Hillary Clinton is now 1.5 MILLION ahead of Donald Trump in the popular vote count

[Narwal]

This is a valid point - the argument against the EC is much less partisan apparent prior to an election. On the flip side, the arguments against the EC are valid and sound - with the people defending the EC having almost nothing to stand on except "whiners go home - you lost!".

As a software engineer, when I get a defect fix request, I will look at the piece of functionality that comes to me that is producing an outcome the user/stake-holder deems is a bug or defect, and first ask myself, why was this piece of code produced with this specific outcome? Sometimes I find that what's happening is intentional, and is happening for a very important reason that is hard for the user/stake-holder to understand, because they want a specific outcome.

I have to ask everyone who is now wanting a change of the EC to popular vote to first go back and work your hardest to understand why our system started out with an EC. Pretend you're FOR the EC and come up with the best arguments you can, learn the historical significance of it, etc... Only when you fully understand the EC and why we have it, is your opinion bearing any merit into the conversation.

[Paranoid Android]

https://twitter.com/WrldofNixxcraft/...64442389590017

Donald Trump is actually a butterfly and therefore ineligible to be president. This tweet proves it.

I fuckin knew it!

[Mavick]

Why are people still talking about the popular vote? Popular vote is useless because a lot of people in non-swing states often don't even vote so we don't even have an idea of what the true vote would be if we didn't use the EC.

People are talking about it because the Electoral College is a stupid system that hasn't been necessary since the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965. Most people don't even know that the main reason it was even proposed and put into place was largely due to slavery and how that affected populations at the time the Constitution was being written. Even then Madison was quoted as saying popular vote was favorable, but since the southern states were so heavily populated with slaves then they would be far outmatched in the vote by the Northern states. Hence the "three fifths compromise" and the Electoral College.

So yeah, you cay say "dem's da rules" all you want, but there is no logical argument against the rules being fucking stupid and drastically needing an update.

[cubby]

As a software engineer, when I get a defect fix request, I will look at the piece of functionality that comes to me that is producing an outcome the user/stake-holder deems is a bug or defect, and first ask myself, why was this piece of code produced with this specific outcome? Sometimes I find that what's happening is intentional, and is happening for a very important reason that is hard for the user/stake-holder to understand, because they want a specific outcome.

I have to ask everyone who is now wanting a change of the EC to popular vote to first go back and work your hardest to understand why our system started out with an EC. Pretend you're FOR the EC and come up with the best arguments you can, learn the historical significance of it, etc... Only when you fully understand the EC and why we have it, is your opinion bearing any merit into the conversation.

Good idea - and I agree. It's already been discussed several times in this thread. The EC was put into place because of slavery, to give more power to the less populated states that relied on slavery for their livelihood.

[Krigaren]

Support?

/10 char

And a fine example of strawman.

It's not a Strawman if it's the truth.

Economic Output: If States Were Countries, California Would Be France

California is the largest state economy in the country, and nearly double that of the next largest state, Texas.
California is the 6th largest economy in the world.
California contributes the most to federal income tax receipts.
California is ranked as the 4th lowest dependent on federal aid.

So California gives the most, while taking almost the least. Their population (39 million) is nearly half that of France's (66 million) yet California's economy per GDP is nearly the same. I'd say that's pretty high economic and intellectual development.

As for vote power? Calculating how many eligible voters per electoral college vote, California has the weakest vote power at 1 EC vote per 500,000 voters.

#facts

[Dextroden]

Link me where he says that - please, go ahead. If you answer with "find it yourself" then we'll already know you were lying.

Because it's increasingly apparent that 'America' is the descriptor best suited to a bunch of ignorant rural white folks that are neither interested in good government or believe that there is any place in the US for anyone not of their demographic.

- - - Updated - - -



Gee, I wonder why that's the case.

Here's the standard "Fuck these corn raised motherfuckers" that comes out when Democrats lose.

[Youn]

As we don't adjust the electorial college numbers and number of votes in the house of representatives each census period. We run into the issue where a voter in Wyoming has 3 times to voting power of a voter in California. That is because one vote per 500k people doesn't really work in a state with 525k people in it.

[Yoshimiko]

Source?

Really, this is at least the tenth time someone claimed this with no link or anything whatsoever.

