No, I didn’t say anybody got it wrong. The point is that there’s nothing “wrong” about a federal system making allowances for population disparities among its constituents. (In the Senate, where as you presumably know, states are guaranteed equal suffrage, a solid citizen of Wyoming has the power of 66 Californians. Work yourself up over that if you must.)

In any case, you can’t blame the founders for the current apportionment of House seats and Electoral College votes. Congress determines the size of the House.

The web site “270towin.com” ran a hypothetical analysis of the 2016 presidential results in which it apportioned electoral votes among states based strictly on population (but still awarded all of each state’s electoral votes to the top finisher). Only three electoral votes shifted from Trump to Clinton. In other words, in this election at least, winner-take-all made much more of a difference than apportionment. Not surprising since Clinton’s support was relatively densely concentrated.

And you can’t blame the founders for winner-take-all either. They warned against political parties and would be appalled that parties effectively control electors.

The purpose of checks and balances is not to “make sure everything is fair”, whatever the devil that means. The purpose is to provide firewalls (or at least speed bumps) against rash decisions and the tyranny of the majority. The system is designed to favor consensus, stability, and limited government. What it can’t do is guarantee us politicians who understand and respect the founders’ wisdom and genius.

Good point. In it’s extreme form: it is not because X steals, murders or rapes it is ok for me to do the same.

Once again you start with, “someone else gets it wrong too, so it’s okay when we do.” How many times do I have to repeat that two wrongs don’t make a right?

I think the reason they don’t look into it is they fear the consequences of an armed and pissed off public not having faith in their electoral system. Almost all right wing authoritarians will take the word of the government that everything is okay. If they don’t rise up, no one else will fight back. Liberal leaders will always be able to calm their supporters with the non-violence message because of Dr King.

I agree with you that the ‘proportional’ representation of the European parliament is not proportional. Since it’s role is not as decisive as, say, the European Council, it does not wrangle as much, but basically it is not right. At least we agree on something 🙂

“If polls are “generally very reliable” then we may as well save a fortune by eliminating balloting altogether.”
We are not talking ‘polls’, but exit</b -polls, a wholly different proposition, and taken after voting. And yes, they are highly reliable. It is extremely rare for them to vary more than a few decimals of a percentage point from the actual result (cf eg the Brexit vote, less than 0.1% difference). As soon as they vary more than 1 or 2 % from the counting, one can reliably conclude fraud, or at least ‘counting irregularities’.
[As mentioned, the Ukrainian elections were declared fraudulent by the US (and EU), because the exit polls differed by nearly 4% from the official count.]

If I remember well, there was a question of ballot papers being ambiguous. I saw the pictures of these ballot papers, and they were ambiguous indeed, to put it mildly.
There was a whole area of ‘black’ voters who did vote en masse for an extremely conservative candidate (Mr Buchanan? IIRC), while it was blatantly clear they intended to vote for Mr Gore. And these votes would have given Mr Gore his rightful victory.
In fact I think Mr Gore was wrong and arrogant to concede, after all, these votes were not ‘his’, but his voter’s. He let them down miserably.

Nope, I only drink dry red. Occasionally a dry white with the fish (and Sake with sushi or sashimi, once every other fortnight).
Are you denying what I remarked about the exit polls?

Multiple recounts by news organizations in Florida in 2000 showed that most reasonable scenarios produced the same result. They found no evidence of fraud (which BTW Democrats and liberals always insist is nonexistent).

If polls are “generally very reliable” then we may as well save a fortune by eliminating balloting altogether.

Thanks, just.another.moron. Your advice is always deeply appreciated. Like thrown down the nearest drain.