So I’m a New Zealander and I have a pretty good idea on how the electoral college system works but it honestly sounds like something that can be easily corrupted and it feels like it renders the popular vote absolutely useless unless I’m totally missing something obvious?
So yeah if someone could explain to me what the benefits of such a system are, that would be awesome.
Edit - Thanks for the replies so far, already learning a lot!
What I’ve heard is that it prevents “tyranny of the majority”, whereby the majority would just get their way 100% of the time.
I know that sounds like exactly what should happen, but I think the thought is that sometimes the majority does not vote in the country’s best interest.
As an exaggerated example, say there is some budget concern that would allocate all money to urban business and zero to rural. Depriving rural business like farms of this funding would cripple the country’s food reserves. But the majority live in urban environments, so they’d vote selfishly and fuck up the country. So rural voters are given more power to balance it out.
Now in my opinion - I don’t care about any of that. And I think if the majority votes one way and fucks up the country, so be it. Gotta learn to vote in the country’s interest and not your own.
The analogy of farmer vs urban is great. Thanks!
OP’s country has proportional representation, which means that sometimes majorities and minorities have to team up to get legislation passed.