I don't use twitter much, but it came from a Tweet from Gregg Philips. It's not unbiased, hence why I said "Extreme Estimates". The "4 million ineligible and dead voters on America Voter Rolls" comes from J. Christian Adams, Voting Section Attorney for the Department of Justice. I'm actually assuming some people are adding these two numbers together to get that 7 million estimate - which is, needless to say, wrong.

"J. Christian Adams: Dead people are voting and it’s something this administration does not want to do anything about. They must like it. They must like who they are voting for… Now we have four million, four million Steve, ineligible and dead voters on American voter rolls according to the Pew Charitable Trust." Mind you, MANY of these votes get culled before the count goes public unless something goes awry in the systems.

http://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/leg...trationpdf.pdf Here are some numbers that show roughly 2.8 million people can (legally..ish) vote in more than one area.

I will certainly say this: the numbers are tentative at best. We likely won't know officially how many (legal) votes for a few years. It takes a lot of time to sift through that many numbers. It took 2 or 3 years just for the mess about Indiana to come to light after the 2008 election. It's not something that gets heavily publicized. It wasn't 'til 2011 that anyone even thought to look for fraud in the '08 election.

In general, take all this crap with a massive grain of salt. All that's really important is Clinton has conceded. She can no longer be the 2016 president regardless of Faithless Electors, making all of these discussions fairly moot.

[Higphriest]

Did you even read what Zenfoldor even wrote. Or can you not understand that Hillary had Obama, Michelle, Bill, and others campaigning for her in the same places that really only had Trump and Pence doing the campaigning. End result was those "Swing states" almost all went to Trump. Flip that to a contest of popular vote and not electoral, and it stands to reason that Trump very well could have turned some of those locations in his favor.

They both knew the game beforehand, that's why they both campaigned the way they did. Hillary conceded defeat, Nuff said.

Edit: this was in reply to this from earlier.
Quote Originally Posted by Zenfoldor View Post
Campaign strategy was planned around the electoral college. IE: The campaign chose places to optimize message that are called "Swing States" and these states had the majority of activity and planning by both campaigns. If insead the popular vote(and not the electoral college) was the win, the the ad spends and campaign stops would likely be concentrated in the higher population areas, changing the "popular vote" results significantly. Most likely in Mr. President-Elect Trump's favor(since Mrs. Clinton won the majority of population centers, it would make sense that more exposure from Mr. Trump would even that out a bit).

Didactic
Despite the fact that, again, Trump failed to win the urban votes of any of the swing states.

[Arcbound]

The electoral college was created for two reasons, to balance rural and urban communities and to prevent mob rule in choosing an unfit candidate. If the electoral college voted for Hillary (very unlikely but still could happen) would people be ok with that outcome because it is technically by the rules as well?

Personally I love this ending as this whole election has been a reality tv show and that could be the final unexpected twist. Also, it would unite both parties in wanting to change our system of government which may breed some cooperation finally which is what people really want.

[Matchles]

You're making a joke about tweets being evidence. Tweets have been used as proof for things you view&id as true as well. Are they a joke because the proof is a tweet?

I'm always curious when twitter actually counts as solid evidence.

I don't believe I've ever offered at tweet as evidence, I've linked them in the past with the statement "if this is true..." and talked about the consequences. But if we are on the topic, the strength of a tweet lies in the reliability of who sent it balanced with how extraordinary the claim is. If someone in the media would be willing to stake their reputation on this claim, I'd hear them out and still ask for their evidence. But this guy has nothing. Look at the first response.

Dan Tynan ‏@tynanwrites Nov 15
@JumpVote @TrueTheVote Hi. i'm a journalist. Can I see your data, please? And your sources for these claims?

and his response

@tynanwrites @TrueTheVote

No. We will release it in open form to the American people. We won't allow the media to spin this first. Sorry.

He has no problem making huge claims of fraud before he is willing to release his "evidence" for use to evaluate. That is a huge red flag.

[Yoshimiko]

Might as well believe the medieval church when they said the world was flat, if you are going to believe anything Fox News comes up with.

I don't follow any of the MSM.

The electoral college was created for two reasons, to balance rural and urban communities and to prevent mob rule in choosing an unfit candidate. If the electoral college voted for Hillary (very unlikely but still could happen) would people be ok with that outcome because it is technically by the rules as well?

Personally I love this ending as this whole election has been a reality tv show and that could be the final unexpected twist. Also, it would unite both parties in wanting to change our system of government which may breed some cooperation finally which is what people really want.

