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I find the electoral system in US to be funny. When 47.7% people voted for Hillary and 47.5 voted from Donald, yet Donald won. This is for the second time that

I find the electoral system in US to be funny. When 47.7% people voted for Hillary and 47.5 voted from Donald, yet Donald won. This is for the second time that Dems have lost this way, the last time was during Al Gore vs Bush

pfortuny 10y ago
It is a federation of States, not a single State. Each one has its weight as State relative to the federation. So it is not "the people" who vote for the president. It is the people who vote whom their State will vote as president.
- ones_and_zeros 10y ago
  It is possible to win an election with only 22% of the popular vote. Have you seen this: http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/the-trouble-with-the-electoral-college.html http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/the-trouble-with-the-electoral-c... Due to the way the electoral college gives small population states more electoral votes comparatively, votes in small population states have more weight.
  - blahi 10y ago
    Why do you ask him? YOu rehashed what he said, putting a negative spin on a very reasonable system. You can't have California drain the other states through economic superiority and then dictate political agenda on the population left in them. The political agenda benefiting California might not be suitable for Wisconsin.
    - ariwilson 10y ago
      Why not one person one vote? Are Californian voters less human than Rhode Island voters?
      - blahi 10y ago
        I already explained why. You just seem to refuse to see the reason.
  - talmand 10y ago
    Well, if the system is wrong how about we just change it so that each county in the country gets one vote? Win the county get the vote?
ones_and_zeros 10y ago
And they had 8 years to fix it but I don't think I heard a peep from them about electoral reform.
- ceejayoz 10y ago
  They only had control of the House for two of those years, during which healthcare reform was the major priority. It also requires state level work, where the GOP holds 2/3 of the governorships.
- nostrademons 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta... Ratified by 10 blue states representing 165 electoral votes, and zero red states. Most of the bluest states (CA, MA, NY, RI, DC, WA) ratified it during the Obama administration.
jrs235 10y ago
The electors haven't voted yet...
pluma 10y ago
This has happened four times now. http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/the-trouble-with-the-electoral-college-updated http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/the-trouble-with-the-electoral-c...
gnicholas 10y ago
The system we have incentivizes campaigns to maximize their electoral college votes. So while we could switch to a popular vote for a future election, looking at the popular vote in an EC-based election doesn't necessarily tell us who would have won the popular vote if we'd changed the rules before this election. The campaigns would have done things differently (like dems not ignore TX and repubs not ignore CA). This is more explained more thoroughly and eloquently by Prof Adler: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/11/09/your-candidate-got-more-of-the-popular-vote-irrelevant/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...
talmand 10y ago
Considering the number of times the electoral college and the popular vote agreed then it would seem the system works fairly well. It's not like no one knows the rules going in, they've been in place for a while now.
551199 10y ago
The country is mostly red. Even though Clinton got 200k more votes I'm sure you can see why the the electoral system is in place. There is still 4 million votes that are being counted. Projection even from CNN is that Trump wins the popular vote. [0] https://mishgea.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/geographic-lands... https://mishgea.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/geographic-lands.... [1] http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-10/trumps-geographic-l... http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-10/trumps-geographic-l....

pfortuny 10y ago

It is a federation of States, not a single State. Each one has its weight as State relative to the federation. So it is not "the people" who vote for the president. It is the people who vote whom their State will vote as president.

ones_and_zeros 10y ago
It is possible to win an election with only 22% of the popular vote. Have you seen this: http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/the-trouble-with-the-electoral-college.html http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/the-trouble-with-the-electoral-c... Due to the way the electoral college gives small population states more electoral votes comparatively, votes in small population states have more weight.
- blahi 10y ago
  Why do you ask him? YOu rehashed what he said, putting a negative spin on a very reasonable system. You can't have California drain the other states through economic superiority and then dictate political agenda on the population left in them. The political agenda benefiting California might not be suitable for Wisconsin.
  - ariwilson 10y ago
    Why not one person one vote? Are Californian voters less human than Rhode Island voters?
    - blahi 10y ago
      I already explained why. You just seem to refuse to see the reason.
- talmand 10y ago
  Well, if the system is wrong how about we just change it so that each county in the country gets one vote? Win the county get the vote?

ones_and_zeros 10y ago

And they had 8 years to fix it but I don't think I heard a peep from them about electoral reform.

ceejayoz 10y ago
They only had control of the House for two of those years, during which healthcare reform was the major priority. It also requires state level work, where the GOP holds 2/3 of the governorships.
nostrademons 10y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta... Ratified by 10 blue states representing 165 electoral votes, and zero red states. Most of the bluest states (CA, MA, NY, RI, DC, WA) ratified it during the Obama administration.

jrs235 10y ago

The electors haven't voted yet...

pluma 10y ago

This has happened four times now. http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/the-trouble-with-the-electoral-college-updated http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/the-trouble-with-the-electoral-c...

gnicholas 10y ago

The system we have incentivizes campaigns to maximize their electoral college votes. So while we could switch to a popular vote for a future election, looking at the popular vote in an EC-based election doesn't necessarily tell us who would have won the popular vote if we'd changed the rules before this election. The campaigns would have done things differently (like dems not ignore TX and repubs not ignore CA). This is more explained more thoroughly and eloquently by Prof Adler: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/11/09/your-candidate-got-more-of-the-popular-vote-irrelevant/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

talmand 10y ago

Considering the number of times the electoral college and the popular vote agreed then it would seem the system works fairly well. It's not like no one knows the rules going in, they've been in place for a while now.

551199 10y ago

The country is mostly red. Even though Clinton got 200k more votes I'm sure you can see why the the electoral system is in place. There is still 4 million votes that are being counted. Projection even from CNN is that Trump wins the popular vote. [0] https://mishgea.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/geographic-lands... https://mishgea.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/geographic-lands.... [1] http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-10/trumps-geographic-l... http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-10/trumps-geographic-l....