Broken system: Hillary won the popular vote but lost the election...

a reply to: gladtobehere

Regardless of what you think of the system, the rules were set up in advance and all sides knew them.

Had Hillary won the electoral and lost the popular, she would have had no reservations about being elected, and neither should she have.

If there was no electoral college, both campaigns would have been vastly different. Hillary would have spent much more time in dem strongholds like California, Trump in places like Texas. And states with small populations like New Hampshire would be totally ignored. Who knows what the popular vote would have been in that world?

I also find it interesting that when many were flipping out about Trump not accepting the election as legitimate poo pooed when people said "Many Gore supporters still do this day said the Bush presidency was illegitimate because he lost the popular vote" and now we see the same thing happening again with some people.

originally posted by: gladtobehere
The New York Times: www.nytimes.com...

Google: www.google.com...=enn/p//0/0///////////

NPR: www.npr.org...

I havent checked the other sites but I would imagine that they too have the same results.

Hillary won the popular vote but lost the election..

Hillary's 59,323,520 votes (47.7%) to Trump's 59,152,992 votes (47.5%)

Its the year 2000 and a Bush victory all over again.

If in-fact we live in a democracy or the illusion of one, then the person with the most votes has to be the winner.

It is not a democracy when a handful of select individuals (the electoral college), determine the outcome of an election.

No it isn't a democracy......it is a Representative Constitutional Republic and always has been....dang...learn some history.

a reply to: gladtobehere

If you threw out all the illegal voting, non-citizens and dead people, I am quite sure Trump would have won the popular vote as well. It seems progressives/Democrats just won't give up. Maybe you could all ask Hussein obama to retroactively change the law?

What amazes me is this election outcome very likely averted ww3, but people still want the criminal in office with no thought of the carnage that would result. Hillary was poking the bear to bring on ww3, the US would probably win, but at what cost? Is 40% of the population dead in the first 30 minutes acceptable? Is 60% of the land irradiated acceptable?

I think, hope, the PTB have to wait another 4-8 years to perform their mass sacrifice of our children and grandchildren.

Cheers - Dave

Triggered Much? Jesus christ, no matter where I visit on the internet all I see is people b*tching and moaning about losing.

Guess what? Deal with it or you can pack your bags and move to another country. No one likes a sore loser. The election system is working as intended.

a reply to: gladtobehere

Not broken..... By design.

See Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution for reference. This is how it was intended and designed. This is how it was accepted by all states that ratified the Constitution. It was a purposeful anti-majoritarian provision and designed to specifically preserve the rights of each individual state, particularly smaller states which were concerned about being trampled by the demands of the larger states.

"The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows:

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately choose by Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like Manner choose the President. But in choosing the President, the Votes shall be taken by States, the Representatives from each State having one Vote; a quorum for this Purpose shall consist of a Member or Members from two thirds of the States, and a Majority of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice. In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall choose from them by Ballot the Vice-President."

a reply to: kurthall

With the right negotiations Obama's cold war will be averted because Putin has already extended an olive branch...
The world wants a STABLE USA not a hot bed of activism.
I want to see Trump's staff before I could decide anyway.

wha wha wha wha

Hillary won the popular vote...wha wha wha


She won the popular vote by 170,000 out of 60,000,000.

Most logical people call that a dead heat with the amount of votes cast.

I love winning...

FYI, the framers feared the non land owning knaves of New England imposing their ruling sensibilities to rural virginia by way of general numbers...

Thus creating the electoral college to keep the unwashed mashes of urban populations from legislating life for the rest of the country whose sensibilities were born of their societies(i.e. rural or non-urban)

It was and remains genius!!

Long live the Infallible Queen...oops, I mean long live the new President of the United States, Donald J Trump!!!

-Chris

originally posted by: SignalMal

originally posted by: muzzleflash
California gets 55 votes.

How can you ignore that?
55! That's equivalent to dozens of other states combined!
And they almost always vote the same way.

Are you not ignoring the obvious, that California has the rough population equivalent to those other states combined?

I do get your point, if it was a true democracy those individual votes would count, and go to more than one candidate.

I was lamenting the fact we can count their votes blue before they are even counted literally.

a reply to: muzzleflash

Point made. I'd rather see the electoral vote done away with. People defend it from within, but the rest of the world thinks it's pretty weird and I can see why.

a reply to: SignalMal

The problem with doing away with the electoral college system is it would require a massive amendment to the constitution. Then 2/3 of the states would have to ratify that amendment. So, it would require a large number of smaller states to approve a constitutional amendment that would be adverse to their own interest.

originally posted by: sprtpilot
Nope, the system is exactly correct, we live in a representative republic, quite ingenious.
Prevents mob rule don't you know?
Why should a very few populous areas be able to dictate to the entire country? Think about it.

What I've learned over the years is that stupid people typically failed civics class back in HS... But... Trump supporters are the uneducated/deplorables....lol

a reply to: pteridine

That is a horrible analogy.

