So then what is your point? That people in California and Texas should be electing Senators from Vermont?
That the senate is an antiquated institution that has far too much power for its undemocratic underpinnings.
Ok, but isn't this why the larger states have far more power in the house and other national posts? You're pretty much undermining the whole purpose of state's rights. That's why the senate works like it does, not because the founders were too old to not get that it wasn't going to balance out perfectly across the population. Besides, there is no chance this changes within the next 20 years. Probably not within the next 100 years. This whole discussion is kind of pointless. To change it you'd have to get most of these little states to come along, and obviously they have no reason to do so.
The Senate was designed for a time when: The division between the states was the primary division of the population, and thus made sense to prioritize its protection. The states had far more power, and the federal government far less, so an unbalanced senate protected the smaller states without giving them the power to run roughshod over the larger ones (fun fact: the federal army was never intended to be able to outgun even a single state's militia, much less all of them combined) There were fewer states with smaller discrepancies in size between them, so the imbalance wasn't as severe. Neither the judiciary nor the executive had acquired the power they do today, so the Senate's exclusive power to serve as a check on appointments couldn't overwhelm the House the way it does today. Slavers wanted dat sweet sweet representation without letting slaves vote. It is an idea whose time has largely passed.
I disagree, but more importantly you still have the problem where you need to get states like Montana and Idaho to say "You know what? Actually we would like to be completely irrelevant to national politics." This isn't going to change without a constitutional amendment and it would never pass.
Agreed that we've created a system incapable of fixing itself, so this is mostly just me bitching about it.
The 3/5ths compromise gave the South more representation in the House without allowing slaves to vote. The Senate muted slave power in that regard. But yeah lets go full straight democracy, sure that will end well for minorities.
Speaking of the Senate, Florida is once again confirming it’s status as the most retarded state in the union. The woman running the electoral process for Broward County, including ballot counts, is functionally brain dead. They are still counting ballots and have no idea how many they have left to count. Meanwhile, they magically found another box of ballots in an elementary school that need to be counted (so far). Also, a few counters had lost count and had to start over. It’s almost 48 hours after voting ended. By the way, this is happening in heavily in Democratic counties for elections in which the Senate votes are currently leaning red. It’s happening in Arizona too. I wonder why?
Also apparently their scantrons are just misaligned to where the senate bubble is. Votes for senator are trailing votes for governor by a lot, and even trailing some who-gives-a-fuck positions that a lot of people don't bother voting for.
This state is dumber than even you guys would imagine. For example, it's an every day (and I do mean every day) thing for the sales people where I work to pick up the phone and then be asked by the customer on the line "What's your phone number there?" You just dialed it you fucking dumbass.
If it was just a pure Bugs Bunny situation Spoiler then I'd lament the loss of those high waisted bikinis them Miami ladies wear, but in the current reality my much larger concern is with the rest of the consequences like flooding of northern cities, crop failures, extensive droughts, etc.
Tennessee uses electronic voting machines, and I’ve never heard any news stories about major problems with the vote count since I’ve been here. Granted, it’s not usually any type of battleground state, but voting is easy - tap the screen and make your choices, REVIEW the choices, get a GIANT WARNING asking you “ARE YOU SURE THIS IS WHAT YOU PICKED?” And then you hit VOTE. With that technology, why is any state using paper, aside from absentee ballots? Why use shitty scantron machines where the misaligned names or failure to fully punch the ballot can cause issues. I feel like this lesson may have been learned oh, maybe 18 years ago.
I’ve been a computer programmer for 15 years. There is nothing secure about it (or almost anything dealing with computers for that matter). That’s why not everyone does it. Paper is pretty fucking secure.
This XKCD sums it up pretty well: https://xkcd.com/2030/ The heart of the problem is that for political reasons ballots need to be anonymous, but in the computer world security is built entirely on auditability. The two don't play well at all.
Final count not in yet, but it looks like the Democrats have moved ahead in Arizona, and still no one knows what the fuck is going on in Florida.
Looks like straight up fraud in Florida at this point. The manager for the county refused to hand over ballots until a judge forced her to. Then it comes out she had illegitimate provisional ballots mixed with good ones. Plus they happened to randomly “find” a box of ballots that amazingly went 100% Democratic, but only after Rick Scott was about win. Someone is hopefully going to jail over this. CNNs hot take last night: Sometimes that’s the way it works in Florida, it’s not necessarily fraud.
The rest of the country needs to send Florida to its room without any dinner until they figure this shit out. What, 18 years isn’t enough time to get your act together?
Wasn't I the one who got shit for being ok with sending florida to the bottom of the ocean? Well look who's right now!!!