> Yeah but maybe that's a good thing.

Only if you start with the assumption that different individuals voters should have different amounts of political influence, which the NPV movement is explicitly rejecting.

> Otherwise you have a situation like New York where NYC gets to dictate everything since it's super high population density even though the majority of geographical NY state is farmers. So the farmers get screwed over by the interests of the city folk who have never even stepped foot out of the city.

I think the problem here is that you're portraying it as if cities or states are the agents making decisions, rather than individuals. Obviously the electoral college establishes states as the agents making decisions in Presidential elections. The NPV movement seeks to make individuals the agents that decide Presidential elections.

> I think the problem here is that you're portraying it as if cities or states are the agents making decisions, rather than individuals.

That was exactly the point of the Electoral College - that states would elect the president.

You may think that's a bad idea. That's fine. You may want to change it. But it's a really fundamental change to the architecture. If it's to be changed, it should be changed by a constitutional amendment, not just by a compact among the states.

No, that was not the point, why do people keep saying this? The framers were very open about the purpose. They thought that the average voter could not be trusted to choose a president, and that a direct election would result in "tumult and disorder". Instead, the decision would be made by "men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station", who would not be so easily swayed by the "heats and ferments" of the people.

Also, the framers expected that most of the time, there would be too many candidates for any to win a majority. In that case, the House would select a winner from the candidates.

A system where electors do not make their own decisions, and one candidate always wins a majority, was simply not conceived of.

https://www.constitution.org/fed/federa68.htm

This is the most easily digestible evidence, but Hamilton is obviously not the only one who thought this way. He is representing the position of most of the framers, that's why the system he describes here is what ended up in the constitution. Note that there is no mention at all of rural vs. urban, underrepresented communities, states' rights, anything like that. Those factors contributed to the creation of the Senate and the House, but not the electoral college. That was entirely due to the men writing the constitution not trusting the men they were allowing to vote.

> No, that was not the point, why do people keep saying this? The framers were very open about the purpose. They thought that the average voter could not be trusted to choose a president, and that a direct election would result in "tumult and disorder". Instead, the decision would be made by "men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station", who would not be so easily swayed by the "heats and ferments" of the people.

That was part of the purpose; a part that we have since mostly neutered. But the number of electors was definitely chosen to compromise between small and large (population) states.

Senate representation is apportioned constantly per state. House representation is apportioned approximately proportional to population. The electoral college is a compromise (sum) of these too.

States have gotten to choose how to select their electors, and most have chosen winner-take-all (in part because this is a strategy that is strategically powerful). So it remains a forum of state-chosen electors, with a weight that is a compromise between per-state and per-population representation, like it has always been.

> No, that was not the point, why do people keep saying this? The framers were very open about the purpose. They thought that the average voter could not be trusted to choose a president, and that a direct election would result in "tumult and disorder". Instead, the decision would be made by "men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station", who would not be so easily swayed by the "heats and ferments" of the people.

So why, in your view, do the states get to appoint the electors?

I very much understand the point of the electoral college and the point of the NPV movement. And I don't necessarily disagree that a constitutional amendment would be a better way to change the policy.

So... the EC empowers the states, but the states shouldn't have power?

An individual voter in Wyoming should have more say over what happens in Wyoming than an individual voter in New York.

Given the geographic clustering of opinions, it is not adequate to give every individual equal say over every area.

The solution is federalism, which we already have; a Wyoming voter controls the Wyoming state government, which has power over things that are purely internal Wyoming concerns.

What incentive do rural states have to stay in the union if the federal government is controlled by populous state bullies? Wouldn't it be better for them to fragment into separate-but-open-border-countries like the EU?

Probably roughly the same incentives any state has ever had to join and remain in a federation. Things like free trade and movement among states and a combined military. One of the incentives to remain in a federation should not be the ability to disproportionately influence the federal government compared to other member states.

That's certainly fine for state-by-state issues, and it is the case for most of them, like state income tax, sales tax, most laws, etc. Unfortunately there's only one President, which is why this NPV issue concerns the presidential election and not anything else.

>I think the problem here is that you're portraying it as if cities or states are the agents making decisions, rather than individuals

Well yeah. There's a reason why it's called the United STATES.

The plurality of the geography of NY State may be agricultural land, but that is not the same thing as saying that the majority of its people are farmers. If you cut NYC off from the rest of the state, yes, you'd have a majority-rural population, and probably a red state—but not majority farmer and farm workers.

