[buerkle]

In many cases California and New York voters count much less than in smaller, more rural states. The senators from Wyoming represent about 300,000 people each. The senators in California represent nearly 19,000,000 each. And the The Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929 capped the number in the House of Representatives. In this case, each California House member represents three times as many people as the House members in Wyoming. That's also one reason in recent presidential elections the electoral college which is based on the number of Senators and House of Representatives (plus 3 from DC) have won the race but lost the popular vote.

[mobilefriendly]

This is by design of course. The United States is a confederation of states...geographical balancing against population density was the Great Compromise. That people are surprised or shocked by this reveals how poor our civics education has become. https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/A_Great_...

[chillwaves]

Has become? People are more educated than ever, and mostly what you hear about is people complaining because the current system is unjust, not because they are "shocked " to learn it exists.

When you balance representation against population, the gulf is vast and only growing. This is a compromise that made sense in the 18th century, not the 21st. Ignore it at your peril.

[techsupporter]

> This is a compromise that made sense in the 18th century, not the 21st.

Exactly!

People act like our[0] Constitution is some inviolable, sacrosanct tome with words that must be revered and held close, unchanging and unchanged forever. Yet they seem to skip that we've modified the thing TWENTY EIGHT TIMES and that every Much Revered Framer(tm) anticipated that we'd not only change it as often as needed, we would very likely scrap the whole thing and do it again every few generations.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that mandates that the compromises, adjustments, and tweaks our nation's founders made must persist beyond tomorrow, except our own collective will to not bother with or to actively resist change. It's why I very much enjoy hearing at least one of the major parties actively talk about modification of the Electoral College or the makeup of the Supreme Court or how the legislative bodies of our nation operate. Maybe their ideas are good ones, maybe they're not, but the one thing we MUST NOT DO is shy away from a willingness to keep our country's governance current.

0 - By "our," I mean the collection of people who are citizens of the United States of America. Other nations can and do amend their nations' basic laws as they see fit.

[omegaworks]

>geographical balancing against population density was the Great Compromise

That's flowery language to disguise what was essentially a pact between wealthy industrialists and slavers.

It's long past time to dismantle that "compromise."

[srj]

From what I recall being taught it was to get the smaller states on board. These weren't necessarily slave states (e.g. Rhode Island).

It's been effective. If presidential elections were just driven by popular vote candidates would only campaign in the top population centers. Entire regions of the country would be ignored.

[astura]

>If presidential elections were just driven by popular vote candidates would only campaign in the top population centers. Entire regions of the country would be ignored.

This is definitely 100% false; this goes against the mathematical population distribution of the United States. The top 100 biggest cities in the United States combined only make up less than 20% of the population.

But even if it were true, it's not any different than the current status quo where candidates simply only campaign in "swing states," ignoring the vast majority of the rest of the Unites States. In fact, it would be better, because more Americans live in population centers than they do swing states.

https://youtu.be/7wC42HgLA4k?t=108

The other problems:

Many people who live in solidly blue or solidly red states don't even bother voting for president - they know their vote doesn't matter. I know this because I've literally heard people say it.

This it not even considering electoral college also entirely ignores 4 million Americans because they live in territories, not states.

[srj]

Late reply, but your math about the top population areas doesn't seem right. Are you looking at just city populations? I don't think that's an accurate picture. For example, the population of Boston is around 685,000 but you add in the surrounding suburbs and it's 4.8 million.

[odessacubbage]

if you think politics are bad now, just imagine what they'd be like if you only had to pander to the interests of a few coastal metros and maybe also chicago & dallas. the interests of rural voters would lose out every time. just look at france to see how this can play out. ime things like water rights and public land mean nothing to urbanites but they impact us immensely.

[astura]

The top 100 biggest cities in the United States combined only make up less than 20% of the population; you can't possibly win and election pandering to the interests of a few metro areas.

[tropo]

Wyoming, and any state rounded up to 1 representative, is special. Aside from that the effect is minor.

There is an effect going the other direction that benefits California, and in fact is why there is a fight going on at the Supreme Court. Voters in those rural states are underrepresented due to non-citizens being counted to apportion the representatives. California has something like a couple dozen extra representatives from that.

[nradov]

The effects of Wyoming having two senators are far from minor in an age where key votes have been decided on a 51-49 basis.