It is Time to Change the Senate and Electoral College

How much does the electoral college change things?
Per the Economist, Donald's odds of winning the electoral college are 9%.
His odds of winning the most votes? 1%.
A system that increases your odds of winning by 9X is quite a system.

In the 1800s, throughout Europe, their parliamentary system was changed to adapt to the new industrial economy. We need to do the same to adapt to the realities of the new information economy.
Manchester, England led the world into the industrial economy and as a result its population grew rapidly. In 1700, Manchester had less than 10,000 people. By 1820 it had closer to 200,000.

But here’s the deal. Politics hadn’t kept up with economic and demographic realities. Manchester did not even elect its own two Members of Parliament (MPs) in the early 1800s. It was part of another district.

Meanwhile, in the “rotten boroughs,” a paltry few could elect their two MPs. How few? In one district, 7 voters got to elect 2 MPs. Another district had mostly fallen into the sea, leaving just 32 voters clinging to the land and getting to choose 2 MPs.

Throughout the 1800s, folks in the UK, France, Austria and Germany changed these sorts of odd disparities so that political power better aligned with demographic and economic realities. We could learn from their example.

Wyoming and Vermont have populations smaller than Washington DC; those two states get 4 senators and DC has none. 21 states with 36 million residents get 42 senators – close to half of the senate’s 100. California with its 40 million people gets 2 senators.

California has helped to pioneer the information and entrepreneurial economies and that has made it successful in industries like aerospace, communications, silicon, software, biotech, and the internet. Of the 100 most valuable companies in the world (as of 15 Oct 2020) California’s companies represent 25% of the global market cap and 33% of the US’ market cap. Because California has been so innovative and entrepreneurial, it has created more jobs than any other state in the union and now has the largest population. Like Manchester, England in the early 1800s, California’s population and economic importance is incredibly diluted through the country’s obsolete political system.

In 1790, when the US was founded, 90% of workers were in agriculture. Acreage was a pretty good proxy for representation then. Agriculture now employs fewer than 2% of American workers. Acreage is now a terrible approximation of how representation should be calculated.

As it now stands, politics in the US is going to be disproportionately defined by the least populous and least affluent areas of the country because of how the Senate is structured. This makes progress difficult. It’s like having the kids in the bottom half of the class write the textbooks.

Right now, we have division where there is – in terms of population and definitely economic weight – a clear majority. These less populous and economically developed regions are pushing to protect us from the global economy rather than better connect us to and prepare us for it. This simply frustrates progress and the electorate. It’s time to change.