I live and work in rural NY State. For every farmer out here, there are dozens of teachers, janitors, computer programmers, hairstylists, restaurant owners & workers, and every other type of profession you have in hamlets, small towns, and non-mega-cities.

And yeah, there are a lot of people here who don't want property taxes to go up. They don't want any taxes to go up, because they're rural Republicans who have bought into the line that taxes are bad hook, line, and sinker. But as rural Republicans, they mostly don't even make much noise about wanting taxes to go down. The signs you see along the side of the road are clamoring to repeal gun control laws that prevent violent criminals and the mentally ill from purchasing guns.

Just because New York City has enough population to drown the rest of the state in doesn't mean that we should give the rest of the state disproportionate power.

"doesn't mean that we should give the rest of the state disproportionate power."

Is it in the best interests of all the people to have proportionate power? I believe so.

The EC is an abstraction, which philosophically and practically takes choice away from individuals. Population centers having more power than rural areas (even when they are the geographical majority, otherwise) is a proxy for land-owners having more power. While, ironically, land-owners (like farmers) often tend to be poorer than city-dwellers in absolute terms, I don't believe they should have some sort of relative power difference.

I think it's also important to remember that (to the best of my knowledge) the majority of farmland is not individually owned: it's run by large agricultural companies.

So the "land-owners," or at least, the owners of the companies that own the land, also live in the cities, and are themselves among the vastly wealthy.

Can you clarify this? It appears you're both advocating for same and different power simultaneously.

I wasn't trying to be obtuse. I'm not sure what's confusing.

Is it in the best interests of all the people to have proportionate power? I believe so.

I don't believe they (rural vs metropolitan citizens) should have some sort of relative power difference, despite their relative wealth and land-ownership differences. That's not important to me, philosophically.

Best I can do to clarify.

High population density = more people, more voters. Yes, I think thier opinion should count more than the less people, less voters of the rest of the state.

Land doesn't (shouldn't) vote.

> too bad, the city folk are in charge now.

You mean democracy? You mean 1 person 1 vote? You mean the majority? This is what you have a problem with? Go ahead and state that view, but let's be honest about what you are saying.

You think somehow people should be punished for population density. That their votes should be worth less, person for person, than a rural vote.

Why.

The United States is not a democracy. It is a republic.

I don't think this is a valid reason to continue with the electoral college - but it might be a good reason to slowly dissolve the concept of states and instead let local and national politics interact directly - the state level is where the needs of different localities are being erased more than the national level.

Local politicians should be concerned with their locality - national politicians should be concerned with the nation and making sure that no localities are presented with problems beyond the scope of their power... the state sorta does both - but it also serves to mask local issues within the state's representation up to the national level. It's why I'm rather fond of the house and less fond of the senate - as a former Vermonter I had intensely good representation at the national level - I had one house rep and two senators which were concerned with representing me specifically - but when I resided in MA our rep was concerned with local issues but the Senators were more focused on pushing forth agendas that the state-house was pushing out... so the representation of individual localities were lost on those senators.

Do you think the federal government is run better than state governments?

The property taxes example doesn't seem right.

Cost of a small apartment in NYC is equal to the cost of several acres of farmland. Proportional property taxes would impact both demographics similarly.

The city dweller isn't earning money off of their land.

Naturally, this means that farmland should be taxed more, not less. /s

But no. Land owners make money extracting rent. The difference is that farming is subsidized.

The government is by, of, and for the People, not the dirt they walk on.

The tyranny of the minority who sit on emptier ground is not a sacred value.

> For example, city folks are more likely to vote for increases in property taxes - not that they care too much since they only have a tiny apartment - but it hits the people outside of the city with lots of land (for farming) really hard.

Firstly, property taxes are levied at the town(ship) levels in New York State. Secondly, property taxes are levied on the assessed property value of the property in question, which will be $1-5000/acre for agricultural land, so an $800,000 Manhattan studio will have the same assessed value of up to 800 acres of farmland. Thirdly, property taxes on farm land are fully deductible business expenses, while property taxes on your primary residence is not.

Finally, it doesn't come through in text, but allow me to spend the next seven minutes laughing on the floor at the notion that city dwellers are blase about their property taxes going up.

There are rural concerns that cities don't really care about, should they be ignored?

They should be considered proportionally to the amount of people affected.

But their lives are so different.

