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Comment by omni | Hacker News Reader

> why the electoral college was created. To help rural America from being completely ignored while the cities with denser populations sway the votes towards their issues.

This is a seriously revisionist interpretation of why the Electoral College was created. Almost everyone circa 1800 lived in rural areas[1], and it would be very generous to suggest the founders predicted the massive urbanization of the population more than a hundred years in advance.

For a starting point on reading up on the arguments of the time, I'd recommend Federalist #68 [2] where Hamilton laid out his views. The Wikipedia article below also goes into counterpoints from his contemporaries.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1800_United_States_Census#City...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._68

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It was a major factor that they didn't want presidents appealing to only the most populous states. The fact that America was rural made that even more pressing back then because it was easier to spread information and there were more candidate than our two party system. It would have been easy with a populous vote to dominate a few key areas and biasing towards their issues and mindsets.

From your own article,

"Also, a successful candidate for the office of president would have to have the distinguished qualities to appeal to electors from many states, not just one or a few states:

Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States"

This was quoted in your article from Hamilton saying that they didn't want a president that appealed to a single state.

Thanks for commenting! I was afraid nobody would see this since I got in to the thread pretty late.

The quote is Hamilton wrapping up his argument in Federalist 68 (it's from the last paragraph not talking about the vice presidency). The point here doesn't support the decision of EC vs. direct voting, since no state had even close to a majority of the nation's population at the time. I read this more of him trying to remind the reader that putting thought into the election process at all is worthy of thought and effort.

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