41 Maps That Portray The Lesser Known Facts About America

I agree we should keep the electoral college for the reason demonstrated in the map. The electoral college though should be based on a state’s proportionate vote for the candidates. Winner takes all silences too many voices.

No -- PEOPLE would be making decisions that affect the PEOPLE of the United States. Why should nearly empty states (which are also generally lower in educational levels) get a vote that's worth 3x or more what the vote of a city-dweller is? Should we handicap ALL votes -- maybe gay people's vote should be weighted so all decisions aren't made by non-gay people. Maybe atheists' votes should be weighted so religious people don't get so much power? We should have ONE person ONE vote. It's the only sensible and fair choice.

Actually from an outsiders perspective your electoral college makes sense. Look at an incident from California for example the high population center voted on water issues and result left more rural communities without water. In Canada (where I’m from) the provinces of Ontario and Quebec decide our elections, the problem is the needs and wants of one area of the country are met often to the detriment of other regions. An elected government is supposed to be for all its people not just the high population areas.

@laura actually the founding father's (Hamilton and Madison at least) would agree with you. Little known fact: Hamilton wrote a constitutional amendment to eliminate winner take all but died before it was submitted. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-25-02-0289

I'll have to respectfully disagree. I do not believe the electorial college should exist. Popular vote should be the only vote that matters. In the last 30 years the electoral college has gone against popular vote twice. Every other election we have is based solely on popular vote. Why should the presidency be any different?

@ianm that's actually the opposite for things like the presidency The president effects us all, every citizen, and therefore every vote should count equally in that sense. Federal laws and orders effect everyone. Therefore making the electoral college very unfair. Plus, you have to look at the reasons WHY it was created and do those things still apply. You'll find that they don't. Especially in large part as it was designed to facilitate voting when there was no means of transportation that didn't take months at a time. it was hard to collect every vote in a state, then send those votes across states in nothing more than a stagecoach or horse and buggy. which is one reason why we have the system. Obviously, we don't have that problem anymore. So the few major city excuse is nothing more than bull s**t on anything that's federal. Same goes for district lines and how those are drawn and redrawn. You'll also find that the Republican party, in addition to other vote suppression issues, has gerrymandered and unfairly drawn lines for the past 10 or so years.

The opposite argument also applies though. Less populous states are given a disproportionate say in the process.

How, in a democracy, is one person's vote, living in montana, worth 10,000 votes of someone living in CA? The electoral college is the biggest affront to true democracy. It is from a bygone era when people communicated via getting on a horse and visiting another state.

totally agree. Why should the cities determine the fate of all of the country? This is why the founders created the electoral collage, as they had the forethought of how a populated country would look

Amen.

Look how is in the word.....your sistem is insane...of course the few major cities have to decide because is not just cities....is lot of people...is each person living there.... it doest make sense how you do....

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The way our Electoral College is, every election for a while is basically decided by Ohio. The ONLY way to ensure everyone has an equal vote is to go to popular vote.

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Bingo!

Nope. California has far and away the most sway as it has the most EC votes. However, the EC gives smaller population states more weight or voting impact per person (perhaps 3 - 4X) than bigger states. The EC was designed to prevent the ascension of a tyrant through tyranny of the majority. Unfortunately, that does not prevent a tyranny of the minority, which arguably is worse.

Why should every state have equal weight when a place like CA has 38 million people and montana has 1 million?

Then those people should pay less federal taxes, if were making thing equal.

And that is why we need to change it to the way the founders envisioned..

Because SkiguyPK its CA !!! Have you seen some of the weird s**t they do there. I don't want that state having more sway than a state less populated. Geez scary thought

You Anti-ECers miss the point. Without it, there would be NO United States. The smaller states then as now refused to be part of a system in which they would effectively have no say. It was a compromise, just as having both a House of Representatives and the Senate was. If you can't learn to work with the other people of this nation unless you always get your way. Then you are the ones whose education is lacking.

This is a really bad argument, I'm assuming you believe that if you were to get together the 10 largest cities you could guarantee winning the election (that's if they all voted for the same BIG CITY candidate). Not even close, not even the 100 or here's the kicker not even if you had a UNANIMOUS vote of the 1000 ONE THOUSAND largest cities in the US could you guarantee winning the president. Seriously, look into it the argument that big cities would automatically win national elections in the US is just not mathematically possible.

And that plays out in the EC how?

Term limits would go a long way toward lessening the partisan votes in the House and Senate. Thereby giving more power to the people and less power to Congress.

Hear hear! Well said Christian. Don Horaist - term limits would also force a lot of wisdom and experience out of Congress, which I’m sure you would agree is not something we should wish for. Instead, consider these alternatives: solve gerrymandering (which reduces incentives to compromise); and repeal the 17th amendment, thus restoring balance in our government.

Thank you Christian. You nailed it.

I was thinking the same thing. People from city think they know more than us poor country bumpkins but funny thing about that we feel the same way about city folk bless their hearts

@Leo Hamilton was against our winner take all system that we have now, so much so that he wrote a constitutional amendment to get the system changed....unfortunately he died before he could submit it. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-25-02-0289

@DavidLarson... Biographies, letters, and writings of the Founders outside the US Constitution itself. Books, in short. Lots of them. And it's also inferred from the US Constitution by scholars with such joyful wonders as the lack of universal suffrage in the document before it was later amended.

That is absolutely true. They did not trust the lower classes at all. HOWEVER: the reason they set up the Electoral College is because they were also smart enough to realize that "a certain class of gentleman" were going to be the only ones voting.

Reference? Because it's not in the founding documents (and therefore isn't a thing).

Yes, the government isn't exactly as it was originally envisioned when the country was founded.

I think some people will get tired of the c**p going on.....

Abolished?? Ridiculous. Abolished so that LA County would decide the President and all of those other States would have no voice? And potential Presidents would campaign in, cater to, and adopt policy for LA County only? The Electoral College was pure Founders genius. Abolishing it would destroy the construct of the "United States" of America.

Los Angeles County (not just the city) has 10.04 million, just under Georgia’s 10.2 million people.

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