For instance: gun control. Rules for millions of people crowded into a pressure-cooker city, vs rules for folks living a mile apart with varmints, police protection an hour away, hunting, are reasonably very different. Same for zoning, licensing, inspections, on and on.

Rural residents often get saddled with metro rules that make no sense.

Except not every city is midtown Manhattan, and not every rural area is the Ozarks. You can get "varmints" and long police response times in New York and LA. Most people in the "country" don't hunt, fish, or gather firewood, and most people in the "cities" aren't living hyperdense urbane chic lifestyles. In reality, most of the country lives in between these extremes.

Most people (by pure numbers) by definition live in very large cities. In fact, in the USA, most Americans live in very large coastal cities. So that argument doesn't hold water.

When the "urban/rural" divide is brought up in American political discourse, it's always done so describing extremes. Yet living in a city - even a large city, doesn't always mean living in an urban "pressure cooker," nor does living outside of a city mean seeing more wildlife than people. I live in a suburb of Austin. I don't hunt my own food or drink from a well, nor am I surrounded by concrete jungle.

The premise that urban and rural dwellers generally have such radically divergent ways of life that it's infeasible for a single entity to govern both is a bit of a populist myth.

'A suburb of Austin' may not be rural by many definitions. Its another city? Look at a map. See all those spaces between a city and its suburbs, and the next city and its suburbs? That's where 'rural' is.

I can see half a mile in any direction, and not see another human habitation. Clearly this is rural. And clearly, things around here work a little differently from a city. For instance, I pay for fire service (volunteer fire association; I donate). I essentially don't have police service except for cleaning up after major catastrophes (half a dozen sheriffs per 100 square miles). I saw an eagle swoop by my kitchen window the other night, with a rabbit in its claws (yeah eagle! I'm a gardener). When the deer get out of hand harvesting my garden before I do, I'm allowed to shoot them. With one of my guns, a bigger one because the little ones are for varmints like rabbit, skunk, rats, the occasional badger.

My interactions with a neighbor are purely voluntary, because other than annual discussions about fences (and the fireman's ball) we have little we need to talk about. There are no association rules; there are no inspections nor even inspectors. If my neighbor parks a bunch of trailers behind his windbreak in an ugly rusting mess, go neighbor. I guess I'll just plant a row of trees and wait 10 years to mask the view in that direction.

So just call me Mr. Populist Myth I guess.

>'A suburb of Austin' may not be rural by many definitions. Its another city? Look at a map. See all those spaces between a city and its suburbs, and the next city and its suburbs? That's where 'rural' is.

Except no one who talks about "city dwellers" is talking about people living in small towns or suburbs. And if I am living in a city, it doesn't conform to any of the political or cultural assumptions that the urban/rural divide makes about "city dwellers." It also isn't nearly as rural as your definition of "rural," although I've lived in those areas as well. I certainly don't think it would be accurate to lump the culture and community of the town I'm in with LA or New York - certainly people there would consider me rural.

And maybe that's one problem - "city dweller" and "rural" are vague and subjective labels.

>So just call me Mr. Populist Myth I guess.

The myth is that your experience is typical for Americans not living in large cities. It's an outlier, not the norm.

Right! We're agreeing. Rural dwellers are outliers; their concerns are not addressed by rules made up in the Capitol City.

>their concerns are not addressed by rules made up in the Capitol City

They are, depending on the concern. Rural voters have representatives and lobbyists in Washington and there are plenty of laws intended to favor rural interests. Part of the argument in this thread is that the Electoral College itself gives rural states out-sized influence in determining the Presidency. It isn't true that Washington is ignoring rural populations entirely, or that they have no political power.

Most of the issues you listed upthread as examples of how urban and rural lives differ are examples of issues which should be (and usually are) handled locally, not nationally. Gun control might be an exception (although personally I believe it should be entirely a state issue) but I think it would be absurd to claim that rural populations don't have a powerful influence on that through the NRA already, given that most of the country supports stricter gun control laws than would ever be politically feasible in the US.

Locally being a euphemism for "by folks in the State capitol"?

Sure there are attempts to design government to balance rural and urban. They work better or worse, at each level. Abolishing them because they are 'out of balance' is maybe not the best solution.

Great example. Cities are prevented from having sensible gun control because rural voters who don't care about their needs* prevent it.

* But love cashing their welfare checks sent from urban citizens.

Those 'welfare cheats' are feeding you.