I’ve heard a lot of arguments here about people wondering just how Hillary lost the election if she had the most votes in the popular vote. However, nobody has been able to explain how the Electoral College still can speak as the will of the people.
This is an attempt to explain that, and why the Electoral system works to our advantage better than the national popular vote does.
First and foremost, you must understand that, since elections for President have been held in this country, the Electoral College has been there to select a President based on a majority of votes per state in a majority of states. No winning candidate has ever won with less states than their opponent. And, even today, that system still holds true. Donald Trump, the winning candidate, carried the lead vote in 30 states and Maine’s 2nd Congressional District.
If you think about it this way, the Electoral College breaks down our nation into a federation of states, and the goal is for both candidates to just win as many states as they can. This also breaks down our election into a proportional democracy. This is what levels the playing field among the states, and among voters. By changing the objective to include winning as many states as possible, it allows sparsely-populated states (Alaska) to effectively be on the same level playing field as a densely-populated state like California. It also allows small states, such as Rhode Island, to compete against larger states, such as Texas. Also, by limiting the election to a proportional democracy, your vote competes solely with the opposition vote in the state you voted in.
We’ve seen how this works firsthand in Virginia, where approximately 8% of the precincts, mostly in Northern Virginia, decided the state for Clinton even though 92% of the precincts reported a slight Trump lead. It makes very little sense for a Trump vote in Virginia to compete with a Clinton vote in California, because this just diminishes the value of the vote for Trump in the state, which brings me to the final point.
In the end, the national popular vote is like comparing apples to oranges. Hillary Clinton may have received the most votes overall, but that’s mainly because her leads in heavily populated states such as California and New York were so much higher than the Trump vote that they gave her numbers a boost overall. But again, the number of states where Trump carried more votes than Hillary is still very significant, and a better representation of the will of the people for each state than just lumping all the voters into one large group. If it was up to the national popular vote to decide a future election, voters in states such as Wyoming would be disenfranchised because their vote would essentially be meaningless compared to a vote cast by voters in practically any other more populated state, and candidates wouldn’t waste time bothering to visit sparsely-populated areas. The National Popular Vote disproportionately favors wherever the people are, while the Electoral College gives a say to every voter in every state.
Michael Rogers
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Hudson Gray
>Nobody rigged this. Nobody hacked it. There weren’t brawls at polling places, there was kindness and civility. At the 92nd Street Y I got to embrace three neighbors. All this in a highly charged, highly dramatic and divisive election. We did our democratic work and then went home. It all worked.
>Second, Donald Trump said he had a movement and he did. This is how you know. His presidential campaign was bad—disorganized, unprofessional, chaotic, ad hoc. There was no state-of-the-art get-out-the-vote effort—his voters got themselves out. There was no high-class, high-tech identifying of supporters—they identified themselves. They weren’t swayed by the barrage of brilliantly produced ads—those ads hardly materialized. This was not a triumph of modern campaign modes and ways. The people did this. As individuals within a movement.
>It was a natural, self-driven eruption. Which makes it all the more impressive and moving. And it somehow makes it more beautiful that few saw it coming.
The electoral college protects us from attempts to rig the vote
Ryan Collins
Good read. Bump
Mason Cooper
As a wyomingfag, i'm glad a bunch of self-loathing whites, jews, spics and niggers in los angeles and NYC aren't able to elect by mob rule. we were made a republic specifically to avoid both tyranny and mob rule. lolbertarian party is a joke right now, but i hope trump will not be such a dick to states like king nigger has been.
Adam Diaz
Drumpf lost the popular vote More Americans voted against him More Americans voted for Hillary Clinton He will now be GWB x 10 The electoral college is ancient and does not work You only like it because your candidate won It is not 1786 anymore. It is literally not necessary Republicans in blue states have meaningless votes The electoral college is a fraud and WILL be repealed
Ryan Long
Ok, well here's the solution. NUKE EVERY FUCKING ONE OF THE SHIT PITS TO DUST.
Carter Parker
you better be posting this everywhere in social media
Nathaniel Sanders
That's due to the influx of third world voters. Dems keep voting themselves in by importing their votes. repeal the 1965 immigration act would be better.
Brandon Howard
Even if you buy that less populated states should have disproportionate weight to their population (completely debatable, but we'll let it rest), the winner-take-all policy of most States is toxic, and even the house district split of Nebraska and Maine is flawed. Why shouldn't Hillary have gotten 22% of Wyoming's 3 votes? Why shouldn't Trump have gotten 33% of California's 55? (Yes, I'm aware that you're actually voting for electors under the current system and so you're limited to integers as it stands, but we're talking easily addressed hypotheticals). The electoral college is an instrument of disenfranchisement for demographics in these States that will never, ever swing.
Your infographic forgets to mention why the people in those blue zones should have any less than half the vote. Land doesn't vote, last I checked.
Thomas Morales
1788 That's when the Constitution was ratified and the former English colonies became the United States 1788 not 1786
Ethan Williams
I highly doubt that the got the most votes. There were so many reports of voter fraud it was crazy. Some county's with voting machines collected 100% of the vote for Hillary. That is blatant fraud!
Oliver Sanders
There is a popular vote, it's conducted in your state. Also big states get more reps, this matters. You are electing just 1 branch of government not a king. You are electing a president to apply federal laws to states in a union, if an extreme minority of states can own the executive then you open the door for mistreatment of the smaller states, eventually you will not have a union at all. States demand to have a degree of sovereignty, that was the compromise in the formation of the Union. It will not change unless you have a total 1 party state, and a difference in the popular vote within the Margin of error is as far from that as you'll ever be.
Jacob Baker
give this man a MEDAL!
Sebastian Richardson
It doesn't matter that Clinton won the popular vote because the popular vote doesn't decide the president. If the popular vote did decide the president, both candidate would have campaigned differently, and the results would be different.
The popular vote doesn't even show that "most Americans wanted Clinton" because most Americans did not vote for her. The majority of Americans either didn't vote or voted for Trump or another candidate.
Jason Thomas
It's the United States of America not United States of California and New York
Jayden Cruz
I don't really understand this argument. Does your vote count less because more people live in the same area as you? Are votes supposed to be weighted depending on the geographical location they were made from?
Isaiah Bell
Your vote matters in your state. The results of states matter on a national level.
Kayden Brown
Same reason each state has 2 Senators. This is a preventive measure against the largest states dictating how things go to the smaller states.
Kevin Barnes
That's silly. Why should a state that 500 thousand people live in have the same amount of representation in the Senate as a state that over 10% of the US population lives in?
