Alaska for Obama?

wrote:
On Jul 29, 6:35 pm, rw wrote:


The only real effect is to magnify the voting power of residents of
small states at the expense of residents of large states,


And that, IMO, helps protect the interests of the varied populations,
cultures, and lifestyles throughout our very large and diverse
country. I'm all for it. We are, after all, a federation of _states_.

Jon.

Can you explain why a resident of Alaska should have (effectively) three
votes for every one vote of a resident of California or Texas?

If you truly want a federation of states, the electoral system is a
screwy way to achieve it. The power of small states is already protected
by every state having two senators. (Until 1913 Senators were elected by
state legislatures, not by popular vote. That was changed by the 17th
amendment, so electoral reform is possible.)

The president should be the president of ALL the people, and should be
elected by popular vote. We should also scrap the state-by-state
winner-take-all system because that also can lead to democratically
illegitimate outcomes.

The current electoral system is merely an obsolete, obscure, unfair,
antidemocratic, and ponderous system born of a compromise necessary to
get 13 states to ratify the constitution. Another compromise was to
count slaves as 3/5 of a person for the purpose of congressional
representation (although they had no vote, of course).

--
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