Asklemmy

43918 readers

1812 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

[–] Skoobie 18 points 1 year ago (3 children)

EC is great when you've got too many people to tally votes efficiently. So basically it's only use since the advent of the telegraph is to ensure mega cities don't disproportionately affect rural locations via election results. With EC, rural states have more weight than they otherwise would. I still think we should switch to a popular vote for elections.

[–] AnyProgressIsGood 9 points 1 year ago

Between that the Senate and gerrymandering it's giving a huge bonus to the minority. Just imagine the legislation we could have

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That doesn't sound like a benefit at all...

[–] Skoobie 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What doesn't? That rural states have more weight via the EC than they would in a popular vote? It's not a benefit to the country and citizens as a whole, but it is to those individual states.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A dictatorship is not a benefit to the country and citizens as a whole, but it is to those individual dictators, too...

[–] Skoobie 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Right. Which is why I stated in my original comment that I am in favor of a popular majority vote...

Edit: typo

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

Sorry for confusion, thought you were saying it had a benefit.

My country has Mixed Member Proportional, which means even minorities get some level of representation. I prefer it to winner-takes-all systems like what we had when I was a kid.

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

I don't see how it tallies votes more efficiently? Bigger cities have more people to count, and typically are divided up too.

Mega cities not affecting rural locations is already done by having local government's

I know you said you still prefer popular vote, but jist wanted to voice my opinion.

[–] Skoobie 1 points 1 year ago

Saying it's more efficient was meant to be a little tongue in cheek. It's not now. It was a few hundred years ago when communication was still done by horseback.

Having local governments does mitigate the effect megacities have on rural locations, yes, but not regarding national elections. An argument I've heard time and time again for keeping the EC is that without it, each president would be decided by NYC and LA.