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Electing a president via popular vote would give populous states disproportionate influence over the country compared to other states. That is important because

Electing a president via popular vote would give populous states disproportionate influence over the country compared to other states. That is important because the president could do obnoxious things against the best interest of any particular state, especially ones with less influence. The stuff happening to your home state is way more relevant to your life than your political party or special interests.

bryanlarsen 2y ago
Arbitrary lines on maps are arbitrary. North & South Dakota are far more similar than north and south California.
- wakawaka28 2y ago
  The lines on maps are not arbitrary. People decided them by choice and in some cases by force. You might feel no particular attachment to your state, but if another state decided that your state should be exploited in some way, your primary source of support would be your neighbors within those so-called arbitrary lines.
  - bryanlarsen 2y ago
    I used North and South Dakota for a reason. The only reason they were split was to hijack the Senate.
    - wakawaka28 2y ago
      That is misleading. There was no state of Dakota. The two became states at the same time. Even Wikipedia says this: >Regionalist tensions between the northern and the southern parts of the territory were present since the beginning. So, the split was not likely about senate seats. It was about people getting along within each state.
Zigurd 2y ago
> Electing a president via popular vote would give populous states disproportionate influence over the country compared to other states. It would give every human, who has the right to representation, exactly proportionate influence. The weird fashy retired cops in Idaho will have to settle for having the same number of senators as Californians have.
- wakawaka28 2y ago
  That is not a good argument. People have a right to self-determination. The same logic of populism can be applied on a trans-national scale, even. There is no limit because under your logic, any person's vote is as good as any other's. The fact is we have states to provide a level of autonomy and independence to geographically separate groups of people, so they can live with more freedom. I don't care if the entire state of California is against how I live, because they are thousands of miles away and deserve less say in how I live than my neighbors. The federal system we have strikes a balance between the two. A president of a federation such as the US must represent the individual states equally, because there can only be one president and that seat has disproportionate power. I really think people flip flop on the popular vote issue based on whether they think it helps their particular party or not, which is unbelievably short-sighted.
  - Apocryphon 2y ago
    > The fact is we have states to provide a level of autonomy and independence to geographically separate groups of people, so they can live with more freedom. On this specific point- do you contend that unitary republics, such as France, are inherently less free than federal entities? How are provinces less free than states? Is Canada less free than the U.S.?
    - wakawaka28 2y ago
      The effect I just described is just one factor affecting the freedom of a group. Sometimes you do need to have a larger entity around beyond your local government for various reasons. I would think that the potential for the worst tyranny is smaller in geographically smaller countries or units, because people can leave. For example, people who don't like a city or county can leave it. Provinces and states are also possible to leave behind if you can't stand the laws. Countries are trickier to leave because of international relations, but it is still possible. I also expect small countries are easier to leave than big ones. It's not ideal to have to move, but at least you can move away from localized issues. Some localized issues may also be avoided by seeking input from only the people who will be affected. All in all, I think it is easier to find consensus among smaller groups, and the larger a group gets the harder it is to make rules or policies that everyone is happy with.
FactKnower69 2y ago
Damn imagine if everyone's vote was equally weighted, what a disaster for democracy that would be. Mob rule!!
- wakawaka28 2y ago
  I sense some sarcasm. But you ought to know that the founders, along with Aristotle and other Greeks (basically, the inventors of democracy), were afraid of mobs and sought to temper the whims of the people. States are given representation proportional to their populations, and also equal representation (in the Senate). The EC and House seats aren't just based on voter turnout, voter population, or even the actual number of citizens in the state (which is rather problematic). So this whole push for direct democracy in the presidential election is stupid. Yes, swing states are a thing, but only because the other states vote consistently in a particular way. Another problem with using the popular vote to decide the presidential election is that it inventivizes fraud. If someone managed to corrupt a few populous states, they could generate extremely high numbers of fake votes to drown out every other state.
  - Apocryphon 2y ago
    The current system incentivizes fraud in swing states, so the fraud is simply shifted elsewhere.
    - wakawaka28 2y ago
      I think it's different. In any case, you can imagine a scenario where different states have wildly different voter turnout. That could even happen due to a natural disaster such as the hurricanes we've seen in the past few weeks. How messed up would it be for a state ravaged by a hurricane, tsunami, earthquake, or whatever to have its influence diminished because people were unable to vote? It is already bad enough that the votes could be skewed based on specific counties. But imagine the whole state losing its actual representation because of power outages and stuff. It might even encourage some states to sabotage other states, to reduce turnout.

