41 Maps That Portray The Lesser Known Facts About America

The highly populated areas, which are spread out across the country, do not get to dictate what the rest of the country does. Even when their preferred president wins. The senate and the house are where states are represented. In both of those places, the smaller less populated states are wildly over represented. Wyoming has the same amount of senators as California! Smaller states are over represented per citizen in the house as well. They are plenty represented. Not to mention the electoral college creates more of the problem you're trying to say it eliminates. The swing states. I.E. the only 5-6 places that matter each election because every other state is already decided. One person, one vote for president. The representation can be handled in the house and the senate, like it already is.

Well, I'm not very much into American politics but don't you also have seperate federal state laws to govern their own needs? I don't think that any vote should be more important than any other vote. That's not how democracy is intended to work or we're back to "Animal Farm": everyone is equal, but some are more equal.

It's really sad that so many Americans believe that the Electoral College is bad and that we live in a Democracy. This is the obvious result of our school systems (probably intentionally) not teaching basic civics. The United States is not, never was, and was never intended to be, a democracy.

I agree, I am also blown away that some people are so confused on how congress works and why. yes, Wyoming and California have the same number of senators, as does PA, NJ, TX, OK, FL, and every other state, that was to bring a balance where every state is equally represented in senate, then in the house seats are given to states based on population, where Wyoming has a sole member in the house and Cali. has 53. So I would say its properly represented. I live in PA, and here the two major cities control most elections despite the other 90% of counites generally being red, if not for the EC, the same would occur on a federal level, yes times have changed and I would argue that the EC is needed now more then ever.

Actually the point of it was back when we didnt have this population and we had slave states. History time

Squarely on target with this response!

Are cows the end all be all of human divination? The highly populated areas, which are spread out across the country, do not get to dictate what the rest of the country does. Even when their preferred president wins. The senate and the house are where states are represented. In both of those places, the smaller less populated states are wildly over represented. Wyoming has the same amount of senators as California! Smaller states are over represented per citizen in the house as well. They are plenty represented. Not to mention the electoral college creates more of the problem you're trying to say it eliminates. The swing states. I.E. the only 5-6 places that matter each election because every other state is already decided. One person, one vote for president. The representation can be handled in the house and the senate, like it already is.

Wrong. The EC exists to protect the country from a charlatan candidate fooling the masses and winning the popular vote. The electors (of the electoral college) can actually send their vote to either candidate, no matter which candidate actually got the most votes. The elitist Founding Fathers did this so that, just in case, the "wrong" person won the popular vote, they would not be allowed to win the election because the electors would send their votes to the "appropriate" candidate. In other words, the EC was invented to keep incompetent, unqualified, greedy liars out of office. But it didn't work the one time it needed to work.

Really? How hypocritical. Under the current system, the rural areas are the ones with far more power than they deserve and they are already “dictating” how things should be done - with terrible effect. And, having come from a rural area, I can tell you that rural people are generally much more naive about how the world really works than city people.

Why should people who have never been near a factory dictate or designed a machine dictate to those who make most of the money?

Amen! But we are not & now we are on the slippery slope to oblivion. Our Founder's would be spinning in their graves!

Because the founders knew what's good for a world where we have the ability to send data thousands of miles away, have it ping off a satellite and back to someone elses pocket in a split second? The world has changed. Founders didn't get it all right from the beginning anyway, sexist racists is what they were. The electoral college isn't needed in this day and age. It can't possibly have been designed for problems that the founders couldn't have fathomed.

To give slave holding states equal power with non-slave holding states? A little late for that.

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The majority of the states weren't even settled in 1776 and people lived in the 13 colonies. The electoral college is BS and was passed in 1787. The USA doubled in size around 1800 with the Louisiana purchase. The founders didn't realize how much we'd grow in size as a nation. The electoral college was nearly 75 y/o when we reached the size we are today without hawaii and alaska. Things change with progress, and the president doesn't determine anything for individual states (hence state law, reps, senate, govenor etc.). Presidents help federal law and try to represent the majority, not the states that have less off a population than LA or NYC.

But instead, the states with so few people have MORE power than they should, and the states where people actually live have less power than they should (electoral votes, that is).

..... are you people really that bad at basic math? ROFL

I've lived in some very rural areas and I've lived in nyc and houston. I've seen way more stuff go down in those cities than any small town. Sheltered people live in the woods.

Life in the city is sheltered? Says the guy who lives in a barn.

Rural life is a lot more sheltered than city life. But both are sheltered from different things.

Good thing we are a republic not a democracy...

The US is a Republic and not a direct democracy. The Electoral College is all that protects the rest of the US from being dominated by California and New York. Your "one vote" applies to voting for congress, senators, governor, ect. The only place EC applies is President to ensure all states are represented and power isn't in only the big cities.