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There are complexities and nuances in our country that aren't well represented by the majority. Such as the food, farming, and ranching industries. Such as rura

There are complexities and nuances in our country that aren't well represented by the majority. Such as the food, farming, and ranching industries. Such as rural or sub-rural areas, forestry management, national parks, mining, etc. Entire industries exist that are better served by local politics than national politics, and for which a popular vote would under-represent. That's why the system was designed with an electoral college. So that rural farmers could be represented as equally and strongly as city business people. Should they be? Probably, if we want to eat. Even in the current system, the election is largely chosen by people living in large cities that are completely disconnected from the rest of the 95% of the country. There is almost a city limits split between red and blue. Maintaining balance in the complex system is more important than making each voice heard.

crakhamster01 6y ago
> That's why the system was designed with an electoral college. So that rural farmers could be represented as equally and strongly as city business people. This isn't all that accurate. One of the main reasons why the framers came up with the electoral college was due to the fact that, 200+ years ago, information exchange was extremely low. The US was already fairly large at that point, and the concern was that 18th-century voters in rural areas would lack the resources to have an informed vote about national candidates. There was concern about equal representation, but reducing that down to just "farmers" is a little disingenuous. The reason why Southern states agreed to a voting system that granted electors based off of population was because they were able to work in the Three-Fifths compromise. States like Virginia, where enslaved people counted 60% of the population, greatly benefited from this, and at one point enabled Virginia to count for 25% of the national electorate. These decisions might have been reasonable 200+ years ago, but neither of these are the case anymore, and are not good reasons to cling on to a system that was largely born out of necessity. Also, one point that's usually glossed over is that when people gripe about the electoral college, it's usually referring to the fact that the candidate with the majority of votes in a state takes all of their electors (e.g. winner takes all). However, the framers never defined how states should conduct their own elections. This system of allocating votes only began catching on around 40 years after they ratified the Constitution, where individual states gradually decided to implement this system. There's nothing in the Constitution about it, and even James Madison famously wrote a letter in 1827 complaining about how adopting this system could undermine our entire Democratic process.
- finder83 6y ago
  Though I think that the history is also likely more complex than that, regardless of the history, that still doesn't change my point. The electoral college process still serves us better than a simple majority would. I agree there are possibly better ways, possibly force choice ranking, etc. But all a simple majority vote would do would be to ensure we would become a one-party system, the opposite direction we should be headed (a multiple-party system). Having it be controlled by the states is a great testing bed for that, for example, in Maine. There's no reason to take that power away from states and make it federal. IANAL, but my interpretation is that the part that is in the constitution is that it is up to the individual states to decide how to run their elections and assign electoral votes.
baby 6y ago
I thought your point made sense the first time I heard it, but it makes less and less sense the more I think about. To convince yourself think about it this way: you have two buckets, 1 person in the first one, 999 people in the second one. Should the two buckets get equal vote? Of course not right? Now how many people would you agree have to move to the other bucket to make things fair if the two buckets had equal voting power?
- finder83 6y ago
  No, of course not, in your analogy. If all systems and locations served the same purposes, everyone should have equal say. But that's not the case at all. What we're actually talking about are segments of people who hold largely the same beliefs as other people in their spheres based on geolocation, natural resources, and livelihoods. Their beliefs are based on their context, along with other factors. Of course there's crossover, moral issues, etc. But there are going to be issues that don't cross over into other areas. Let me give a practical example. Aboloshing guns. Note I'm not even talking gun control, but actually getting rid of classes of guns. I've lived both in Texas ranch land, and in New York (Jersey, commuting to Manhattan). Those are very different contexts. In New York, guns are seen as nothing but a weapon. In Texas, guns are seen as a necessity in places. In New York, guns are to defend yourself or to hurt someone else, and are almost exclusively used against people. In Texas, guns are used for those purposes, but also to hunt, to kill boars that would hurt people otherwise (and are invasive, dangerous, and could kill animals and children), to put down animals, to kill coyotes who steal chickens, to kill a rattlesnake that is in the horse pen...they're tools. You know what AR-15s are useful for? Boars and coyotes, as well as cougars (not in Texas that I'm aware of though). They're great against small fast predators where you would need more than one shot in an easy to shoot gun. Wouldn't carry one for a minute in Alaska against Grizzly bears. That's an entirely different context than Texas, even though it's "rural". I don't think there's much need for one at ALL in Manhattan where if you fired one it'd shoot through three apartments' walls defending yourself. Second amendment and the right to defend yourself aside. Even talking about defending yourself, how long do you think it'll take to get a county sheriff out to a 1,000 acre ranch in the middle of nowhere if someone is shooting at you? The context matters. There's a lot fewer rancher Texans than there are people in Manhattan. Why should Manhattan get the full say in saying that the rancher's way of life is invalid? Maybe there is compromise, but I honestly don't think there is such a thing in our current climate. This crosses many areas...which business get incentives? Should we give subsidies for corn, for food, etc. Should we encourage tech growth? What about migrant workers? Visa workers are very different than someone coming in to work a ranch or construction. On some issues I agree with you. Particularly moral issues. We need to be "American" at some point, and not bipartisan. We need to have discussions on issues and not fight across party lines. But some issues, the party lines are there because the parties represent different groups of people. We should discuss those issues too, but in almost all cases I've seen both sides don't even begin to understand the other side. They can't comprehend it because they've not walked a mile in the other people's shoes. "Who cares about coal miners?" Or the thoughts of Ivory Tower academics. There's probably a more fair system than what we have. We need to destroy bipartisanship and limit the federal government so that local governments can give their people what they need, in my opinion, while keeping national issues like the environment as a topical national discussion. We're a LONG way from any of that though, and will continue to as long as there's this left/right divide, unwillingness to cross the aisle, and the view that the other side is the enemy, stupid, or evil/racist. BOTH sides see each other that way, my Facebook is full of people from both Texas and New York who see each other that way, and just don't understand...both sides mean well. Economically, structurally, contextually, we need a government that gives some level of power to people who live in more rural areas. Not absolute, but a balance. Pretty much everyone in Manhattan I knew were either party line democrats or libertarians. Nothing wrong with that, but that is a big bucket of people that pretty much all believe the same things because of their context, and don't understand other areas as well. New York itself is split into different contexts, upstate New York seems an entirely different state/country than New York City. Maybe some people do understand the issues and each other...again, we're people, it's complex, we have different backgrounds. But as it stands, our system is polarized into two groups that don't understand each other, but help each other in a weird symbiotic way. If you switch it to be purely population based...it's going to be one group that now doesn't understand 95% of the country's land area, and very little of the supporting infrastructure that enables things like tech or finance. Note what I'm NOT saying...that the electoral college fixes all of this. I'm just saying that a purely popular democratic vote would not work like people think they would, because all they see are their issues, and the most populous groups mostly live in the same types of contexts (college educated cities with tech, finance, medical, education, and business sectors).

