Why not practically double the ELECTORAL COLLEGE to 1100?

[jimrtex]

Wyoming has about 500,000 people and gets a representative while places like california only get 1 representative for every 700,000 or so people. Isn't that biased in favor of the small states? But yes, they do have too much weight in the senate(something I'd solve by turning the senate into a soley ceremonial body).

Montana has over 900,000 in its CD.

The 7 States with a single representative are collectively underrepresented in the House.  They are growing somewhat slower than the country as a whole (all but DE and AK), but once RI loses its 2nd seat the underrepresentation will be maintained.

[Bogart]

Wyoming has about 500,000 people and gets a representative while places like california only get 1 representative for every 700,000 or so people. Isn't that biased in favor of the small states? But yes, they do have too much weight in the senate(something I'd solve by turning the senate into a soley ceremonial body).

Montana has over 900,000 in its CD.

The 7 States with a single representative are collectively underrepresented in the House.  They are growing somewhat slower than the country as a whole (all but DE and AK), but once RI loses its 2nd seat the underrepresentation will be maintained.

Coming full circle...good argument for enlarging the House (and the EC by default).

[Albus Dumbledore]

Why not make it be 1000 reps for a nice even number?

[Derek]

This is a very interesting notion where we could go back to one representative for every 30,000 citizens. There would be several more ppl involved, but also politics wouldn't be as partisan because the house and senate wouldn't be able to meet except in times of emergency and a few times each year.

[justW353]

This is a very interesting notion where we could go back to one representative for every 30,000 citizens. There would be several more ppl involved, but also politics wouldn't be as partisan because the house and senate wouldn't be able to meet except in times of emergency and a few times each year.

What a horrible idea...rent out Giants Stadium for a joint session of Congress!

[Bo]

Bad idea. Expanding the House to 1000 might be a good idea, though.

[memphis]

We have enough clowns in Congress as is. More reps would not lead to better government.

[Derek]

More reps would represent ppl better. It's other government programs and bureaucracies that need to go.

[Nichlemn]

The idea that big small states are necessarily made worse off by the Electoral College is not correct. See the Banzhaf power index. When states are larger, they have disproportionately more power to swing an election. Consider if a single state had over 50% of the electoral votes. It would have 100% of the voting power, with the other states entirely irrelevant. Smaller amounts give less extreme examples.

However, I don't believe in the Electoral College. The arguments that cities will simply outvote rural areas usually depend on unrealistic assumptions of people voting in blocs solely as a result of their place of residence. Even if this were the case, you could just end up with the inverse of the malapportioned minority outvoting the majority. Finally, if this is such a good idea, why not apply it to all statewide elections, or even all elections? Why not even have mini-Electoral Colleges inside the Electoral College? If it's so terrible that New York City would be influential in a popular vote election, why is it not also terrible that New York City can outvote Upstate New York in the race for its Electoral Votes?

[Sasquatch]

The EC should have been abolished decades ago. I remember in 2000 people trying to explain how the guy with the most votes can still lose didn't pass my bullsh!t detector. That would be like in football, the winner was determined by who had the most yards instead of points.

Democrats and Republicans should both be against it. Democrats were screwed over in 2000, but in 2004 the Republicans could have been screwed over even harder. All Kerry needed was 120,000 votes in Ohio and he would have won. Yes, John Kerry who lost the popular vote by 3 million votes would have been president.

Also, do the small states really matter anyway? When was the last time a candidate went to Wyoming or Rhode Island? When was the last time those states were battlegrounds?


Get rid of EC.