Alternative Electoral college distributions

[Cuddly]

Doesn't the electoral college system render a lot of votes obsolete? I mean if you vote for the underdog in a all or nothing state, you waste time and ink, as the vote did nothing at all.
The system is pretty confusing. Apparently needlessly so when the popularity vite is counted anyway.

[princealbertofb]

Oh what do you know about our government. The electoral college made sense back in the days of the horse and carriage.... Today it is abused to keep the two party system intact and to keep out any emerging powers, or definitely hinder it.

The who point of electoral votes and house of representatives and the senate are to balance things out.

Say California is a big state, has a lot of people.... They get more representatives than say Rhode Island...but they have the same number of senators. The electoral college made sense in the past because ballots couldn't be processed digitally. Well the powers that be don't want change, given that it has been challenged many many times.

That is because you are a federation of states and not just ONE state. Otherwise it would be easier just to look at who the population wants in place. In this case, the various states were afraid of being outnumbered by more populous and greater states. The electoral college may have made sense then, but what would make sense today would actually be to make all laws federal and not local. What could be decided locally would be how the money is spent for the good of the community, things like schools, and local government and administration.

But I can't see states giving up their state laws, the ones that have to be federally undone when they don't provide the 'equal rights' that most aspire to. Jim Crow laws kept African Americans 'in check' for a hundred years after the Civil War and the abolition of slavery. How shocking (and unfair) is / was that?

[princealbertofb]

An interesting thing to compare. The evolution of the Republican voting counties over the last three elections. Note that the blue areas are generally more urban and possibly more progressive. (.png pictures don't show up in Mozilla firefox)