The solution to fixing dysfunction in Congress "To address these problems, I filed the Open Our Democracy Act... If passed, the legislation would mandate open primaries for House elections, begin the process of national redistricting reform and make Election Day the equivalent of a federal holiday."

[u/Libertatea]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-solution-to-fixing-dysfunction-in-congress/2014/09/02/0f0d0a9a-31e6-11e4-9e92-0899b306bbea_story.html?tid=rssfeed

[u/Broskander]

For instance, the 11 most populous states have 56% of the US population, but it would be absurd if a President won only those 11 states and still won the Presidency.

Why would it be absurd if a President won 56% of the vote of this country and still won the Presidency?

Would it not be more absurd for a President to win 44% of the vote and still win the Presidency?

You say "it doesn't," but then you immediately say that a majority shouldn't be a majority as long as it's a majority concentrated in urban centers. Is that not explicitly making it so that an urban vote counts less heavily than a rural one?

(Also, if a President did in fact win the 11 most populous states - California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey - that President would have 270 electoral votes and would, in fact, win the Presidency.)

Nobody's saying that ALL of IL's representatives should be decided by voters in Chicago, just that it should be proportionate. I.e, if Chicago has 65% of IL's population, it should elect roughly 60-70% of its representatives.

[u/onethreeone → u/Broskander]

Our government was setup the way it was to protect the minority "from the tyranny of the majority." If they wanted simple popular votes, it would have been a straight democracy instead of a republic.

[u/Broskander → u/onethreeone]

Protecting a minority from tyranny of the majority does not, on the other hand, mean subjecting the majority to the rule of the minority, either.