Voting in US - What's the point?

[Mormolyce]

This is illegal in 28 states

Those laws are rarely enforced, are only fines, and their constitutionality has never been tested in the SC. So even if they were applied, they might be overturned.

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It's only a problem because Trump won. If it was Hillary you wouldn't be here crying like a baby.

No if this happened to Trump it'd be him doing all the crying like a baby.

Oh wait, he already did.

[Stormdash]

That "actually counted" component is insane troll logic. "Losing" and "uncounted" are not interchangeable terms.

[Altariaz]

I'm european so I don't have any personal experience, but from outside point of view it seems to me that US voting is just a show they put up to pretend democracy.

I'm English, and thankfully we voted to leave the EU. With the democratically unaccountable and unelected EU Comission in power in the EU, no one in the EU can pretend to be living in the democracy. Vote to leave the EU, vote to restore some democratic accountability to your country.

[Mormolyce]

The electoral college ensures that one side doesn't completely dominate the other

Oh really? Explain how, in detail.

[Stormdash]

Those laws are rarely enforced, are only fines, and their constitutionality has never been tested in the SC. So even if they were applied, they might be overturned.

Can't think of a single constitutional law argument that would strike them down off the top of my head. Especially if those laws are considered part of the States' power to determine how electors are to be chosen (i.e. on condition of loyalty to the designated process).

And you're left with the problem of... none of those 306 Trump electors want Hillary Clinton to be President. They wouldn't be slated by the Trump campaign and/or state GOP if they did.

[Kalis]

That's incorrect, US voters vote for a Presidential candidate exactly the same as if they were directly electing the President. The Electoral College only kicks in in the way the votes are counted.

So if your state has 1 million Trump and 2 million Hillary votes, Hillary gets all the EC votes for that state, but you still know exactly how many people voted "popularly". If you just take those numbers and tally them up for every state, boom there's your popular vote. That's how they calculate it every election.

That fails to take into account people who don't bother to vote in certain States, due to them being sure of the outcome, this is a known issue in FPTP systems.

[Mormolyce]

That "actually counted" component is insane troll logic. "Losing" and "uncounted" are not interchangeable terms.

The WTA nature of most states means that yes, if you lost your vote literally did not count.

Florida has 29 EC votes. 4.6 million Floridans voted Trump, 4.5 million voted Hillary. So Trump took those 29 EC votes, and if the Hillary voters had stayed home and the vote was 4.6 million to zero it would've been the exact same result.

[Palizangetsu]

That's incorrect, US voters vote for a Presidential candidate exactly the same as if they were directly electing the President. The Electoral College only kicks in in the way the votes are counted.

So if your state has 1 million Trump and 2 million Hillary votes, Hillary gets all the EC votes for that state, but you still know exactly how many people voted "popularly". If you just take those numbers and tally them up for every state, boom there's your popular vote. That's how they calculate it every election.

This is not necessarily true changing the way voting works could change the voting patterns of people and can affect whether or not people vote and does change the way campaigns would be held. For example more Republicans would be more inclined to vote in blue states and Democrats in red states but this could also cause people in small states being less likely to vote feeling their state doesn't matter.

[Zandalarian Paladin]

I remember when the electoral college was praised in 2012.

I remember.

[Mormolyce]

Can't think of a single constitutional law argument that would strike them down off the top of my head. Especially if those laws are considered part of the States' power to determine how electors are to be chosen (i.e. on condition of loyalty to the designated process).

And you're left with the problem of... none of those 306 Trump electors want Hillary Clinton to be President. They wouldn't be slated by the Trump campaign and/or state GOP if they did.

Well if Trump appoints the top of your head as Scalia's replacement that might be relevant.

I'm not saying it's likely, just pointing out the legal grey area those laws are in and their lax enforcement.

That fails to take into account people who don't bother to vote in certain States, due to them being sure of the outcome, this is a known issue in FPTP systems.

On that count you might be correct. We'll never know unless the US decides to fix its system.

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I remember when the electoral college was praised in 2012.

I remember.

Except by Trump lol.

Obama won the popular vote of course so it was irrelevant.

I remember that the electoral college was lambasted in 2000, the last time it was relevant. Before that you'd have to go back to 1888...

