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There was a post about Kim Bakker about something or other, but what came up was the electoral college and one person said it was essential to allow smaller states to have a say, rather than just the large states.
However this argument seems to just be about keeping a system which benefits the right, rather than actually coming up with a decent argument.
The electoral college in the modern era is outdated.
Not only do states like Wyoming and Vermont get three times more power to their vote than people in Texas or California, but the last two Republican Presidents have both been elected with less votes than their opponent in the Democratic Party. Sure, the Republicans love this, but it isn't democracy, something the US goes around the world telling people they should have.
As for the small states argument, it's also flawed beyond belief.
Only three out of the 12 states here are in the bottom 50% for size.New Hampshire is the 41st largest state, but Florida is the 3rd largest, PA 6th, Ohio 7th, North Carolina 9th. So you have 4 of the top ten states for size receiving massive amounts of advertising money during the 2016 election, while Wyoming gets almost nothing. So much for the system helping states like Wyoming, which got completely and utterly ignored.
So why Proportional Representation.
Well, the number of political parties would rise.
The US's 3rd political party is the Libertarian Party. They have 0 seats in the US Senate, 0 seats in the US House, 0 Governorships, 1 seat (out of 1,972) in State Senates, 3 seats (out of 5,411) in State Houses, and 155 elected officials. This is the third party.
One of my favorite political systems is the German system, they have FPTP and PR together to make a system that tries to get the best out of both worlds. They see a 10% shift in voting on the same day. 10% of people will vote for a larger party in FPTP and then switch to a smaller party with PR.
Germany right now has 5 political parties in the Bundestag. 4 more parties gained more than 500,000 votes. This is from Germany with a population of 82 million about 4 times smaller, 7 parties got more of a percentage than the Libertarian Party.
And Germany has a relatively small amount of parties in govt, due to a 5% threshold and potentially other reasons.
Estonia also have such a system, 5% threshold and has six parties.
Morocco doesn't have such a threshold and has 22 different parties in parliament, which do often form into coalitions.
The reason this is better than the US system is say Wyoming, which gets totally ignored in the current political process, regardless of what some people say, is that the people of Wyoming could vote for whichever parties suits their needs better. So if there were a cowboy party, they could vote for it, it might also stand in other areas of the midwest, and their vote would count, and politicians would want their vote, because if there were, say, 10 parties, every vote would matter.
The problem here is that the two main political parties don't want to see their power eroded by a political system that would complicate things for them by giving people choice and power with their vote, and would make life a lot harder for people like the Koch brothers to spend money on a sure thing, as they get right now.
However this argument seems to just be about keeping a system which benefits the right, rather than actually coming up with a decent argument.
The electoral college in the modern era is outdated.
Not only do states like Wyoming and Vermont get three times more power to their vote than people in Texas or California, but the last two Republican Presidents have both been elected with less votes than their opponent in the Democratic Party. Sure, the Republicans love this, but it isn't democracy, something the US goes around the world telling people they should have.
As for the small states argument, it's also flawed beyond belief.
Only three out of the 12 states here are in the bottom 50% for size.New Hampshire is the 41st largest state, but Florida is the 3rd largest, PA 6th, Ohio 7th, North Carolina 9th. So you have 4 of the top ten states for size receiving massive amounts of advertising money during the 2016 election, while Wyoming gets almost nothing. So much for the system helping states like Wyoming, which got completely and utterly ignored.
So why Proportional Representation.
Well, the number of political parties would rise.
The US's 3rd political party is the Libertarian Party. They have 0 seats in the US Senate, 0 seats in the US House, 0 Governorships, 1 seat (out of 1,972) in State Senates, 3 seats (out of 5,411) in State Houses, and 155 elected officials. This is the third party.
One of my favorite political systems is the German system, they have FPTP and PR together to make a system that tries to get the best out of both worlds. They see a 10% shift in voting on the same day. 10% of people will vote for a larger party in FPTP and then switch to a smaller party with PR.
Germany right now has 5 political parties in the Bundestag. 4 more parties gained more than 500,000 votes. This is from Germany with a population of 82 million about 4 times smaller, 7 parties got more of a percentage than the Libertarian Party.
And Germany has a relatively small amount of parties in govt, due to a 5% threshold and potentially other reasons.
Estonia also have such a system, 5% threshold and has six parties.
Morocco doesn't have such a threshold and has 22 different parties in parliament, which do often form into coalitions.
The reason this is better than the US system is say Wyoming, which gets totally ignored in the current political process, regardless of what some people say, is that the people of Wyoming could vote for whichever parties suits their needs better. So if there were a cowboy party, they could vote for it, it might also stand in other areas of the midwest, and their vote would count, and politicians would want their vote, because if there were, say, 10 parties, every vote would matter.
The problem here is that the two main political parties don't want to see their power eroded by a political system that would complicate things for them by giving people choice and power with their vote, and would make life a lot harder for people like the Koch brothers to spend money on a sure thing, as they get right now.
