Asklemmy

43849 readers

710 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

140

What are the benefits to the US Electoral College system? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Boldizzle@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

83 comments fedilink hide all child comments

So I'm a New Zealander and I have a pretty good idea on how the electoral college system works but it honestly sounds like something that can be easily corrupted and it feels like it renders the popular vote absolutely useless unless I'm totally missing something obvious?

So yeah if someone could explain to me what the benefits of such a system are, that would be awesome.

Edit - Thanks for the replies so far, already learning a lot!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] confluence@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm not sufficiently educated on the subject so I can't argue either way, but the defense I usually hear is that the sparse farmland states and the densely populated city states have different needs, and that the majority of the population living in cities shouldn't be making decisions for the rest of the country. So it gives each state an equal say in the executive branch; Otherwise the most populated states hold all the power.

If there's a problem with this defense of its pro's, please educate me. I'm not being sarcastic.

[–] kersploosh@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago

I think you're thinking of the Connecticut Compromise, which established a bicameral Congress with a population-weighted House and state-weighted Senate.

[–] atlasraven31@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The most populated states still hold a lot of power in # of votes in electoral college. It's not inherently good that small states hold a disproportionate power (vs population) in the electoral college.

In the real world, states may as well vote together as blocks. Only a few states flip to a different party every election.