BlitzerRadic
Member
Because we are the United STATES of America, not a direct democracy.
Anyways, this is all sour grapes. Hardly anyone was complaining about the EC when Hillary was projected in the polls to crush Trump.
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Clinton may win the popular vote by millions
- Thread starter Buba Big Guns
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Because we are the United STATES of America, not a direct democracy.
Anyways, this is all sour grapes. Hardly anyone was complaining about the EC when Hillary was projected in the polls to crush Trump.
Particle Physicist
between a quark and a baryon
Yup, some people's votes don't count as much apparently.
So the gop will never complain about the EC when they win the popular vote but lose the...
Oh wait.
"In a shocking twist, whenever the Electoral College doesn't match the popular vote, people discuss the Electoral College's place in modern America."
People have been shitting on the EC ever since 2000. Obviously they'd shit on it more when it once again doesn't match the will of the people. Does this surprise you?
Florida's just one state.
States that were down: Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin
clevbrowns94
Member
Yep and Hillary lost almost all of those. Well, she squeaked by barely in NH, and won in Virginia and Colorado, but did worse in those states than Obama.
TheFierceGentleman
Banned
You're right, we're not a direct democracy, we're a representative democracy. We vote directly for our congressman, senators, and local officials to represent us. We vote directly for all these individuals, it only makes sense that we vote directly for the president so we can have a representative that represents the country as a whole. It doesn't matter for this election, just something worth fixing for the next ones in my opinion.
She was also projected to win by the popular vote, I don't see a problem if she won that way either.
Early in the US history there was more of a coastal/inland split. The North/South split didn't happen till later with King Cotton and the industrialization of the North.
clevbrowns94
Member
I remember people on GAF saying (when it was roughly 60 million votes each after the election) that Hillary lost 5 million votes from Obama in 2012 and Trump maintained Romney's 60 million votes and that's why she lost. Well, now that most votes are counted, she's actually not far off of Obama's 2012 total, but Trump will gain a few million on Romney. Trump's gain, plus the fact that a lot of Hillary's votes came from increases in places that don't matter (like California and Texas) and she lost votes in places that did matter, like the Great Lakes/PA region, that's the true story of her loss.
Edit: and what's troubling is that Hillary got the third most votes in election history after Obama in 2012 and 2008. She won the popular vote by over 2 million or one to two percent, and she was still almost 40 electoral votes shy, needing two or three more states to win depending on which states we are talking about. That's a huge disparity, and it's a lot more striking versus 2000 coming down to one state and only 500k votes difference for Gore. So if anything should result in an electoral college change, it should be this election, but it won't because we really don't like change in America, no matter how much we say we do.
Edit: and what's troubling is that Hillary got the third most votes in election history after Obama in 2012 and 2008. She won the popular vote by over 2 million or one to two percent, and she was still almost 40 electoral votes shy, needing two or three more states to win depending on which states we are talking about. That's a huge disparity, and it's a lot more striking versus 2000 coming down to one state and only 500k votes difference for Gore. So if anything should result in an electoral college change, it should be this election, but it won't because we really don't like change in America, no matter how much we say we do.
Probably because people thought it would mean she'd also win popular vote.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
No one complains about the EC when it doesn't overturn the will of the people and tell millions of people to fuck off and enjoy minority rule.
We now have a political party who can only get to the White House through minority rule, and that's disgusting
BlitzerRadic
Member
I'm sure if Hillary won the EC without winning the majority, everyone here complaining would demand that Trump should be declared president because he won the PV. /s
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
We don't live in a county where a non-incumbant Republican can win a national election by popular vote. We haven't for nearly 30 years. So your hypothetical is pointless.
ProfessorLobo
Banned
I would still want the EC abolished, because unlike Republicans, I'm not a hypocrite.
There was an EC thread before the election, I maintained the same views.
The EC is a huge bug. If faithless electors all chose Tim Cook for president, would you still believe in the EC because it is supposed to represent the United STATES?
How many?
Under the current system we don't elect the President of the United States of America. We elect the President of the United States of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida.
Emerson
May contain jokes =>
I mean, Trump has continued to say the electoral college is bullshit on multiple occasions since being elected by it. It's one of the very few things he's been consistent in saying.
Joe Shlabotnik
Banned
I would want the EC reviewed and reformed for future elections because there was obviously something broken about it, without overturning the results of Hillary's victory because this election was campaigned and voted for with the EC in mind. Just like I want right now.
Thanks for your useless sarcasm though. /s
And this doesn't even yet get to the surge in rural voters we saw, changing the makeup of the electorate this cycle.Florida's just one state.
States that were down: Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin
RipperGrim
Member
Honestly this something that actually gives credence to people who don't vote because they feel their votes are useless. Everyone who voted for Hillary and is only getting counted after the president elect has been announced wasted their time.