The whole idea of a "democracy" is for the people to decide via a popular vote, who wins an election.

Not by a handful of people in spite of the will of the people...


a reply to: sprtpilot

Youre confusing two different concepts.

A Representative Republic is based on the fact that we are a nation of laws ie the Constitution, not mob rule (2 wolves and a sheep voting on whats for dinner).

Elected Representatives have to operate (although they never do) within the confines of the law.

That is completely different from an election based on a simple concept that the person with the most votes, wins.

Why have an election if the popular vote doesnt determine the outcome of an election?


a reply to: Edumakated

An election is not about the "needs" of everyone, the candidate with the most votes, wins. Theres always going to be a loser.

A democracy is a popularity contest which should be determined by the people voting, not a handful of elites.

The person with the most votes should win, period.


a reply to: WilburnRoach

By a handful of people picking the President over the will of the people?

Youre right. The elites did not want this decision left in the hands of individuals.


a reply to: BlueJacket

Obviously you agree with the idea that a small group of people should be determining elections as opposed to the actual voters.

I dont.


a reply to: MagicCow

Exactly.

If Trump had won the popular vote and lost the election, these same people would be up in arms.

I would imagine that Hillary supporters will also make it an issue, as they should.

originally posted by: Slave2theTruth
a reply to: SignalMal

The problem with doing away with the electoral college system is it would require a massive amendment to the constitution. Then 2/3 of the states would have to ratify that amendment. So, it would require a large number of smaller states to approve a constitutional amendment that would be adverse to their own interest.

I'm trying to logically understand this.

The number of votes is roughly equivalent to the proportion of population in comparison to the states as a whole.

Their people will have an exact fair vote if it's counted individually, and they will have a united (yet potentially jaded) vote with the electoral system.

How do you interpret this to be in the interest of the state?

but i suppose for clintonites it would have been just fine had it gone the other way.
she lost far and square, on her side the blue states turned on her and most went to trump. (think the blue wall)

plus like the last Congressional elections the dems thought they had it in the bag so many stayed home. you snooze you lose.

Ding dong the bitch is dead.......I wouldn't want to be Bill Clinton the next few days & weeks. ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha the ha ha's are for all those nasty poster's of Hillary's being the next Potus....she want. Go away, go away, go away.

a reply to: gladtobehere

A democracy is three wolves and a sheep voting what's for dinner. Just because something is popular, does not mean it is right. Our system has all these checks and balances in place to prevent mob rule.

CA and NYC do not speak for the entirety of the country.

originally posted by: Christosterone
I love winning...

FYI, the framers feared the non land owning knaves of New England imposing their ruling sensibilities to rural virginia by way of general numbers...

Thus creating the electoral college to keep the unwashed mashes of urban populations from legislating life for the rest of the country whose sensibilities were born of their societies(i.e. rural or non-urban)

It was and remains genius!!

Long live the Infallible Queen...oops, I mean long live the new President of the United States, Donald J Trump!!!

Chris

Hey! HEY! HEY!!,,,,,,I AM NOT A KNAVE!!

Lol j/k


-

a reply to: gladtobehere

we dont have a democratic form of government, we have a democratic republic always been that way.

But how could direct democracy work in a large, diverse population spread over a geographical distance? Generally, the answer has been that it can't. In its place, the American Founders put "indirect" or "representative" democracy. In this system, representatives are chosen by the people to make decisions for them. The representative body, then, becomes a manageable size for doing the business of government. The Founders preferred the term "republic" to "democracy" because it described a system they generally preferred: the interests of the peopled were represented by more knowledgeable or wealthier citizens who were responsible to those that elected them. Today we tend to use the terms "republic" and "democracy" interchangeably. A widespread criticism of representative democracy is that the representatives become the "elites" that seldom consult ordinary citizens, so even though they are elected, a truly representative government doesn't really exist.
1c. What Is a Democracy?

a reply to: SignalMal

Right now, small (population-wise) states like Delaware, Montana, Wyoming, Etc., get 3 electoral votes. This is more than 1% of what is needed to elect a president (270). These electoral votes from these small states can make a difference and cause presidential candidates to come campaign there and listen to their demands (see New Hampshire). Most of these states have populations which are far far less than 1% of the countries population.

With a pure popular vote system, the fear of small states, which the constitution was drafted to address, is that the larger population states such as NY and California would hold all the power because they would provide the vast majority of the votes needed to get elected and the small states would be forgotten as candidates would spend all their time in the big big states because the vote payoff would be greater.

That said, the electoral system yields its own weird results. It leads to many of the big states being almost ignored in the campaigns after the primaries end, and the campaigns centering virtually all of their effort on 5-10 "swing" states.

My point is that right or wrong, it is very hard to amend the Constitution for any purpose due to the ratification process. To pass something that would be perceived to pass power from a bunch of small states over to a few big states, is almost impossible to imagine.