crakhamster01 6y ago

> That's why the system was designed with an electoral college. So that rural farmers could be represented as equally and strongly as city business people. This isn't all that accurate. One of the main reasons why the framers came up with the electoral college was due to the fact that, 200+ years ago, information exchange was extremely low. The US was already fairly large at that point, and the concern was that 18th-century voters in rural areas would lack the resources to have an informed vote about national candidates. There was concern about equal representation, but reducing that down to just "farmers" is a little disingenuous. The reason why Southern states agreed to a voting system that granted electors based off of population was because they were able to work in the Three-Fifths compromise. States like Virginia, where enslaved people counted 60% of the population, greatly benefited from this, and at one point enabled Virginia to count for 25% of the national electorate. These decisions might have been reasonable 200+ years ago, but neither of these are the case anymore, and are not good reasons to cling on to a system that was largely born out of necessity. Also, one point that's usually glossed over is that when people gripe about the electoral college, it's usually referring to the fact that the candidate with the majority of votes in a state takes all of their electors (e.g. winner takes all). However, the framers never defined how states should conduct their own elections. This system of allocating votes only began catching on around 40 years after they ratified the Constitution, where individual states gradually decided to implement this system. There's nothing in the Constitution about it, and even James Madison famously wrote a letter in 1827 complaining about how adopting this system could undermine our entire Democratic process.

finder83 6y ago
Though I think that the history is also likely more complex than that, regardless of the history, that still doesn't change my point. The electoral college process still serves us better than a simple majority would. I agree there are possibly better ways, possibly force choice ranking, etc. But all a simple majority vote would do would be to ensure we would become a one-party system, the opposite direction we should be headed (a multiple-party system). Having it be controlled by the states is a great testing bed for that, for example, in Maine. There's no reason to take that power away from states and make it federal. IANAL, but my interpretation is that the part that is in the constitution is that it is up to the individual states to decide how to run their elections and assign electoral votes.

