NO, the electoral college was not designed to make sure cities didn't rule

I read here time and time again that the EC was designed to makes sure that cities didn't have an overwhelming power compared to rural states. This is just complete and total hogwash. No one lived in cities back then. Between 4 and 9 percent of the population of any given state lived in the city Massachusetts had a population of 378 000 in 1800 with 24 000 people living in Boston by way of example.
It WAS designed indeed to make sure that small states had there say. But all states were 90 percent rural.
Of course back then the smallest state was 10 times smaller than the largest state, as opposed to 60 times smaller today. Really should have calibrated states a bit better as history progressed.
And let's rememeber that this was designed when there were 13 states.
I am sick of the antiquated EC.
Let's reshuffle all the states. playground style, you figure who you want to be with, and your state has to have at least 6 million inhabitants (to keep 50 states)

 

In your scenario no state could have much more than 6 million either to have 50 states. California would have to be divided into 6 states and the northern 1/3 of it north of the Bay Area and Sacramento with the remaining 3 million would have to be combined with the formation of another state.

 

The Electoral College was never intended to be the “perfect” system for picking the president, says George Edwards III, emeritus political science professor at Texas A&M University.

“It wasn’t like the Founders said, ‘Hey, what a great idea! This is the preferred way to select the chief executive, period,’” says Edwards. “They were tired, impatient, frustrated. They cobbled together this plan because they couldn’t agree on anything else.”
https://www.history.com/news/electoral-college-founding-fathers-constitutional-convention

 

Right, without the EC, the union simply wouldn't have formed. Small states knew this.

 

The electoral college is based on the population and the number of representatives each state has, plus 2 senators. Today California has 53 representatives to Wyoming's 1. The Constitution states each state must have at least 1 representative. I don't know the population of each, but California does have a 53-1 edge over Wyoming which is very close to your 60 times.

The difference is each state has 2 senators added to the electoral vote total, giving California a 55-3 advantage over Wyoming. I also hear that Wyoming with 3 electoral vote is more powerful than California which has 55. Huh? That statement seems purely asinine to me. Since when does 3 beat 55?

Now I also think we need to remember we are a nation of the several states. 50 today, united to form the United States. We aren't one huge mass land piece, but are made up of the several states. Each state has a say. So we really don't have one presidential election, we have 50.

So I think the electoral college needs to stay as it does give each state a say. Modifications, sure, some in my opinion are needed. The main modification I would like to see is with the winner take all states. If a candidates wins a state by 50% plus one vote, a majority, then let the winner take all remain. But with those states where a candidate wins the state with a plurality, less than a majority, then go to the congressional district method that Maine and Nebraska use today. Each congressional district would award their single electoral vote to the winner of that district. With the 2 electoral votes for that state's senators going to the plurality winner.

I think this would be a much fairer way of awarding electoral votes to the candidates,

 

I guess I am not the only one to think of this.
In this map, all 50 states have roughly the same population

 

Cool map. Of course, as soon as Democrats mismanaged the new states, too, the population would shift yet again. We'd be re-drawing states pretty often.

 

The electoral system, as intended, should have been eliminated after 1861 as the only reason we have the electoral college was to give slave states more voting weight as the majority of their populations were slaves who could not vote. Once the Civil War began, the electoral college system became moot.

 

Amend the Constitution.
You'll need to get 38 states to agree to it.
AK MT WY ND SD ID NE OK KS WV AR MS and UT just voted no.
So much for that.

 

2016 proves the electoral college works as intended - Hillary won CA by 4 million votes, and lost the other 50 elections by a net 1 million votes.

 

The senate and the electoral college had absolutely nothing to do with the slavery issue. Both were all about the influence of small states vs large ones and how do deal with those differences while creating and then preserving the Union.

 

Right, it was a scam from the start. Just another reason to dump the red states. They should have a small fraction of the representation they were given. It is one of the main reasons the US has failed.

 

Repeal the law restricting the size of the House to 435 and re-apportion accordingly. That will fix the EC and preserve its purpose.

 

They could just **** on the old rules, claim to be constituting a new government and lower the bar for change. They did that with the Articles of Confederation, why not again?

 

the majority of their populations were slaves

 

Three-fifths, anyone?

 

^^^ We have a winner. 100%

Also, if we were to lose it, the nation would Balkanize. It is pure thoughtlessness to think scrapping it for Mob Rule will deliver positive results. It's about as smart as reducing police forces, opening the borders, needlessly shutting down Small Businesses, refunding Hamas, packing the courts, clearing the way for the Russian-German pipeline, making D.C. a state, and turning our military in to an ideological mess.

 

I repeat: Repeal the law restricting the size of the House to 435 and re-apportion accordingly. That will fix the EC and preserve its purpose. Restore it to how the Founding Fathers intended it to be.

 

I really hate these handwaving arguments. "if we don't count california, Trump won by a little bit"
That's the equivalent of saying "if we don't count Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Delaware, Rhode Island, Montana, Maine, New Hampshire? Hawaii, West Virginia, Idaho, Nebraska, New Mexico, Kansas, Mississippi, Arkansas, Nevada, Iowa, Utah and Connecticut". Yes that is the equivalent population of California. They represent 1/8th of all US citizens. So this hand waving is pretty unacceptable. By the way California's opinion is already discounted enough as they have 55 EC votes, all the states I listed with the equivalent population have 106 EC votes. Same population, nearmy twice the EC votes.

 

You don't think that is happening?
With the US population being more mobile than it has ever been in it's existence and people naturally driven to surrounding themselves with like minded people we are ultra balkanizing. The EC in fact is accelerating that balkanization.

 

So do you want California and New York to decide every election for the next 500 year's?

Nobody would campaign in any other state because they would not matter and Republicans will never win ethier state due to brain washing so they would not even try. You would always have a Democrat for president and then the rest of the state's would lose thier voice and have no say in anything.

I guess you are ok with just 1 party in America forever. It would be like Russia with Putin be in re-elected every time. With total power Democrats would change it so someone could have power forever and then do away with elections completely.

You would love a dictatorship. You can't say no because that is what you are pushing for.

California would become the dictatorship having the biggest population in the country. Next to follow would be socialism and no more capitalism. California with its Democratic dictater could do anything they want to.

Let's not forget they want DC statehood. Anything to rig the elections in thier favor...

 

PEOPLE are the ones that vote, states don't.

 

Oh no you don’t! We are not going to ever willingly give up the constitution we have now.

 

Except that’s complete horseshit lol

Please show me where the founders advocated for the electoral college because of slavery. Don’t worry. I’ll wait.

 

Wrong answer. The people do not vote for the president. The states do. The vote is for the people to express whom they want their state to vote for. But the state doesn’t have to vote for whom their people choose.