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> Believe me, most Americans agree with you that our elections have become a joke. Congressional districts have been redesigned in the past 10 years to give Rep

> Believe me, most Americans agree with you that our elections have become a joke. Congressional districts have been redesigned in the past 10 years to give Republicans a huge unnatural advantage in the House of Representatives. And the US Constitution itself gave us the undemocratic Senate and Electoral College. How is the senate undemocratic? Isn't it the same as pretty much every other western democracy? I know it pretty much mirrors what we have in Australia except that we have a lot less states.

dekhn 10y ago
The Senate isn't inherently undemocratic, but it's not population-representative. It gives an effective psuedocount of 2 to each state, regardless of its population. For states with very little population (think Wyoming compared to California) it gives them a distinct additional voting strength that is not population proportional representative.
- jhanschoo 10y ago
  Arguably, the additional representation made more sense before the federal government got as big as it was, and before mass communication and the Internet made large-scale cross-state collaboration and organization feasible.
  - dekhn 10y ago
    I don't really see why either of those would be reasons for or against having senatorial pseudocounts. The idea was always based on the density of urban states relative to sparsely populated states. Any large-scale cros-state collaboration would require a large number of small states to have any impact relative to a CA or an NY.
    - jhanschoo 10y ago
      It's not universally or obviously regarded to be true, but I work from the following premise— difficult and slow communication makes it harder for smaller actors to defend themselves against the tyranny of the majority, as plans get made without proper consultation with representatives of minority interests. With easy information, however, news travels faster, and more elaborate plans can be worked out in the same time, and hence it is easier to account for minority interests.
      - shard972 10y ago
        > With easy information, however, news travels faster, and more elaborate plans can be worked out in the same time, and hence it is easier to account for minority interests. I don't see how this at all explains the fundamental ideological differences between states and how less densely populated area's wouldn't be screwed if the system was changed to just be a popular vote or something similar. Sure I can hear about how people in the middle states are dying because they have no jobs and are using record levels of hard drugs, but that doesn't mean people in the cities have to vote with them in mind.

dekhn 10y ago

The Senate isn't inherently undemocratic, but it's not population-representative. It gives an effective psuedocount of 2 to each state, regardless of its population. For states with very little population (think Wyoming compared to California) it gives them a distinct additional voting strength that is not population proportional representative.

jhanschoo 10y ago
Arguably, the additional representation made more sense before the federal government got as big as it was, and before mass communication and the Internet made large-scale cross-state collaboration and organization feasible.
- dekhn 10y ago
  I don't really see why either of those would be reasons for or against having senatorial pseudocounts. The idea was always based on the density of urban states relative to sparsely populated states. Any large-scale cros-state collaboration would require a large number of small states to have any impact relative to a CA or an NY.
  - jhanschoo 10y ago
    It's not universally or obviously regarded to be true, but I work from the following premise— difficult and slow communication makes it harder for smaller actors to defend themselves against the tyranny of the majority, as plans get made without proper consultation with representatives of minority interests. With easy information, however, news travels faster, and more elaborate plans can be worked out in the same time, and hence it is easier to account for minority interests.
    - shard972 10y ago
      > With easy information, however, news travels faster, and more elaborate plans can be worked out in the same time, and hence it is easier to account for minority interests. I don't see how this at all explains the fundamental ideological differences between states and how less densely populated area's wouldn't be screwed if the system was changed to just be a popular vote or something similar. Sure I can hear about how people in the middle states are dying because they have no jobs and are using record levels of hard drugs, but that doesn't mean people in the cities have to vote with them in mind.