From a European perspective, the purpose of voting is to give everyone a voice in how the country is run. The purpose of the voting system is to make encourage

From a European perspective, the purpose of voting is to give everyone a voice in how the country is run. The purpose of the voting system is to make encourage people to participate in the vote and honor the outcome. Popular vote in general are not used in Europe, and as a voting system it does not have the desired property of getting people to participate and respect the result. Degressive proportionality is one of the most common property of voting system in EU, and the reason for it depends. For Iceland the purpose of degressive proportionality is to make sure the capital do not have a majority decision of the rest of the country. In Sweden, the purpose of degressive proportionality is to make sure that the small island of Gotland have a minimum 3 seats in parliament (a purpose which would require a larger explanation). For the European Parliament the reason of degressive proportionality is there to basically not give Germany too much power. The most common argument for the degressive proportionality of electoral college in the united states of America seem to be that it encourage the states to remain part of the union, rather than split the continent into multiple independent countries. Whatever that is still true 200 years is worth having a discussion on, especially now with the low voter participation and low respect for the outcome.