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A comment on The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights. Parent comment

Re:The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human r... by burlesona on Sunday October 18, 2020 @11:59AM (#24818800)
Actually it doesn’t strictly need a constitutional amendment for the president to be elected differently, as every state is allowed to decide how it appoints its electors. Maine and Nebraska come closer to proportional now simply by allocating their electors individually. Any state could choose to go one step farther and allocate its electors by proportional representation.

However, there is only one president, so for this to really matter it needs to happen in Congress, which would require an amendment. The rationale that it could happen is simply that it has happened before: women’s suffrage, the direct election of senators, and the conversion from multi-member districts to single member districts, are all examples of major reform in the US process that were all “impossible” until they happened.

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Re:The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human r... by whimsicalism on Sunday October 18, 2020 @12:51PM (#24819173)
> it doesn’t strictly need a constitutional amendment for the president to be elected differently

Yeah, I assumed we were talking about the Senate - which would require huge, fundamental changes in order to be made proportional.

With the exception of suffrage, I would argue that that is a bigger change than any of the others you mentioned. It would require precisely the people most hurt by the change (small states) to vote for substantially decreasing their voter power.

I'm not claiming it's impossible, but I think it is silly to dismiss calls for more radical action in favor of a constitutional amendment with no path to get there.

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