search results matching tag: joliet

» channel: learn

go advanced with your query
Search took 0.000 seconds

  • 1
    Videos (5)     Sift Talk (0)     Blogs (0)     Comments (2)   

Why the Electoral College is Terrible

Hastur says...

Also, some of his numbers are way off. According to the US Census (see #29), 79% of the population was urban in 2000, not ~20% as he claims.

For a breakdown of metro areas by population, look at #21 at the US Census link, "Metropolitan Statistical Areas--Population by Age". There were 131 million votes cast for president in 2008. If you want to arbitrarily define urban as 1 million people or more, there are 126.4 million voting-age people living in metropolitan areas.

Sliced a different way, according to the US Census, a presidential candidate can get to 50% of that if they take the voting age populations of just the top 12 metropolitan areas:

New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA
Chicago-Joliet-Naperville, IL-IN-WI
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX
Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD
Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX
Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV
Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL
Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA
Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH
San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA
Detroit-Warren-Livonia, MI

I don't know where he gets his numbers--maybe by using strict city limits?--but they're not even close to reality. According to the facts, in a pure popularity vote, a presidential candidate can safely ignore the rural areas and still win an election.

The electoral college is imperfect, but whatever you want to replace it with should do a better job of representing a diversity of interests--geographic, demographic, and politic--than a direct popular vote.

Kutiman's "Mother of All Funk Chords"

Ryjkyj says...

The guy with the harmonica just ruins it. The rest of the song is funk and then he turns it into pasty, lame, white, "John Goodman trying to be Joliet Jake", soulless, house of blues crap. There, I said it.

  • 1


Send this Article to a Friend



Separate multiple emails with a comma (,); limit 5 recipients






Your email has been sent successfully!

Manage this Video in Your Playlists

Beggar's Canyon