What has long lost its purpose but still is going? : asklemmy@lemmy.ml

[–] infinitevalence@discuss.online 39 points 7 months ago (5 children)

Electoral college in the US, also the Reapportionment Act of 1929.

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 6 points 7 months ago (4 children)

Regarding the Electoral College, the only thing I have an issue with it is that most states chose winner take all and the Senate is counted for votes. If the electoral college votes were given out as a percentage to each state's popular vote, it would make the system work a lot cleaner.

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[–] Nemo@slrpnk.net 5 points 7 months ago (3 children)

It doesn't work at all if electors are barred from being "faithless" by law.

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[–] First_Thunder@lemmy.zip 2 points 7 months ago (2 children)

They aren’t barred by federal law

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[–] Nemo@slrpnk.net 6 points 7 months ago (1 child)

fourteen states void the votes of faithless elector and replace the elector

a larger number bar faithless electors but don't have any enforcement mechanismor one only have one that affects the elector (but not the vote), making faithless electors illegal if not impossible in a majority of states

aand I'll just point out right now that faithless elector laws don't do anything to preserve the power of the state that passed them, only to preserve the power of the two dominant political parties

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[–] evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

The fact that electors physically exist as real people is still insane to me. If a state has winner takes all for their electoral votes, why does a group of random people have to then travel to DC to cast a vote. It's not 1800 when the outcome of a state's election needed to travel via horseback to the capitol.

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