MiketheBSG
Member
And now Clinton is ahead by over 2 million votes. Unbelievable....
Mighty Chin
Banned
What determines how many EV each state gets? Population? Should the number not increase and decrease by changing population numbers?
Indirectly. It's the total amount of Senators and House reps they have. If census calls for changes, they have to trade reps between states to proportionalize them again.
The Republicans capped the amount of House reps the last time they had all 3 branches to preserve their foothold, therefore capping the EVs.
Apportionment is more complicated than that, though MT did barely miss gaining a seat in the 2010 census.
The latest legal challenge to apportionment methods failed in the Supreme Court, so the apportionment trends of previous census years will likely continue in 2020: states in the midwest and northeast will lose seats to states in the west, southwest, and southeast.
CA is more likely to gain a seat in 2020 than MT. The state that is the most "on the bubble" in terms of gaining a seat is OR.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/01/daily-chart-2
beato_angelico
Member
swing states change over time
D.Lo
Member
It was really great that Clinton spent all that time campaigning in those huge swing states, like New York, and those swing counties, like Beverly Hills. It helped her win the important popular vote in those states by huge numbers!
Lucky she didn't campaign in the rust belt states and rural counties, rhey wouldn't have been anywhere near as useful in running up the popular vote.
Trump wasted all that time in rural areas where he would have only gotten 50k votes from each of his 4-5 stops a day - what an idiot! I bet he's slapping himself right now for that. He should have been running his popular vote up in Texas instead!
Lucky she didn't campaign in the rust belt states and rural counties, rhey wouldn't have been anywhere near as useful in running up the popular vote.
Trump wasted all that time in rural areas where he would have only gotten 50k votes from each of his 4-5 stops a day - what an idiot! I bet he's slapping himself right now for that. He should have been running his popular vote up in Texas instead!
Theonik
Member
To add, each state gets a minimum of 3 (2 senators and 1+ house seat) this means that from 538, only 438 is proportionally distributed to each state with more populous states as a consequence getting less representation, this wouldn't be an issue if you could grow the number of representatives as initially intended as you pointed out.
I don't like the EC. I never have. I've been utterly consistent on this. I always felt uneasy about Al Gore getting like 500k more votes and losing, and look at the dire consequences that election had for the country..
Hillary's lead is even bigger so it's even more upsetting, especially given who her opponent was.
If the reverse scenario happened -- Hillary losing popular vote by a lot but winning election -- We'd probably never hear the end of it from republicans, and they'd probably be screaming for a change to the system every day from here until forever. It'd be benghazi levels of repetition. But because it happened to democrats it's barely going to be mentioned
I know this is supposed to be sarcastic... however, Hillary waste dumps time campaigning in North Carolina, Georgia and Florida. She didn't waste time in Cali or New York...
You could make an argument that her scheduling compared to Obama and Trump meant that she wasted time in Cali and New York:
Yes, those include 3 days in September that she was recovering for pneumonia, but for those 3 days, 2 were scheduled in California and 1 day was scheduled for Nevada.
I believe it was mentioned that those stops were for fundraisers and not campaign stops, but I haven't looked into it myself.
Time is a commodity and the more days spent in those places is less time spent elsewhere. You can see how the other candidates spent those same days to clearly see that.
triplestation
Member
The original poster said she was wasting time campaigning in NY and CA. You can argue about how much value fundraising has, but it clearly has more value than campaigning there.
Why would they complain? The two things were seen to be in step with each other.
I replied to a poster that say she didn't waste time in California and New York, though. Anyway, many of her New York events are not fundraisers and were campaign events--where she did statements to the press, video conference with labor union conventions, tapings of night shows and so on.
Narpas Sword0
Member
This is a disgrace
Alex
Member
I don't get why so many of you dudes are acting like this is someone voting for a Game of the Year award or some shit. People can be sour all they want, this is a big, life altering deal.
wumster3000
Member
The American people's voices mean nothing. Clearly one was wanted more more people but lost, even though she had significantly more votes.
Wonder how a team would feel if they scored 50 more points than their opponent, and still lose. If this were Trump, he would ask for a recount.
SwiftDeath
Member
While I have accepted that Trump is the president and that nothing's going to change that etc., I am curious if this will affect anything majorly in the core political structure of the US like some of the previous incidents did.
Of the 4 previous times that the winner of the US presidential election has not been the winner of the popular vote this is what happened:
It will be very interesting to see if anything happens as a result of specifically how the winner of the popular vote lost the election. The overall winner's party controls the federal government at every level and most of the states so unlike several of the other instances I do not see how the loser's party tries to course-correct the system so as not to allow this again.
*At least some of the 2016 election votes are still being counted though
Also a lot of this is simply copied from the Wiki page as I found it interesting and like to organize things like this. No intention on passing any of this off as my own.
