The Electoral College was designed to give small states disproportionate weight in selecting a president
Actually, that's not quite correct. It was set up to prevent a unsavory candidate from manipulating the popular vote through gross propaganda and fear mongering, or some other form of manipulation. (Sound familiar?)
The founding fathers, given the relatively frequent failures of previous democracies or republics in Greece and Rome, were rather suspicious of permitting the people to have the last say on voting for president. They wanted one final "hedge" against such an event, wherein electoral delegates, who generally were known to be educated men, provided that ability to overturn the people's will, should they choose someone of moral terpitude (again, sound familiar?).
And the Electoral College DOES NOT act in a similar way to the Senate in congress. In fact, the number of delegates a state sends to the college is dependent upon the total number of congressman and senators they possess, one delegate for each, thus manifestly showing itself to be structured proportional to population.
So essentially the electoral college represents the popular vote. It is ONLY in the "winner take all" structure that small states might gain some power over their more numerously represented neighbors. But it would be very little, if any, since large states like CA, NY, etc, are ALSO "winner take all" states.
You have only to look at the current situation, where Gore won a few more populated states, but Bush won the majority of states. That negates your theory on "disproportionate weight" right there.
Regards,
Ron |