baby 6y ago

I thought your point made sense the first time I heard it, but it makes less and less sense the more I think about. To convince yourself think about it this way: you have two buckets, 1 person in the first one, 999 people in the second one. Should the two buckets get equal vote? Of course not right? Now how many people would you agree have to move to the other bucket to make things fair if the two buckets had equal voting power?

finder83 6y ago
No, of course not, in your analogy. If all systems and locations served the same purposes, everyone should have equal say. But that's not the case at all. What we're actually talking about are segments of people who hold largely the same beliefs as other people in their spheres based on geolocation, natural resources, and livelihoods. Their beliefs are based on their context, along with other factors. Of course there's crossover, moral issues, etc. But there are going to be issues that don't cross over into other areas. Let me give a practical example. Aboloshing guns. Note I'm not even talking gun control, but actually getting rid of classes of guns. I've lived both in Texas ranch land, and in New York (Jersey, commuting to Manhattan). Those are very different contexts. In New York, guns are seen as nothing but a weapon. In Texas, guns are seen as a necessity in places. In New York, guns are to defend yourself or to hurt someone else, and are almost exclusively used against people. In Texas, guns are used for those purposes, but also to hunt, to kill boars that would hurt people otherwise (and are invasive, dangerous, and could kill animals and children), to put down animals, to kill coyotes who steal chickens, to kill a rattlesnake that is in the horse pen...they're tools. You know what AR-15s are useful for? Boars and coyotes, as well as cougars (not in Texas that I'm aware of though). They're great against small fast predators where you would need more than one shot in an easy to shoot gun. Wouldn't carry one for a minute in Alaska against Grizzly bears. That's an entirely different context than Texas, even though it's "rural". I don't think there's much need for one at ALL in Manhattan where if you fired one it'd shoot through three apartments' walls defending yourself. Second amendment and the right to defend yourself aside. Even talking about defending yourself, how long do you think it'll take to get a county sheriff out to a 1,000 acre ranch in the middle of nowhere if someone is shooting at you? The context matters. There's a lot fewer rancher Texans than there are people in Manhattan. Why should Manhattan get the full say in saying that the rancher's way of life is invalid? Maybe there is compromise, but I honestly don't think there is such a thing in our current climate. This crosses many areas...which business get incentives? Should we give subsidies for corn, for food, etc. Should we encourage tech growth? What about migrant workers? Visa workers are very different than someone coming in to work a ranch or construction. On some issues I agree with you. Particularly moral issues. We need to be "American" at some point, and not bipartisan. We need to have discussions on issues and not fight across party lines. But some issues, the party lines are there because the parties represent different groups of people. We should discuss those issues too, but in almost all cases I've seen both sides don't even begin to understand the other side. They can't comprehend it because they've not walked a mile in the other people's shoes. "Who cares about coal miners?" Or the thoughts of Ivory Tower academics. There's probably a more fair system than what we have. We need to destroy bipartisanship and limit the federal government so that local governments can give their people what they need, in my opinion, while keeping national issues like the environment as a topical national discussion. We're a LONG way from any of that though, and will continue to as long as there's this left/right divide, unwillingness to cross the aisle, and the view that the other side is the enemy, stupid, or evil/racist. BOTH sides see each other that way, my Facebook is full of people from both Texas and New York who see each other that way, and just don't understand...both sides mean well. Economically, structurally, contextually, we need a government that gives some level of power to people who live in more rural areas. Not absolute, but a balance. Pretty much everyone in Manhattan I knew were either party line democrats or libertarians. Nothing wrong with that, but that is a big bucket of people that pretty much all believe the same things because of their context, and don't understand other areas as well. New York itself is split into different contexts, upstate New York seems an entirely different state/country than New York City. Maybe some people do understand the issues and each other...again, we're people, it's complex, we have different backgrounds. But as it stands, our system is polarized into two groups that don't understand each other, but help each other in a weird symbiotic way. If you switch it to be purely population based...it's going to be one group that now doesn't understand 95% of the country's land area, and very little of the supporting infrastructure that enables things like tech or finance. Note what I'm NOT saying...that the electoral college fixes all of this. I'm just saying that a purely popular democratic vote would not work like people think they would, because all they see are their issues, and the most populous groups mostly live in the same types of contexts (college educated cities with tech, finance, medical, education, and business sectors).