"Muh popular vote" seems to be the warcry of the defeated left. When considering that 92 million eligible voters did not vote, is it fair to say that the outcome would favor the left if we did base our elections on the popular vote?
It seems that the idea of staying home because you don't live in a swing state would be out the window and that turnout would increase. Is there enough data on the nearly half of the country that stayed home to judge how they would vote?
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Twice in history, it would have helped the democrats. Another two or three times, It would've helped someone else; I don't know/care which would have been helped, just that one party won the popular vote and one won the electoral vote.
I don't speak for the left, but I do find myself more aligned that way than the other. I'm not upset that the rules didn't suddenly change this election to accommodate the candidate that was a democrat. I honestly didn't want Hillary to win any more than the Donner, so I'm not complaining about the electoral college because my favorite candidate didn't win. The fact remains that the people voted one president into office, but the government voted in a different one. Eliminating who was who this year from the equation, and focusing only on that fact, we should all be angry.
The electoral college exists because the elites of the time decided that the voting public needed a buffer to prevent their emotions from voting in an idiot. The people would elect officials to represent them, and those officials would be aligned with the voting people's overall political views. Even if the public opinion shifted dramatically for one reason or another, the political alignments of the officials the people voted into office to make this huge decision for them wouldn't waver. The officials could ignore hysteria and would vote in accordance with the views that the officials originally were voted in to represent.
Sounds somewhat practical, but it's lost effectiveness, and even necessity. Why should we be mad, though? We should be mad because the system removes all possibility for the public to vote in the president they want to lead the nation. I say that somewhat ironically, as the president is mainly a figurehead, a representative of our civilization to the world, not really a manager. The election is a facade for the real corporate-bought election that happens right under our noses.
It's not terrible bait, but nobody seems to give a shit for the way you worded it. Also, I lied; this is terrible bait.
You aren't even responding to the one person who took any time to entertain your shitty musing.
>Why I'm a Faggot; A Short Overview by user
I didn't think you would ever show up so I didn't check frequently.
I don't think your answer has anything to do with my questions though.
When Brexit happened due to popular vote, the left were saying why we shouldn't let the public decide things like this. After Trump won but not through popular vote, the left decried the result saying it wasn't democratic. They want whatever would give them the result they desire. If Parliament were pro-Brexit but Remain won they would be hailing the success of popular vote and democracy.
Your question was irrelevant. The electoral college as a concept doesn't unfairly affect either side. Electors don't stay home on election day. What affects it is what alignments or corruptions the electors have on voting day, which can go any way.
Why would anyone care about the popular vote when the system is not about that? Is it not common knowledge that a lot of people don't bother to vote if the state the live in is not a swing state?
I suppose that it's because I'm retarded and don't know how to use my words right but I was hoping for this thread to be speculation on what would happen if the left right now got what they were asking for.
Should we expect that the number of people that don't vote would remain the same if the electoral college was eliminated?
Your contribution is priceless. Please tell me more about your opinions.
I'm not sure though it seems to me that every leftist is caring quite a bit about the popular vote right now, whether or not it is an irrelevant thing to care about.
>but the government voted in a different one
The government didn't vote in a different president, the states did. People within the same state tend have similar opinions, so if it were popular vote the election would come down to appealing to the states with the most cities, such as California. The Electoral College means that small states get represented and that the president must appeal to a more diverse range of people in order to win.
The fact is Trump won in more states than Hillary did. The salty Democrats are ignoring that and just focusing on the whole number, which was heavily skewed thanks to Hillary winning by ~4 million votes in California.
It's hard to say. Some people in the "safe" states who vote contrary to them may come out to vote because now their vote "counts", or they could remain apathetic.
The assumed result of an election is that the candidate the people vote for will win. It is about that. Most people don't know anything about the process; they assume they're voting in the president when they hit the booths. Many people were truly surprised that this could happen despite the fact that it happened just a few elections ago. The popular vote is a charade. They may as well do away with it entirely.
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DAWAE
Democrats are wrong about everything.
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The States = government. It wasn't the individual voters' choice that decided the president, so regardless of the logic of the outdated system that allows the 52 people living in Nebraska to get a vote whether they leave their houses or not, the collective decision was that a president other than the orange toddler should be president. Like I said, I don't care which one won this year; they both sucked, and when it was Al Gore and W, I felt the same way for the same reason; the electoral college is a flawed system that carries a high likelihood of going against the will of the people.
Can you say you know the will of the people when 92 million of them did not tell you what that is?
>The States = government. It wasn't the individual voters' choice that decided the president
There is a vote in each state, which the people of that state partake in. The person who has the most votes from the people in that state wins the state. The government doesn't decide who wins each state.
I suppose your opinion on the Electoral College comes down to whether you think the states should be more independent or if you think a large federal government is better as well.
Texas is the size of, and has a population comparable to, France. People from Texas don't know what it's like in California and vice versa. That is why we still have an electoral college. It's fair.
Epic centrist opinions, bro.
The ones who weren't lazy should call the shots.
Don't misunderstand; I'm not arguing for a turnover this election. I just think it needs to be handled differently in the future.
It doesn't have anything to do with the size of the government desired. I don't think any system should be in place to "sum-up" public opinion in regard to the president. If you vote, it should count, but it doesn't.
I would say that it's the flawed electoral college you are describing that leads to such low turnouts more than laziness. It's practical to spend your time otherwise if your vote would go against the solid state you might live in.
Determining what makes up the non-voters seems like it would be important when considering actually turning to a system based on a popular vote.
The United States is not a democracy, it is a republic. It has a federal system where it is the union of many states, not an empire with many provinces.
The electoral system exists so that you have to win the majority of those states, not the majority of the country, to win. It exists to prevent regional candidates with no national appeal from taking the presidency by sheer voter turnout.
Hillary Clinton's entire popular vote lead came from California. Without it, she loses the popular vote by almost two million votes. She si a regional candidate, whose support came almost exclusively from coastal liberals. As such she is not qualified to be president, as the majority, across the states, do not want her. Just because three million illegals in LA do, doesn't change that fact. She is PRECISELY the sort of candidate the system was specifically designed to stop.