Of the 4 previous times that the winner of the US presidential election has not been the winner of the popular vote this is what happened:
- 1824: John Quincy Adams vs Andrew Jackson - Loser won 10.5% more of the Popular vote | 38,149 votes
- Summary: Apparently there was only one notable party at the time called the "Democratic-Republican Party" which produced 4 separate candidates splitting the vote and forcing no candidate to get the required electoral votes to win giving the decision to the House thus resulting in the single largest relative difference between the winner of the election overall popular vote and the winner of the popular vote itself at 10.5%. Ironically Adams was apparently considered the Establishment candidate at the time with Jackson being thought of a populist (similar to 2016's election but opposite outcome)
Notable Outcome: Andrew Jackson took the loss poorly it seems calling the election a "corrupt bargain" and seemingly gave inspiration to create a separate 2nd party that was then the Democratic Party (Essentially the Republican part of its day)
- Summary: Apparently there was only one notable party at the time called the "Democratic-Republican Party" which produced 4 separate candidates splitting the vote and forcing no candidate to get the required electoral votes to win giving the decision to the House thus resulting in the single largest relative difference between the winner of the election overall popular vote and the winner of the popular vote itself at 10.5%. Ironically Adams was apparently considered the Establishment candidate at the time with Jackson being thought of a populist (similar to 2016's election but opposite outcome)
- 1876: Rutherford B. Hayes vs Samuel J Tilden - Loser won 3% more of the Popular vote | 254,235 votes
- Summary: Tilden (D ; Loser) accrued 184 Electoral Votes and the majority of the Popular vote to Hayes (R ; Winner) 165 EC votes with 20 EC votes being outstanding in 4 states with 3 of those states having each candidates party claiming their candidate won the state. As no normal resolution could apparently be reached, an informal deal was made referred to as the Compromise of 1877 which gave Hayes the 20 EC votes to win the presidency out from under Tilden but in exchange to appease the Democrats, the Republicans withdrew federal troops from the South.
Notable Outcome: By withdrawing federal troops from the south, the Northern Republicans effectively ended Reconstruction, ceded power of the southern states to the Democratic party (think modern Republicans) who proceeded to work towards returning the South to the same political economy of pre-civil war including the disenfranchisement of black voters.
- Summary: Tilden (D ; Loser) accrued 184 Electoral Votes and the majority of the Popular vote to Hayes (R ; Winner) 165 EC votes with 20 EC votes being outstanding in 4 states with 3 of those states having each candidates party claiming their candidate won the state. As no normal resolution could apparently be reached, an informal deal was made referred to as the Compromise of 1877 which gave Hayes the 20 EC votes to win the presidency out from under Tilden but in exchange to appease the Democrats, the Republicans withdrew federal troops from the South.
- 1888: Benjamin Harrison vs Grover Cleveland - Loser won 0.6% more of the Popular vote | 90,596 votes
- Summary: Incumbent President Grover Clevand (D ; Loser) lost to Benjamin Harrison (R, Winner) quite soundly in the EC, 233 to 168 with 201 to win. However the margins in a lot of the swing states were quite small in Harrison's favor, NY and IN he won by 1% or less and both were important swing states whose losses would've given Cleveland the election. Further there was controversy as a letter from the RNC treasurer was discovered that directed Republican Indiana representatives to essentially organize fraudulent voting [in this case paying for a vote] which some believe gave Harrison the wins in at least Indiana if not NY as well that would give him the election.
Notable Outcome: Most if not all states adopted a secret ballot which eliminated the possibility of political parties being able to verify what vote occurred to limit paying for votes as you couldn't be sure how they voted. (At least that's my understanding of how a secret ballot eliminates/discourages paying for votes)
- Summary: Incumbent President Grover Clevand (D ; Loser) lost to Benjamin Harrison (R, Winner) quite soundly in the EC, 233 to 168 with 201 to win. However the margins in a lot of the swing states were quite small in Harrison's favor, NY and IN he won by 1% or less and both were important swing states whose losses would've given Cleveland the election. Further there was controversy as a letter from the RNC treasurer was discovered that directed Republican Indiana representatives to essentially organize fraudulent voting [in this case paying for a vote] which some believe gave Harrison the wins in at least Indiana if not NY as well that would give him the election.
