out of your political discussions, you are more effective when you don't use fallacious arguments

Dude, wtf are you blabbering on about?

You're SUPPOSED to look at one's biases in order to evaluate their arguments. The fact of the matter is that the Athenians, Romans, early American politicians -- they were PREDOMINANTLY rich, or upper-middle-class slave-holding, landowners. OF COURSE, they're going to argue for a system that benefits them the most.

Bro actually you are supposed to engage with the actual argument, clearly you were not part of any speech and debate team
---

AngelsNAirwav3s posted...

Bro actually you are supposed to engage with the actual argument,

The ACTUAL argument has already been engaged. The electoral college further entrenches power in the land-owning few.

The electoral college benefited the slave-owning south. The electoral college benefited the segregrationist states. The electoral college now benefits oil-rich mining states, and corporate-dominated rural states.
---

slimjimfizzle posted...

Damn_Underscore posted...

Founding fathers liked political diversity

As long as you were a white male

---