Asklemmy

43989 readers

1338 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
[email protected]: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

152

What are the benefits to the US Electoral College system? (self.asklemmy)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Boldizzle to c/[email protected]

81 comments fedilink hide all child comments

So I'm a New Zealander and I have a pretty good idea on how the electoral college system works but it honestly sounds like something that can be easily corrupted and it feels like it renders the popular vote absolutely useless unless I'm totally missing something obvious?

So yeah if someone could explain to me what the benefits of such a system are, that would be awesome.

Edit - Thanks for the replies so far, already learning a lot!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's an interesting conversation topic. It's easy to mock for being backward and racist. It serves as a good cautionary tale for other governments....

[–] Boldizzle 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Definitely an interesting topic for sure!

I guess most other governments would never need a system like that given I don't imagine there's any other country in the world that is made up of as many States as the US.

We have an interesting electoral system in NZ called MMP which is essentially a first across the post system so even if a party gets more votes than anyone else, it they didn't get enough to cross the post/finish line, they don't win and so a coalition can be formed by smaller parties that got less votes to get across the finish line and therefore the country is then run by multiple political parties.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I think multi party parliamentary systems are probably the gold standard for representative government, but I don't think I like the Prime Minister as head of state/government due to the very reactionary and populist nature of a parliament.

Some if it depends on how the elections run. Like if people vote for parties and not specific candidates. If they have ranked choice voting. What the process and prospect for citizen initiated legislation is. How strong the checks and balances are against an out of control parliament. That sort of thing.