[Deleted]

We are not a democracy

We are a representative republic, true democracy is mob rule, that's why the founding fathers designed it the way they did

The electoral college ensures that one side doesn't completely dominate the other

A good example are these sanctuary cities where these democratic mayors stack the deck with illegals and dependent citizens, essentially creating voting plantations

If we didn't have the electoral college, Places like California and New York would decide every presidential election

You children know absolutely nothing about history or our political system and yet you wanna bitch and wine all day about it, it's really pathetic

Oh and on a side note, trump won over 3000 counties, Hillary won like 54, which further demonstrates what I'm talking about

So in your opinion of NY and California should be less of a deciding factor in the election even though they have house 10 times the population and GDP of these smaller states. Smaller states get bigger advantage in EC system which isn't fair.

[Palizangetsu]

So in your opinion of NY and California should be less of a deciding factor in the election even though they have house 10 times the population and GDP of these smaller states. Smaller states get bigger advantage in EC system which isn't fair.

There is no fair way to do it, the electoral college is the compromise to keep states more balanced especially considering each states has its own set of laws. NY or California shouldn't be able to dictate what happens for Texas or any other state or vice versa and how those people want to be governed.

[Azadina]

Well let's take a look at it. Using the results from wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United...election,_2016

These might be slightly out of date what with all the late ballots and the new recounts but it's pretty close. About 65 million Americans voted Hillary and 63 million voted Trump. However due to the winner-take-all nature of the Electoral College, whoever wins the majority of votes in each state takes all the EC votes (except Maine and Nebraska). Therefore, if you voted for the losing side in your state your vote didn't count (except those two). It could've been 99-1% or 51%-49%, doesn't matter, winner gets all those votes anyway. If you look at the winning side in each state (again, except Maine and Nebraska) that's actually 32 million Hillary voters versus 41 million Trump voters (the 6 million people voting for third party candidates don't count either but they're probably used to that :P).

So in total, 73 million voters' votes actually counted. In perspective:

US population: 319m
Eligible to vote: 229m (~71% of population)
Turned out to vote: 136m (~43% of population)
Vote actually counted: 73m (~23% of population)

Of course the Presidency in total is Winner Take All, so you could argue that actually only the 41m Trump voters (in states won by Republicans) "counted". That's about 13% of the US population.

The last part is actually the truth and the most relevant part. 32M votes for Trump contributed nothing towards his victory. Why? Because a vote worth zero is a vote that doesn't contribute anything. Great system when almost half of his voters contributed nothing towards his win.

[Listrata]

On that count you might be correct. We'll never know unless the US decides to fix its system.

Unsure what your version of fixed is but the electoral college is what we elect someone with. Why would any group of people change something that made them win? Not even a stacked democrat congress/white house would do that.

[Mormolyce]

This is not necessarily true changing the way voting works could change the voting patterns of people and can affect whether or not people vote and does change the way campaigns would be held. For example more Republicans would be more inclined to vote in blue states and Democrats in red states but this could also cause people in small states being less likely to vote feeling their state doesn't matter.

That point I'll grant, but of course any change to the system is potentially going to impact the overall numbers. The popular vote count as it currently stands is perfectly reflective of the current reality.

[Kalis]

On that count you might be correct. We'll never know unless the US decides to fix its system.

That is assuming the system is broken and not working as intended. Considering that the US is a union of States, then it makes sense to weight the system in favour of States rather than population centres, otherwise it would make some States effectively meaningless in Presidential elections.

A popular vote for the US President makes more sense to me, but I know some Yanks feel very attached to their States, it is part of their make up.

[Shadowferal]

The "relative power" argument is moot as the Senate has the same issue.

California: 2 senators for 56,000,000 citizens
Wyoming: 2 senators for 1,000,000 citizens

So...we should change that too?

[Mormolyce]

Why would any group of people change something that made them win?

Yep, that's exactly why you haven't changed the abysmal WTA rule in centuries. Apart from a handful of states.

[NineSpine]

Just want to point out that if those said states followed lets say the ACA aka Obamacare, abortion, and all forms social reforms in the same way democratic states do the would be mooching more money.

All of those things would improve their economies and therefore their tax payments in the long run.

[Spectral]

It is truly a joke. How is it a democracy when the decision made by majority of the people doesn't count?

I'm sure this has been repeated ad nauseam in this thread, but the United States is a representative democratic republic. Voting for people that cast votes for policy (and the Presidency in this case) is the system working as intended, not something being broken. People that wish to change that should push for a Constitutional Amendment.