So, first of all, this is a GREAT example of how racism feeds into the Electoral College. Undocumented immigrants don’t vote, and the idea that cities somehow breed more voter fraud BECAUSE they are more diverse, or that POOR people, people who, say, live in APARTMENTS instead of being LAND OWNERS is such old-timey classism to be laughable.
And that’s SO MUCH of the rhetoric around the EC. People talk about how they don’t want “Urban” or “City” people making choices, and 99% of the time, that’s just code for “black” and “brown” and “Jewish” and “Gay” because you bigots think that 1. Only minorities live in cities and minorities ONLY live in cities and 2. You don’t want anyone who isn’t a WASP-y Farmer voting apparently.
Like, you’re argument is literally “cities have more poor brown people, and I don’t think their votes should count.” So FUCK YOU.
Also, cities WOULDN’T dominate in the popular vote.
Really? What about the BIG CITIES?
#1 New York City. 8,601,186
#2LosAngelesCalifornia 4,057,841
#3Chicago,Illinois 2,679,044
#4Houston,Texas 2,359,480
#5Phoenix,Arizona 1,711,356
#6 Philadelphia,Pennsylvania 1,576,596
Those 6 cities, combined, have less than 22 million people. The US has 327 million.
And this is my point- the US is not made of a small handful of huge cities. The vast majority of the country lives in SMALL cities and towns, under a million people each, and their suburbs.
So, no, with the Popular Vote, you could not pander just to the biggest cities and be done with it. If you add up EVERY SINGLE CITY with more than 100,000 people in it (Which is 311 cities), that’s still only 94 million. 28% of the US population.
Even if ALL the ~poor brown people~ that you want to stop from voting lived EXCLUSIVELY in cities (which they don’t, you fucking racist), the popular vote DOESN’T actually empower cities.
The EC ALSO doesn’t actually help rural (”white land owning”) populations (you fucking racist, you don’t even know the racial or economic breakdown of the rural areas you claim to care about). In fact, the EC makes things worse for rural areas. 46 states have an urban majority, and “winner-take-all” laws that have been enacted by state legislatures in 48 states. So if there is a stark divide between rural and urban populations, in 46 states, the urban votes will win and 100% of the electoral points will go to the urban side (Where YOU think all the poor brown people live, again, you fucking racist).
However, in a popular vote system, no one’s vote would get thrown away like that, and everyone’s vote would be counted equally in the final tally.The popular vote would actually give MORE voice to rural populations that are all but completely erased in our current system.
And it is important to remember that in reality cities do not vote in perfect blocks. Neither do states. Even the most liberal city has conservative voters and even the deepest rural hellholes in Texas has progressives (I was one of them until I moved for college!) Those people matter. Those people should count.
Why not have a system where CITIZENS elect the president? Why does it matter which state someone lives in, if all votes should count equally? (I mean, I know YOU think that POOR BROWN PEOPLE shouldn’t be voting, you fucking racist, but ya know, for the rest of us who actually value the idea of a democracy)
This is a REALLY good website about the popular vote and it debunks a lot of common myths about the Electoral college.
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