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Comment by belltaco | Hacker News Reader

Even if the Senate apportionment is not fixed, the electoral college needs to be made more representative of the population, it was apportioned based on the number of slaves owned ffs. And either let DC get a senate seat or merge parts of it into MD/VA so they can vote there. Feelings of disenfranchisement among the population is not good.

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Maybe it was based on the number of slaves. It hasn't been for 150 years, though, so... what's your point?

Because it conferred extra power to the hands of people who hold racist beliefs and vote that way to this day.

At what point do we even begin to consider the possibility that systems intended to serve an eighteenth century slave-owning agrarian society of only a few million people might not be the most effective in representing the interests of a multicultural 300 million strong global superpower in the year of our Lord 2020?

First, it was intended to serve a half-slave-owning society.

Second: When do we begin to consider that? Maybe in 1868, when the 14th Amendment was ratified?

> First, it was intended to serve a half-slave-owning society.

Semantics. The point is that it was intended to serve a society which no longer exists.

The society that is currently American society is not the same in scale, scope, complexity, culture or tenor to American society in the 18th century. It's the same only in the way the Ship of Theseus is the same after having been gradually transformed from a small boat to a modern aircraft carrier, which is to say, fundamentally different in every way that matters.

>Second: When do we begin to consider that? Maybe in 1868, when the 14th Amendment was ratified?

How about now?

The Electoral College had one job - to prevent a demagogue like Trump from taking power. He was elected by a fraction of a fraction of the populace, and a minority of those who voted, thanks in no small part to a system in which only a few votes in one or two swing states actually ever matter. In a truly representative democracy, Trump would never have happened.

No, that wasn't the job of the Electoral College. It was to make it so a demagogue like Trump had to win more than just the nine largest states to take power.

The problem with that is the rural/urban divide.

If it’s just a straight majority, then rural areas despite being just under half the population will never have political representation again, and indeed that disenfranchisement is part of what led to Trump’s victory in the first place.

Hunter games here we come.

Amen to this. If anyone is considering dismissing those areas as unimportant, rural areas are where all the food, water, natural and mineral resources, and so forth that cities depend on come from. With respect to the violence angle, rural areas also supply a huge percentage of recruits for the military, much more than major cities.

Trying to disenfranchise rural areas is not going to work out well, to put it mildly. An accommodation needs to be reached between rural and urban America. I just wish we had a presidential candidate who I thought had a chance of accomplishing that.

Presidential candidates preferred by the rural areas have won 3 of the last 5 elections this century -- only once with a larger number of votes. There is a very good chance that they will make it 4 out of 6, again without a majority. It seems that whatever thumb they have on the scale, it overweighting them.

They've also controlled at least one house of the legislature for all but two years of that time -- and for all but a few months had enough votes to veto all proposals. Changing the Electoral College wouldn't affect that.

So I'd argue that "never have political representation again" is unlikely. They hardly seem disenfranchised, except in their own imagination.

What you describe is a relatively balanced scenario.

No serious model calls Trump’s chances ‘very good’ right now. The Economist says it’s 10%, and FiveThirtyEight says 20%.

So, we’re looking at 50% of the last 6.

There is no overweighting except if you imagine a Trump victory.

The three fifths compromise was reached to reduce the effect that you are bringing up. The northern and southern states saw the writing in the wall for slavery when the constitution was signed. Virginia’s part was already merged, Maryland should remerge.

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