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Comment by johnp314 | Hacker News Reader

History is replete with pure democracy leading to tyranny. Beyond just Brexit, it's not out of the realm of possibility that the 'majority' could vote to nullify constitutional checks to the power of a president, to term length, to guarantees on the protection of individual rights and freedoms, etc. Of course any such votes are deemed to be in the interest of the 'people'. The ancients and the US at its founding were wise enough to mix democracy, the at the moment will of the people, with various checks, balances and buffers. The US seems to be moving to more and more pure democracy. In my humble opinion this is dangerous, a slippery slope, a camel's nose under the tent, etc.

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The founders were indeed wise in requiring 2/3 to amend the constitution as well as establishing the electoral college in lieu of popular vote. What they failed at in my opinion is not having any criminal penalties for anyone including politicians and judges for violating the constitution.

I disagree on the Electoral College -- it's a system designed so that votes aren't equal in value. If you live in California, your presidential vote is worth less than a vote in Wyoming[0]. Similarly, the cap on the size of the House of Representatives also means that larger states will generally see less representation per capita than smaller states. (Note: I'm leaving the Senate out, given that it's designed to assign two votes per state without regard to population).

A referendum is great at giving legislators or executives a priority -- my home state of New Jersey has been working on marijuana legalization for years, but it's largely stalled in the statehouse. The 2020 election featured a ballot question on legalization, and the overwhelming "yes" (more than 2/3 of the electorate supports the move) helped kick off another round of legislation (that, in a sadly predictable pattern, seems to be stuck once again).

[0] https://www.axios.com/electoral-college-by-vote-per-capita-4...

Here in Florida, we got so tired of the stalling that we wrote medical marijuana into a 2016 constitutional amendment initiative, since that's the only way to get something approaching a law without legislative cooperation.

I would think that would have just encouraged the "creative" interpretations of the constitution in use now to justify themselves

The original system for the Electoral College (where some electors from a state could vote differently than others) made sense. So did having the vice president be the runner up (before the 14th Amendment) - this is why the VP getting the ability to break ties in the senate made more sense too.

The current EC implementation is terrible however. Small states already get massive overrepresentation in the Senate, they don't need a second system to weigh in their favor.

I very much want to see one person, one vote, with approval voting (i.e. pick ALL the people you're happy to see being president, the winner gets the job) being used for presidential elections.

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