I know what the founders intended but I think there are some unintended consequences. The system probably worked better when the population was not so mobile and people were born, lived and died in the same state. I have lived in a variety of state (NJ, CA, CO, MO, and ID) which are all over the map geographically, politically and population wise. That doesn't mean I have a strong political identification with any of them. I vote as myself, not as a representative of a state.
I think the way the current Senate and House is set up is fine, other than I don't like the way the House districts have been adjusted to favor one political party or another. I just think the election for president should be one person = one vote. No one says I have to agree with the founders.
This would be something to take up in a constitutional amendment, which requires ratification by two-thirds of the states. Not much chance of that, I think. Most states are marginalized enough, by the federal government, already.
Me either. The argument that people make is that if we did not have the electoral process then some states would be the only ones to elect the president. That argument is nonsensical, for if we no longer had the electoral college then no state would be electing the president, only the people of this country would. Each vote of a person would count the same as any one lese no matter where they lived.
Scott, you are clearly missing the point.
The President is not elected by the people, he or she is elected by the
states. It has always been thus. Again, you don't care for it, you should ask your Representative and Senators (whom you *do* elect) to propose a change in the Constitution.
im not talking about color. im asking why on earth would a candidate give a rats ass about what affects me as an iowan when the whole state is only worth a million or so votes when they can wrap many many more times that many votes up by appealing to city slickers? the answer: they wouldnt.
Hence, the system established by the founders, and reflected in the constitution.
...
So while America is a purple country we have a system of apportionment of electors, the electoral college, and state laws that will favor a two party systems and skew results to one side or another.
Quite right.
But don't you also think it unfair with the system we have now that people who live in dense urban areas have their personal vote count less than people who live in rural areas?
Assumes as a predicate that the vastly larger numbers of people in the populous states and their populous cities do not vote, in general, in accord with each other and, as a result, wield disproportionate power through their numerically-superior representation in the halls of Congress. Said predicate is false.
That's something you would have to deal with in your state legislature. It's they who decided the laws that apply to the electoral votes. Most states apply all electoral votes toward the party that won the majority. A few make the electoral votes proportionate to the popular vote in their state.
...which is, as noted, a state-by-state issue for determination by the states and their legislators, who are (in turn) elected by the people of the state.
+++
Folks, some of you seem to be forgetting the essential form of government we have:
"
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
The fundamental confusion we see here, among sensible, articulate and educated people, regarding
how the system works, and
why it works that way, is distressing; how must it be in the befuddled mind of those whose principles sources of information are MTV and the public media?
The federal government is
supposed to be a mere support system for the states, doing only those things that the states, acting of themselves, cannot effectively do. Unfortunately, our system of government is, because of power-grabs by ambitious politicos and activist judges who choose to invent law to suit their own agendas, in grave danger of coming apart at the seams, and there is certainly nothing better waiting in the wings.
We get, one supposes, the government we deserve.
Troy.