- 2000: George W. Bush vs Al Gore - Loser won 0.5% more of the Popular vote | 543,895 votes
- Summary: Al Gore (D, Loser) led the race 266 EC votes to Bush's (R, Winner) 246 not counting FL's 25 EC. (270 EC votes needed to win). FL was originally called for Gore by all the major networks based on exit polls at around 8PM the night of the election but by 10PM, Bush started to take a wide enough lead for all the same networks to retract their earlier statement and put FL into undecided. By 2:30am the following day, 85% of the vote was in for FL, with a lead to Bush of 100,000 votes and most networks then declared Bush winner of FL and the election however the remaining votes were mainly from democratic heavy counties. 2 hours later (4:30am), Bush win margin was down from 100,000 to just over 2,000 forcing the networks to retract once again and put FL back into undecided territory as well as Gore retract his private concession to Bush earlier in the night.A mandatory recount was required by state law due to the small margins in play, putting Bush's lead to 300 votes (rose to 930 votes from overseas military ballots). Gore essentially fought to get hand re-counting done of 4 heavily democratic counties. Some counties missed deadlines and thus original totals had to stand which Gore contested formally as the result was Bush winning FL by just 537 votes with 70,000 uncounted ballots being questioned by Gore/Democrats that had previously been rejected by machine counters. It eventually went to the US supreme court and best I can tell the SC viewed the 70,000 votes as of questionable legality and that a full state recount was unconstitutional giving Bush the presidency as the win of 537 stood.
Notable Outcome: May have set a precedent regarding the SC's decision on a statewide recount as several of the lower courts seemed it prudent whereas the SC disagreed. Several later analyses suggested that in most likely scenarios, Gore would've won had the SC not interceded. As a result of how close the vote was, both the federal government and state governments pushed for election reform to simplify the process and eliminate undervoting (hanging chad) but especially overvoting that the punch card voting machines appeared to encourage. This furthered the debate for electronic voting systems. The Help America Vote Act was passed to help states update their election technology albeit a lot of the systems bought to comply with HAVA ended up causing issues in the 2004 election.
This election makes the fifth time it's happened in 58 instances.
- Summary: Al Gore (D, Loser) led the race 266 EC votes to Bush's (R, Winner) 246 not counting FL's 25 EC. (270 EC votes needed to win). FL was originally called for Gore by all the major networks based on exit polls at around 8PM the night of the election but by 10PM, Bush started to take a wide enough lead for all the same networks to retract their earlier statement and put FL into undecided. By 2:30am the following day, 85% of the vote was in for FL, with a lead to Bush of 100,000 votes and most networks then declared Bush winner of FL and the election however the remaining votes were mainly from democratic heavy counties. 2 hours later (4:30am), Bush win margin was down from 100,000 to just over 2,000 forcing the networks to retract once again and put FL back into undecided territory as well as Gore retract his private concession to Bush earlier in the night.A mandatory recount was required by state law due to the small margins in play, putting Bush's lead to 300 votes (rose to 930 votes from overseas military ballots). Gore essentially fought to get hand re-counting done of 4 heavily democratic counties. Some counties missed deadlines and thus original totals had to stand which Gore contested formally as the result was Bush winning FL by just 537 votes with 70,000 uncounted ballots being questioned by Gore/Democrats that had previously been rejected by machine counters. It eventually went to the US supreme court and best I can tell the SC viewed the 70,000 votes as of questionable legality and that a full state recount was unconstitutional giving Bush the presidency as the win of 537 stood.
- 2016: Donald Trump vs Hillary Clinton - Loser won 1.5%* more of the Popular vote | 2,006,490 votes*
It will be very interesting to see if anything happens as a result of specifically how the winner of the popular vote lost the election. The overall winner's party controls the federal government at every level and most of the states so unlike several of the other instances I do not see how the loser's party tries to course-correct the system so as not to allow this again.
*At least some of the 2016 election votes are still being counted though
Also a lot of this is simply copied from the Wiki page as I found it interesting and like to organize things like this. No intention on passing any of this off as my own.
MiketheBSG
Member
And now the lead is over 2.3 million....
And to add to the last post, note that with the exception of the 1824 election (where the modern Republican/Democratic parties had yet to exist), Republicans were the beneficiaries every time the loser of the popular vote won the election.
And to add to the last post, note that with the exception of the 1824 election (where the modern Republican/Democratic parties had yet to exist), Republicans were the beneficiaries every time the loser of the popular vote won the election.
hydragonwarrior
Member
Damn.
The Lamonster
Member
The electors should deny Trump the presidency. I haven't heard one good argument against it.
Because they are supposed to vote for the winner in their state? That is the system. Each states selects electors to represent the result in their state.
Supposed to but many are not obligated to do so.
What's really weird about the electoral college is that the number of votes per state is tied to the number of senators and house reps but senators and house reps are both elected directly, electors are not, and are able to vote however they wish once in office which is discouraged for electors. EC votes should either be proportional for every state or electors should be elected directly, just like reps, and free to vote however they want as the system intended with due accountability from the electorate. The all or nothing system almost all states use makes no sense in the context of how the number of votes are delegated for every state.
???
Tilden 1876 50.9%
Nixon 1960 49.5%
Gore 2000 48.4%
Kerry 2004 48.3%
Clinton 2016 48.0%
Bruce Springsteen
Member
Because rules
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