Those "extreme presidential powers" were not in the system design.

They were submitted as (sometimes secret) change requests by every president post WW2 and accelerated by presidents in the last ~20 years. Unfortunately, the code review team didn't remove the changes and tacked on their own during the process.

>They were submitted as (sometimes secret) change requests by every president post WW2 and accelerated by presidents in the last ~20 years.

They started way sooner than that, the first major one was the Louisiana Purchase. Basically non-Washington presidents have been trying to expand their power.

Worst code review team in history. But thanks for the explanation, that makes it a bit more clear.

Most people do live in a small number of counties (~146 in ~3000). The US system is essentially designed to distribute voting power over land, rather than per capita.

It was designed to distribute votes to slave owners in order to appease the southern states. It was never about protecting small states or distributing over land.

When the constitution was first signed if votes had been distributed by population the Southern states would have essentially never had a voice, which was a non-starter for them. Considering that these states were also the economic power houses of the US, not including them was also a non-starter. The electoral college coupled with the 3/5ths compromise was the eventual solution to this problem.