bryanlarsen 2y ago

Arbitrary lines on maps are arbitrary. North & South Dakota are far more similar than north and south California.

wakawaka28 2y ago
The lines on maps are not arbitrary. People decided them by choice and in some cases by force. You might feel no particular attachment to your state, but if another state decided that your state should be exploited in some way, your primary source of support would be your neighbors within those so-called arbitrary lines.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  I used North and South Dakota for a reason. The only reason they were split was to hijack the Senate.
  - wakawaka28 2y ago
    That is misleading. There was no state of Dakota. The two became states at the same time. Even Wikipedia says this: >Regionalist tensions between the northern and the southern parts of the territory were present since the beginning. So, the split was not likely about senate seats. It was about people getting along within each state.

Zigurd 2y ago

> Electing a president via popular vote would give populous states disproportionate influence over the country compared to other states. It would give every human, who has the right to representation, exactly proportionate influence. The weird fashy retired cops in Idaho will have to settle for having the same number of senators as Californians have.

wakawaka28 2y ago
That is not a good argument. People have a right to self-determination. The same logic of populism can be applied on a trans-national scale, even. There is no limit because under your logic, any person's vote is as good as any other's. The fact is we have states to provide a level of autonomy and independence to geographically separate groups of people, so they can live with more freedom. I don't care if the entire state of California is against how I live, because they are thousands of miles away and deserve less say in how I live than my neighbors. The federal system we have strikes a balance between the two. A president of a federation such as the US must represent the individual states equally, because there can only be one president and that seat has disproportionate power. I really think people flip flop on the popular vote issue based on whether they think it helps their particular party or not, which is unbelievably short-sighted.
- Apocryphon 2y ago
  > The fact is we have states to provide a level of autonomy and independence to geographically separate groups of people, so they can live with more freedom. On this specific point- do you contend that unitary republics, such as France, are inherently less free than federal entities? How are provinces less free than states? Is Canada less free than the U.S.?
  - wakawaka28 2y ago
    The effect I just described is just one factor affecting the freedom of a group. Sometimes you do need to have a larger entity around beyond your local government for various reasons. I would think that the potential for the worst tyranny is smaller in geographically smaller countries or units, because people can leave. For example, people who don't like a city or county can leave it. Provinces and states are also possible to leave behind if you can't stand the laws. Countries are trickier to leave because of international relations, but it is still possible. I also expect small countries are easier to leave than big ones. It's not ideal to have to move, but at least you can move away from localized issues. Some localized issues may also be avoided by seeking input from only the people who will be affected. All in all, I think it is easier to find consensus among smaller groups, and the larger a group gets the harder it is to make rules or policies that everyone is happy with.

FactKnower69 2y ago

Damn imagine if everyone's vote was equally weighted, what a disaster for democracy that would be. Mob rule!!

wakawaka28 2y ago
I sense some sarcasm. But you ought to know that the founders, along with Aristotle and other Greeks (basically, the inventors of democracy), were afraid of mobs and sought to temper the whims of the people. States are given representation proportional to their populations, and also equal representation (in the Senate). The EC and House seats aren't just based on voter turnout, voter population, or even the actual number of citizens in the state (which is rather problematic). So this whole push for direct democracy in the presidential election is stupid. Yes, swing states are a thing, but only because the other states vote consistently in a particular way. Another problem with using the popular vote to decide the presidential election is that it inventivizes fraud. If someone managed to corrupt a few populous states, they could generate extremely high numbers of fake votes to drown out every other state.
- Apocryphon 2y ago
  The current system incentivizes fraud in swing states, so the fraud is simply shifted elsewhere.
  - wakawaka28 2y ago
    I think it's different. In any case, you can imagine a scenario where different states have wildly different voter turnout. That could even happen due to a natural disaster such as the hurricanes we've seen in the past few weeks. How messed up would it be for a state ravaged by a hurricane, tsunami, earthquake, or whatever to have its influence diminished because people were unable to vote? It is already bad enough that the votes could be skewed based on specific counties. But imagine the whole state losing its actual representation because of power outages and stuff. It might even encourage some states to sabotage other states, to reduce turnout.