4 ms·

The electoral college was designed so the highly populated states don't have too much leverage over the rest of the country, and worked as was intended. There a

The electoral college was designed so the highly populated states don't have too much leverage over the rest of the country, and worked as was intended. There are many areas of the country seeing a declining quality of life, and those areas happened to vote for the candidate who spoke of economic issues more.

dragonwriter 10y ago
The electoral college was designed so that slave states, who got extra seats in the House compared to their population of citizens through the 3/5 compromise, would have Presidential electoral power proportional to the degree to which they were overrepresented in Congress, rather than in line with their number of voting citizens. It is designed as a positive reward for the remaining enfranchised population for disenfranchising a portion of the population counted for apportionment. It is, indeed, working as intended, the problem is that the intent was ill from the beginning.
- dukeluke 10y ago
  Don't race bait. The issue was a lot more nuanced than that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_%28United_States%29?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_%28United_St...
  - pklausler 10y ago
    How the bloody hell is his comment "race baiting"??
    - dukeluke 10y ago
      It's race baiting by implying the only reason the electoral college was created was to leverage the slaves. It creates a false narrative that amplifies racist thoughts against the government.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    I'm not race baiting, its really not a lot more nuanced (the popular alternative explanation is the sales pitch made to New Yorkers to get them to buy off on the scheme, because we've taken 18th Century campaign propaganda as unvarnished truth as part of our national cult of veneration of the four ding fathers), and your source doesn't even address the motivations (well, it briefly addresses one participants description of the reason of the change from the Virginia Plan, which had the same salient features and served the same purpose, to the EC, but that doesn't address why the basic alignment with Congressional representation underlying both the Virginia Plan and EC was chosen; the reason, like the 3/5 compromise and the express protection of the slave trade.in the Constitution, was to overrepresent the slave states and alleviate their fears that the long term course was toward abolition), only the mechanics and the history of operations under it.
    - dukeluke 10y ago
      I provided a source that says there were more considerations than slavery. Can you please provide a legitimate source that proves otherwise?
      - dragonwriter 10y ago
        > I provided a source that says there were more considerations than slavery. You provided a source that does not address the motivations for the particular feature at issue at all, much less ascribe them to "more considerations than slavery".
pklausler 10y ago
Nonsense. The EC was designed to give extra power to slave states. Nowadays, it's used to give Wyoming voters six effing times the voting power of Californians. That's not democracy.

dragonwriter 10y ago

The electoral college was designed so that slave states, who got extra seats in the House compared to their population of citizens through the 3/5 compromise, would have Presidential electoral power proportional to the degree to which they were overrepresented in Congress, rather than in line with their number of voting citizens. It is designed as a positive reward for the remaining enfranchised population for disenfranchising a portion of the population counted for apportionment. It is, indeed, working as intended, the problem is that the intent was ill from the beginning.

dukeluke 10y ago
Don't race bait. The issue was a lot more nuanced than that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_%28United_States%29?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_%28United_St...
- pklausler 10y ago
  How the bloody hell is his comment "race baiting"??
  - dukeluke 10y ago
    It's race baiting by implying the only reason the electoral college was created was to leverage the slaves. It creates a false narrative that amplifies racist thoughts against the government.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  I'm not race baiting, its really not a lot more nuanced (the popular alternative explanation is the sales pitch made to New Yorkers to get them to buy off on the scheme, because we've taken 18th Century campaign propaganda as unvarnished truth as part of our national cult of veneration of the four ding fathers), and your source doesn't even address the motivations (well, it briefly addresses one participants description of the reason of the change from the Virginia Plan, which had the same salient features and served the same purpose, to the EC, but that doesn't address why the basic alignment with Congressional representation underlying both the Virginia Plan and EC was chosen; the reason, like the 3/5 compromise and the express protection of the slave trade.in the Constitution, was to overrepresent the slave states and alleviate their fears that the long term course was toward abolition), only the mechanics and the history of operations under it.
  - dukeluke 10y ago
    I provided a source that says there were more considerations than slavery. Can you please provide a legitimate source that proves otherwise?
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > I provided a source that says there were more considerations than slavery. You provided a source that does not address the motivations for the particular feature at issue at all, much less ascribe them to "more considerations than slavery".

pklausler 10y ago

Nonsense. The EC was designed to give extra power to slave states. Nowadays, it's used to give Wyoming voters six effing times the voting power of Californians. That's not democracy.