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Majority of Americans continue to favor moving away from Electoral College
(www.pewresearch.org)
this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
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The whole thing is absurd and overly represents rural areas and Republicans. We already have a huge problem with the "2 senators per state" thing and the House representing Republicans far too much in relation to their numbers.
I'm 100% okay with the 2 senators per state thing. That's a feature, not a bug. Even though cities are on the right side of history right now, I don't want to completely silence the rural vote forever.
However, arbitrarily limiting the number of House reps is absolutely absurd and counter to the purpose of the House. That is a bug.
Well, then, maybe we should start considering splitting up some states and joining others together then. A place like California is more future-minded and it's where a great deal of the people are, as well as much of our economy. Also, it's where a lot of our food is grown. And it gets 2 Senators.
The 2 Dakotas have more than that, and what do they really represent for the future of America and the world? More fracking?
Maybe states with really large masses and hardly anyone in them are combined. Idaho, Montana and Wyoming - one state. North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska, another.
Again, you're intentionally defeating the purpose of the Senate. The entire point is to give rural, less populous areas more of a voice.
Seems like giving one group more power than another group would be bad for equality.
That's why we are supposed to have House members representative of pure population, and not land. Senate gives more power to rural areas, House gives more power to urban areas. It's supposed to even out. Checks and balances.
It's crazy how many people in this thread don't seem to know the absolute basics of how their own government is structured and why.
The only reason the Senate is such a problem right now, is because the House of Representatives needs to be properly reapportioned so it's actually representative.
On this, we definitely agree. The House is being held down to an arbitrary number and it is patently absurd.
It feels like a compromise from a period of time that is no longer relevant to these times when we are trying to push this country into the future. I don't want rural regions to have more of a voice, FFS. Look at what it is doing to this country. Having fewer people have an equal say with the majority of the people is also not great, the majority should win out. Why the fuck should tracts of land be voting?
We should never completely silence the voice of a group of people for all time, even if right now they're pushing some heinous shit.
Part of the reason for the phenomenon of Trump was the failure of politicians to care about the legitimate problems that rural voters have.
In any case, if the House and Electoral College functioned like they should, the majority would win a lot more often. Don't focus on the Senate, focus on the two institutions that weren't designed to give rural people an outsized choice but have been manipulated to do so.
I don't think anything proposed here by anyone would do that? What is being proposed is to stop prioritizing the votes of people occupying vast tracts of land over the majority. To have a vote cast by someone in the hinterlands equal someone's vote in more populous parts of the country is putting them on par with everyone else. I'm not so sure what is so magical about someone living in a remote area that their interests should not align with everyone else's.
It's nothing magical. They will inherently have different priorities, and they deserve a voice in the political process.
If it's nothing magical, why do we do this for no other minority group?
How is it no longer relevant? Do you know where your food comes from?
You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of how the legislative branch of the US government is structured, and why.
Your concerns are valid, but you're not aiming them at the correct House.
I'm not understanding the food part here.
I understand the history of compromising with states that had less (free) people because of slave states; I'm saying it's no longer relevant in modern society. It turns out rural areas are usually better represented by Democratic policies in any case. Ironically.
That'd be an easier sell if the rural areas less consistently used their voice to shit up the world.
True, but it's not always guaranteed to be that way. We should never give one group absolute power.
To be honest bud, your point of view is very frustrating in the times we live, but it is an extremely sound argument and I begrudgingly can get behind it.
The Republicans are the main reason we still have it .. they know they'd never win if they had to play fair.
But but but why should cities get to determine everything? Don't you know that not only does land vote, everyone in a patch of land votes the same? So, why bother giving everyone in a city a vote, you know?
Also, be sure to let the vice president cancel the whole thing if they don't like the results.
(Please tell me my sarcasm is obvious.)
We should just abolish the Senate. With the current formulation of the US government there's no reason why a State should have extra power like that. Let the people make the rules. Expand the House, abolish the Senate, and remove the electoral college. And since we're wishing for things that will never happen anyway, go ahead and use some kind of proportional vote (ranked choice, star, whatever, just literally anything but FPTP).