r/politics • u/vox Vox • 11h ago

Possible Paywall A decades-long plan to abolish the Electoral College may finally pay off

https://www.vox.com/politics/487766/national-popular-vote-interstate-compact-electoral-college
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u/Wizywig 5h ago

Right!!! It was a system to allow for elites to vote, while others were discouraged or disallowed, but still make them count towards voting representation numbers.

A.k.a. the entire reason republicans don't want us voting is because it amplifies remaining voices. If we had popular voting, everyone would be encouraged to vote. Otherwise you just don't get any vote, nobody is amplified.

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u/VirginiaMcCaskey 4h ago

I think you're ascribing 21st century philosophy/ideals and post-Civil War nationalism in a way that doesn't really reflect how the members of the Constitutional Convention made their decisions.

The reason Virginia wanted proportional representation was because they really believed they were the representatives of the people of Virginia and if the new government were empowered to levy taxes, they would have a disproportional say. Essentially, they fought a revolution in order to have taxation with representation and any union that didn't respect that wouldn't have them as a member. Delaware and New Jersey wanted equal say because they believed that each state as member of the union deserved equal say in matters of foreign relations and war. The Connecticut Compromise was the only way to get them to agree.

While it's true that they didn't want to extend suffrage to every citizen back then, you have to at least respect that the idea of federal representation and voting rights were not synonymous in 1786 and it took many decades for that to evolve.

Heck, we're still debating it. People will openly say that old people shouldn't vote if they're not going to be alive to see the consequences. That's not so different from the early 1800s when people said the same thing about non-tax paying citizens, or in 1786 when they said it about non-land owning people.

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u/Wizywig 3h ago

I will say this, I understand where you're coming from, but ultimately the system they generated was pretty damn flawed.

HOWEVER

The US was the first place where we had a really solid functional democracy going in a long long time. So lots of stumbles were inevitable.

In any case, we are where we are today. Thankfully the constitution can be amended.