The most relevant fact about the “USA” is how the United States of America came to be. If you want to understand what that means through a silly story, think of “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (The Book of Genesis) versus “Evolution is the fundamental idea in all of life” (Bill Nye the Science Guy).
The US was created; it did not evolve. Had it evolved from what it once was, it now might be the “United Indian States of America.” Native Americans were there first. Based on some prominent North American Indigenous Peoples’ creation stories, it could be the “United First Nations Tribes of Turtle Island.”
Perhaps the “prototype” for the US coming from the 13 original colonies was the Iroquois League or Confederacy formed sometime around 1500 from the separate Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, and Seneca tribes.
While a governing body and not a central government, the Haudenosaunee Grand Council was made up of 56 chiefs elected from each of the five tribes based on the number of clans in each tribe—“proportional representation.” However, there also was a “Five Nations Governing Committee” made up of one member from each tribe.
The point is that the sovereignty of each tribe was totally equal, but some adjustments were made for size and power.
I asked on Twitter: “Should China get more votes at the UN than the Philippines?” The choices were (A) Yes. China has more people (14.6 percent) and (B) No. One country, one vote (85.4 percent). That does not sound very fair or democratic. What happened to “one man, one vote”? Since the UN helps “govern” 7 billion people, shouldn’t the Secretary General be elected by a “popular vote”?
Of course not. “UN” stands for United Nations, not “United People.” One nation, one vote. Except it is also not the “United People of America.” Each US state is just as sovereign and independent as another—one state, one vote.
Now kicks in “proportional representation.” Each state has a certain number of presidential electors based on the number of members in the House of Representatives, which is based on the population size. Bigger states have more electors. In a sense, this is sort of like the permanent members of the UN Security Council—China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US—that have much more power than the General Assembly.
However, all but two US states, by the states’ own choice, have a winner-take-all-electors system, meaning, if a candidate wins the popular vote by one ballot, he/she gets all the electors. That is how a candidate can receive more popular votes and not the most electors.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton won 62 percent of the votes (8,753,788) in California to receive 55 electoral votes. But Donald J. Trump won 52 percent (4,685,047) in Texas and 36 electors, and 48 percent in Pennsylvania (2,970,733) and 20 electors. Clinton had one million more votes and one fewer elector. If proportional rather than winner-take-all, Clinton would have taken 61 electors.
Is the Electoral College fair? Define fair. China probably thinks “one nation, one vote” is not fair. The US probably thinks it is not fair that China’s one vote can veto any Security Council action. And when it comes to the UN voting for the UN leader, any permanent member can also block the selection of a Secretary-General by the General Assembly. Democracy, any way it is conducted, is messy.
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