5 ms·

The electoral college was just a kludge to allow elections before modern instant long distance communication became a thing. The gold standard for democracy was

The electoral college was just a kludge to allow elections before modern instant long distance communication became a thing. The gold standard for democracy was always "one person, one vote", but nowadays there's a lot of people that consider their personal gain more important than being democratic and those people (the Republican party mostly) will try to hang on to the electoral college, no matter the cost apparently.

0xB31B1B 7y ago
“The gold standard for democracy has always been one person one vote”: it’s much more complicated than that. At least for US legal history, the idea of “who has the right to vote” has changed significantly, from land owning white males to citizens who haven’t committed felonies (and a few other exceptions like residents of Puerto Rico or citizens who live abroad and a few more). If you look even further back, Athens, the creator of democracy, would generally view our government as oligarchy (rule by the few) as popular vote elections were viewed as possible to be games/bought by the wealthy or connected. You can see echoes of that in today’s politics with dynastic families (Clintons, Bushes). To solve the problem, the Athenians employed the concept of “sortion” or essentially a civil service lottery where the ruling council of the city was chosen at random from all eligible citizens. A modern example of something close to sortition today is Jury Duty.
- baggy_trough 7y ago
  If the House was chosen randomly from the population, it would be a big improvement.
SamReidHughes 7y ago
This is not true. Go read about the formation of the Constitution. It doesn't even make any sense. States were just as capable of holding elections and sending six-digit numbers to Washington as they were holding elections and sending two-digit numbers to Washington.

5 ms·

The electoral college was just a kludge to allow elections before modern instant long distance communication became a thing. The gold standard for democracy was

by Schnitz 7y ago

0xB31B1B 7y ago
“The gold standard for democracy has always been one person one vote”: it’s much more complicated than that. At least for US legal history, the idea of “who has the right to vote” has changed significantly, from land owning white males to citizens who haven’t committed felonies (and a few other exceptions like residents of Puerto Rico or citizens who live abroad and a few more). If you look even further back, Athens, the creator of democracy, would generally view our government as oligarchy (rule by the few) as popular vote elections were viewed as possible to be games/bought by the wealthy or connected. You can see echoes of that in today’s politics with dynastic families (Clintons, Bushes). To solve the problem, the Athenians employed the concept of “sortion” or essentially a civil service lottery where the ruling council of the city was chosen at random from all eligible citizens. A modern example of something close to sortition today is Jury Duty.
- baggy_trough 7y ago
  If the House was chosen randomly from the population, it would be a big improvement.
SamReidHughes 7y ago
This is not true. Go read about the formation of the Constitution. It doesn't even make any sense. States were just as capable of holding elections and sending six-digit numbers to Washington as they were holding elections and sending two-digit numbers to Washington.