What are the origins of the American voting system?

[Nuvendil]

sc94597 said:

Miguel_Zorro said:

Back in the day the technology to easily elect a President by popular vote was apparently not there.

Today, it is (except for some states like Florida, which for reasons I don't understand can't count votes), and I think they should change the Presidential election system to either popular vote, or at least to assign each State's electors proportional to vote.

Today some smaller states have disproportionate say - a vote in Wyoming, for example, counts twice as much as a vote in California. So that might change too.

It would also change the campaigns themselves. Today they spend every election in the same 11 states and ignore massive states like New York, California, and Texas. If they changed the system you'd see Hilary Clinton in California a lot more and in Ohio a lot less.

The framers intentionally strayed from direct democracy, not because it was difficult to implement, but because they believed it to be mob rule. I like the idea of ranked voting to allow for multiple parties. Dual federalism is still a thing in the U.S, and California/New York/Texas have no right to control the political destinies of smaller states with different interests.

On the flip side, the larger population States do account for more of the resources the Fed will use than smaller states so there is argument for larger states having overall larger impact than smaller states.  I find the idea of voting for your first, second, and third choices rather than just one interesting, but it does open up the possibility that a President could be elected who was no ones first choice, similar to how a president can technically win now without the popular vote.  Also, since your brought up Dual Federalism, the whole point of a balanced Dual Federalism - and why I support it -  is that even if your State's Presidential choice doesn't win, you're State government is determined by your decision and can offset undesired Federal decisions via State powers.  Which brings up the issue of growing Federal powers and how they are more and more stepping into areas where States should be making the call, but that's another topic for another thread.  But my point is, in a balanced Dual Federalism, the fact that a larger State has more pull in Presidential elections is not as big an issue and doesn't impact your State government's affairs.