I mean, The electoral college can put their vote in for whomever they want - but if Clinton won, it'd go to whomever was #2. Clinton has conceded from the race. The Electoral college's vote wouldn't matter. Also, a majority of states do not allow Faithless electors. I think only 12 states do. The other 34 or 38 are already set in stone.

[Deleted]

Ignoring the explicit 1.5 mil lead in popular vote, I don't understand people saying "get over it, Trump won". I mean, ok, if this was about winning a coca-cola bottle or voting for whomever organizes the school party for Christmas, yeah, it wouldn't be such a big deal.
But it's not about that. The vote was the the leader of the United States, one of the, if not even THE BIGGEST superpower worldwide.
Even if we ignore the impact on other nations, this person will lead the lives of 320 mil people living in the USA. This person will have the veto power on any law. Of any kind. For the next 4 years. This person will decide who you might go to war with or who you might not.
"yes, but the Congress" - true, the Congress still exists. And guess what, it is also dominated by the person who will come to power, it will be dominated by Republicans.

This is not a fight for a piece of candy or whomever gets a star in class on a board. This is a fight for the person who will lead 320 mil people for the next 4 years. And no, I don't like Hillary. She's a bitch that would have banked on corporate interests. But I can't deny she got 1.5 mil more votes. And I can understand why people "bitch" about her not winning. Because, as you see, the people voting for her are the majority of people that voted.
"yes, but they knew the rules and..." - stop right there. The USA education system has been dropping more and more. What makes you think the people actually knew the rules? I bet many did not. I bet they expected to live in a functional democracy where the most people win. And they realized that's not the case. And now they've raised their voiced for a future reform.

This all reminds me of something many european countries had before WW2 and WW1, where the vote of certain people mattered more than that of others. Just like for your USA. The vote of some people seems to matter more than that of others. That's undemocratic, and actually a symbol of an oligarchy.

[Mavick]

In general, take all this crap with a massive grain of salt. All that's really important is Clinton has conceded. She can no longer be the 2016 president regardless of Faithless Electors, making all of these discussions fairly moot.

You do know that a public concession of defeat means absolutely nothing legally, whatsoever, right?

[cubby]

Here's the standard "Fuck these corn raised motherfuckers" that comes out when Democrats lose.

So he didn't say what you claimed. Glad we got that settled. Please stop outright lying in these threads, ok?

[Nadiru]

He has no problem making huge claims of fraud before he is willing to release his "evidence" for use to evaluate. That is a huge red flag.

If making grandiose claims before without evidence were a red flag, I suspect MSNBC would have its trustworthiness rated much more poorly than ABC or NBC or even CNN.

[Krigaren]

Yes it does matter where the votes come from.

No, it doesn't. You can show all the pretty maps you want, it doesn't change the fact that 1 vote = 1 vote. 90% of the country could be concentrated in the dead center of the map, while the rest of the geographic area is red, it doesn't matter.

You're confusing geographic landmass to population density. The land isn't voting, the people are.

[Tonkaden]

Oh, we're very aware the orange rage machine won. The purpose of pointing out the popular vote count is to counter any notion that The Donald is "America's choice", when the majority of American voters did not, in fact, choose him.

Hillary was America's choice, by democratic vote. Get over that.

Is "orange-something-something" the new Hillary rager FOTM?

BTW, Hillary isn't President. Donald is. You have to accept it and get over it. There is nothing you can do. All of the whining and crying and trashing people won't help overturn anything.

[TheRabidDeer]

People are talking about it because the Electoral College is a stupid system that hasn't been necessary since the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965. Most people don't even know that the main reason it was even proposed and put into place was largely due to slavery and how that affected populations at the time the Constitution was being written. Even then Madison was quoted as saying popular vote was favorable, but since the southern states were so heavily populated with slaves then they would be far outmatched in the vote by the Northern states. Hence the "three fifths compromise" and the Electoral College.

So yeah, you cay say "dem's da rules" all you want, but there is no logical argument against the rules being fucking stupid and drastically needing an update.

The EC comes up every 4 years though, and people always know that it is the deciding factor, yet in elections like this people always clamor about the popular vote (but as I said earlier, the current popular vote isn't valid since many don't vote due to the EC... for all we know Trump may have won the popular vote if the EC didn't exist).

I am all for change if people can unite and figure out a better system (and popular vote isn't really better either).

[kneehidude]

Despite the fact he didn't win the urban centers of any of the swing states.

He won Duval county (Jacksonville) in Florida. I could be mistaken, but I also believe he won Tampa.