33 ms·

This "losing the popular vote" narrative would be a lot more compelling (at least to me) if the elections were less close. It looks bad to win the Presidency a

This "losing the popular vote" narrative would be a lot more compelling (at least to me) if the elections were less close. It looks bad to win the Presidency and lose the popular vote, but I don't think it actually matters. In a nation of 300 something million, close enough to half want either candidate. The problems lie elsewhere. (The fact that I can say "either candidate" is part of it.) [Edit: I should have said "Close to half the voters in a nation of 300 million want either candidate."]

crooked-v 7y ago
First-past-the-post voting makes "either candidate" inevitable. The only real way to fix it is to switch to instant runoff voting, proportional voting with parliamentary coalitions, or other systems that represent voter desires in a proportional or ranked way.
dragonwriter 7y ago
> In a nation of 300 something million, close enough to half want either candidate. Neither of the major candidates ever has support from anything close to half of the 300-something-million population; of the total 324.5 million population, the 2016 election was like 20.03% to 19.26%. Even of the eligible-to-vote population, the vote for the two major party candidates was about 26.84% to 25.68%.
- noobiemcfoob 7y ago
  Which underlines the parent post's point. Those margins are so slim as to not matter. We're talking about the entire election hanging on the difference of one moderate sized city's population.
Afforess 7y ago
So many problems with this. 1. 300 million people are not registered voters. ~50-60 million are. 2. First Past The Post means people are voting for the candidate they hate the least, not the candidate they prefer. 3. The election wasn't very close. 2 million votes more for 1 of the candidates in 2016. 4. The electoral college "matters" in that without it, the Iraq war wouldn't have happened, nor Trump. Saying it's the people's fault is unfounded when the people did not vote for these things.
- avmich 7y ago
  > 1. 300 million people are not registered voters. ~50-60 million are. Each candidate of two in 2016 USA presidential elections got approximately as many votes. So total number of voted - not registered to vote - is twice as much.
  - Animats 7y ago
    2016 popular vote, President: Donald J. Trump Republican 62,980,160 Hillary R. Clinton Democratic 65,845,063 Gary Johnson Libertarian 4,488,931 Jill Stein Green 1,457,050 Evan McMullin Independent 728,830 2000 popular vote, President: George W. Bush Republican 50,456,002 Al Gore Democratic 50,999,897 Ralph Nader Green 2,882,955 Patrick J. Buchanan Reform 448,895 Harry Browne Libertarian 384,431 Howard Phillips Constitution 98,020 If the US had either a popular vote system or a ranked vote system state by state, the outcome would have been different. Nader had more votes in Florida than the difference between Bush and Gore.
    - galfarragem 7y ago
      Devil's advocate (I'm not even American): would the parties' results have been the opposite and the same people that support popular vote would still insist on it? Or with different words: if you were living in a state with low density, would you still think that strict popular vote is fair?
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > 1. 300 million people are not registered voters. ~50-60 million are. The 2016 popular vote total was over 130 million [0]; registration appears to have been somewhere between 157 million and 191 million. [1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidential_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidentia... [1] https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cps/tables/p20/580/table01.xlsx https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cps/tables/p20/580/...
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crooked-v 7y ago

First-past-the-post voting makes "either candidate" inevitable. The only real way to fix it is to switch to instant runoff voting, proportional voting with parliamentary coalitions, or other systems that represent voter desires in a proportional or ranked way.

dragonwriter 7y ago

> In a nation of 300 something million, close enough to half want either candidate. Neither of the major candidates ever has support from anything close to half of the 300-something-million population; of the total 324.5 million population, the 2016 election was like 20.03% to 19.26%. Even of the eligible-to-vote population, the vote for the two major party candidates was about 26.84% to 25.68%.

noobiemcfoob 7y ago
Which underlines the parent post's point. Those margins are so slim as to not matter. We're talking about the entire election hanging on the difference of one moderate sized city's population.

Afforess 7y ago

So many problems with this. 1. 300 million people are not registered voters. ~50-60 million are. 2. First Past The Post means people are voting for the candidate they hate the least, not the candidate they prefer. 3. The election wasn't very close. 2 million votes more for 1 of the candidates in 2016. 4. The electoral college "matters" in that without it, the Iraq war wouldn't have happened, nor Trump. Saying it's the people's fault is unfounded when the people did not vote for these things.

avmich 7y ago
> 1. 300 million people are not registered voters. ~50-60 million are. Each candidate of two in 2016 USA presidential elections got approximately as many votes. So total number of voted - not registered to vote - is twice as much.
- Animats 7y ago
  2016 popular vote, President: Donald J. Trump Republican 62,980,160 Hillary R. Clinton Democratic 65,845,063 Gary Johnson Libertarian 4,488,931 Jill Stein Green 1,457,050 Evan McMullin Independent 728,830 2000 popular vote, President: George W. Bush Republican 50,456,002 Al Gore Democratic 50,999,897 Ralph Nader Green 2,882,955 Patrick J. Buchanan Reform 448,895 Harry Browne Libertarian 384,431 Howard Phillips Constitution 98,020 If the US had either a popular vote system or a ranked vote system state by state, the outcome would have been different. Nader had more votes in Florida than the difference between Bush and Gore.
  - galfarragem 7y ago
    Devil's advocate (I'm not even American): would the parties' results have been the opposite and the same people that support popular vote would still insist on it? Or with different words: if you were living in a state with low density, would you still think that strict popular vote is fair?
dragonwriter 7y ago
> 1. 300 million people are not registered voters. ~50-60 million are. The 2016 popular vote total was over 130 million [0]; registration appears to have been somewhere between 157 million and 191 million. [1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidential_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidentia... [1] https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cps/tables/p20/580/table01.xlsx https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cps/tables/p20/580/...

deleted 7y ago

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