Should we abolish the popular vote?

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

True, the Senate is far more unequitible and should be abolished before the electoral college.  A voter in Wyoming has about 4X the power of a California voter in the electoral college, but 100X the power in the Senate.

The electoral college solution proposed by the OP would actually exaggerate the advantage of small states in the electoral college even more...the 400K people in WY would be able to swing 3 EVS by themselves, while the 40M in California would only be able swing a few more EVs.   Plus, this system would create even more incentive for congressional gerrymandering, which I think is an effect we would all like to avoid.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

There's no reason why you can't preserve all the individual rights we have no while giving everyone at least approximately equal voting power.

The way the Senate is structured now, it doesn't denfend the rights of minorities against majorities.  It only protects some specified minorities, whle hurting other minorities.  What state you are from is really much less relevant tou our lives today than many other traits.  If you really want to protect minorities, give two Senators to each racial group, or each religion, or each income bracket.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

There's no reason why you can't preserve all the individual rights we have no while giving everyone at least approximately equal voting power.

The way the Senate is structured now, it doesn't denfend the rights of minorities against majorities.  It only protects some specified minorities, whle hurting other minorities.  What state you are from is really much less relevant tou our lives today than many other traits.  If you really want to protect minorities, give two Senators to each racial group, or each religion, or each income bracket.

The assumption in a federal body like the Senate is that significant minorites will not be so geographically uniform that they are lost in every jurisdiction. That assumption generally tends to be true, but the threshold for "significance" is ambiguous. That ambigous threshold is a good thing IMO, since it provides far greater flexibility to changing times than the specific declaration of minority interest groups.

The problem with the Senate is that the founding fathers didn't creally ontemplate the idea that their might be interest groups that were totally undefined by geography.  For the most part, this is because these interests weren't even given voting rights at the time of the Constitution. 

One major "minority" that is completely geographically dispersed, for instance, is women.  People of all age groups are almost equally geographically dispersed.  And both rich and poor live in the same states and same cities, if not always in the same House district. 

If you want to really make sure the rights of minorities are represented, let them choose with "District" they want to be in....allow it to be completely free from geography.   Tell everyone they have to register to be in one of 100 "districts", but can choose which on they want.  Thus, people can identify with whatever interest they find most important. 

If enough people want to form an "Hispanic" district, or a "gay" district, or a "lawyer's" district, that's fine.  And if some people still value geography and want to form a "Maryland" district or a "Chicago" district, that's fine too.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Right...the Districts would have no geographical lines.  They would just be numbered 1-100, and presumably they would acquire their own de-facto "boundaries", geographic or otherwise.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Right...the Districts would have no geographical lines.  They would just be numbered 1-100, and presumably they would acquire their own de-facto "boundaries", geographic or otherwise.

No, I don't think so. Each district would merely be a subset of the U.S. with approximately the same socioeconomic and demographic breakdown as the whole nation.

Why would that be? 

What would happen is you would have a group of people with similar interests uniting to reregister in a particular district (arbitrariy chosen at first)...just like they unite to form political parties.  Once they reached a critical mass in a particular district, they would be able to elect the representative of their choosing.  At this point, the original members of that district, realizing they could never win, would disperse into other districts that better represented their own interests. 

If one district was overpopulated (e.g. all Hispanics joined one district), someone would mount a campaign to get some of the people in that district to register in a new district, so that that interest could get a second or third representative.  If an interest that was once strong began to dwindle (e.g. a district of people who favored Prohibition), eventually some more popular interest would realize the opportunity and take it over. 

You would have a constant rebalancing of interests according to changing demographics, changing issue landscapes, and changing self-identificiations. 

Moreover, no-one could complain that their representative did not properly represent them, because if they didn't like who got elected, they could just "move" into a "district" with a rep they liked better.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Right...the Districts would have no geographical lines.  They would just be numbered 1-100, and presumably they would acquire their own de-facto "boundaries", geographic or otherwise.

No, I don't think so. Each district would merely be a subset of the U.S. with approximately the same socioeconomic and demographic breakdown as the whole nation.

Why would that be?

Let's say that today, your plan is adopted, and the Senate as we know it is abolished. These 100 "districts" are created. Now, the probability of a voter choosing a particular district is 1/100. Voters will arbitrarily choose districts, and the net effect will be to create districts which are by and large subsets of the nation.

You assume that voters will, on their own, organize into districts based on their interests. Given that only about 30% of the voters actually cast ballots in midterm elections, I don't think that this assumption is valid. A vast majority of the voters would arbitrarily choose some district; they would not be sufficiently interested to research each district, checking if that body matches a particular interest.

If only 30% of people vote, then only these 30% are important for determining the composition of the district.  If a district has 30% people from a given interest group, and 70% random non-voter, that interest group will still dominate the election.
Registering for a district would be no harder than registering for a political party now, and most voters are members of a political party.