Quote:
Originally Posted by DiracSpike
The electoral college functions to allow rural voters and small states to have some say and not get overwhelmed by the Nyc La Chicago and bostons of the USA.
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The electoral college was instituted when rural voters far outnumbered urban voters. That it now acts to disproportionately weight rural voters over urban is an unintended effect, it is not at all accurate to claim that its "function" is something it was never intended to do. There were no polities at the time where cities dominated demographics, the possibility undoubtedly did not even occur to the American founders.
Further, weighting rural voters over urban (even if you think that's a good thing, which it really isn't) is pointless in a presidential election - you're electing one person, not a slate of people. The choice was between a New York robber baron and a Washington career politician, there's no more Abe Lincolns coming out of the backwoods to mystify the city folk and energize the yokels.
The college was intended to act as a veto on an unsuitable candidate who won the vote. If it doesn't even do that in this, the most opportune moment in two and a half centuries, it might as well be abolished.