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Still confused about election process


OneLight

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I am wondering how they can say every vote counts when all the votes from my state has not even been counted yet and they have declared Trump the winner? Well anyway for the record I am glad it is over. Now maybe everyone can stop being mad at me. :)

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I find it hard to believe that anyone would want to abolish the electorical college system that understood why it was put into place.

 

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44 minutes ago, other one said:

I find it hard to believe that anyone would want to abolish the electorical college system that understood why it was put into place.

 

so why was it put into place and why do we need to keep it. do explain

 

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3 hours ago, OneLight said:

I will be very surprised if this is not contested.

Already explained above.  There is no possibility of contesting the electoral results.

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1 hour ago, other one said:

I find it hard to believe that anyone would want to abolish the electorical college system that understood why it was put into place.

 

 

38 minutes ago, LadyKay said:

so why was it put into place and why do we need to keep it. do explain

 

 

24 minutes ago, Ezra said:

Already explained above.  There is no possibility of contesting the electoral results.

 

Other One I have actually done some studying into the Electoral College in the USA. From this site and article back in 2012 here's 10 problems with the Electoral College system in the USA: https://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2012/10/10-reasons-why-electoral-college-problem 

 

There are more recent articles but this one really narrows it down to 10 major points. @OneLight check this out too. Thoughts on the main points 1-3?

God bless,
GE

 

Problem No. 1

It creates the possibility for the loser of the popular vote to win the electoral vote. This has happened multiple times throughout USA history. This has happened 5 out of 57 of the last US Presidential elections or 8.8% of the time.

 

Problem No. 2

It distorts the presidential campaign by incentivizing the parties to write off the more than 40 states {in 2012} (plus the District of Columbia) that they know they either can’t win or can’t lose. Take for example the lack of interest in candidates visiting states or spending advertisement dollars in states like California, Texas and New York. Which among the 3 of them make up more than 25 percent of the U.S. population!

 

Problem No. 3

The Electoral College system further distorts the presidential campaign by causing the candidates to grant extra weight to the parochial needs of the swing states. See this link: http://www.amny.com/news/elections/swing-states-explained-what-they-are-why-they-matter-in-the-2016-election-1.12408775

 

Here's the {very surprising} results of the 2016 Presidential election so far.

  • Arizona (11 electoral votes) ... likely Trump
  • Colorado (9 electoral votes) ... Hilary
  • Florida (29 electoral votes) ... Trump
  • Georgia (16 electoral votes) ... Trump
  • Iowa (6 electoral votes) ... Trump
  • Michigan (16 electoral votes) ... TBD
  • Nevada (6 electoral votes) ... Hilary
  • New Hampshire (4 electoral votes) ... TBD
  • North Carolina (15 electoral votes) ... Trump
  • Ohio (18 electoral votes) ... Trump
  • Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes) ... Trump
  • Virginia (13 electoral votes) ...  Hilary
  • Wisconsin (18 electoral votes) ... Trump

 

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Continued points 4-7. Any thoughts on the other points?
God bless,
GE

Problem No. 4

For the same reason, it distorts governance. A first-term president who expects to have a tough reelection fight (as they all at least expect to) but who wanted to establish diplomatic and trade relations with Cuba (broken in 1960) would have to consider the possibility that such a policy might cost him Florida and therefore a second term. Case in point take December 17, 2014 when President Obama and Raúl Castro announced that the United States and Cuba would restore full diplomatic ties for the first time in more than fifty years.

 

Problem No. 5

The Electoral College system further distorts the one-person, one-vote principle of democracy because electoral votes are not distributed according to population. Every state gets one electoral vote for each member of its delegation to the House of Representatives (this by itself would be a rough measure of its population) and each state also gets two “bonus” electors representing its two senators. This causes significant overrepresentation of small states in the “College.” In the most extreme case, using 2010 Census figures and the new distribution of House seats based on that census, an individual citizen in Wyoming has more than triple the weight in electoral votes as an individual in California. Yes, you read that right. In fact, it’s closer to quadruple than triple. Can this be a good thing?

 

Problem No. 6

The Electoral College creates the possibility of a 269-269 tie vote, and in almost every recent election there has been a relatively credible scenario for such an outcome. The rules of the Electoral College system for dealing with a tie are bizarre and scary and create a fairly plausible scenario by which no one would be elected president in time for Inauguration Day. In that 1800 election, Thomas Jefferson tied with his own running mate Aaron Burr. Better not try to cram that whole saga in here right now. It led to the 12th amendment (ratified 1804), which changed the Framers’ original language so that each elector could indicate which candidate they supported for president and which for vice president, thereby eliminating the possibility that any presidential candidate will end up in a tie with his own running mate. But that didn’t solve the serious problems inherent in the tie scenario.

 

Problem No. 7

Although our system makes it very hard for third parties to win elections and almost impossible for a third party to win the presidency, the Electoral College system makes it quite possible for a small third-party showing in a single state or two to change the outcome of the whole national election. This happened in 2000, when Ralph Nader, running as the Green Party nominee, finished third in the popular vote with just 2.74 percent, and received just 1.6 percent in Florida, but those votes (plus a number of other weird factors about which some people are still arguing) probably shifted the state from Democratic nominee Al Gore to Republican George W. Bush. And, because of winner-take-all, that one state also tipped the outcome of the national election.

 

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Continued points 8-10. Any thoughts on the other points below?
God bless,
GE

 

Problem No. 8

The Electoral College system prevented Dick Cheney from becoming vice president. Well, no, it actually didn’t, but it would have if we had taken the letter and the intention behind the words in the Constitution seriously. The Constitution says that an elector cannot vote for a presidential and vice presidential candidate both of whom come from the same state as him/herself (the elector, that is). This rule actually made sense when the Framers put it in there but stopped making sense almost immediately. (To explain this, we’ll eventually have to get to the story of how the Framers thought this contraption was going to work.) But it’s still in there. George W. Bush was a Texan. In 2000, when he became Bush’s running mate, Cheney had been living and voting and paying taxes for five years in Texas where he eked out a living as CEO of Halliburton.

 

Problem No. 9

In case of a tie, or if no candidate receives a majority of all electoral votes cast for president, the choice of president is thrown in the House of Representatives but  the election is conducted on a one-state one-vote basis. (Yes, Wyoming – population 563,000 in the 2010 census -- would have equal say in the selection of the president with California – 37 million.) And to win, a candidate must receive the support of an absolute majority of states.

 

Problem No. 10

And here’s a really crazy part, which sort of underscores the craziness of our practice of abiding by the Framers’ language. When the Framers put that crazy structure, where the presidential election would be thrown from the Electoral College into the House for a one-state one-vote choice of the next president, they believed this would actually happen on a regular basis.

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4 hours ago, OneLight said:

Yes, that is the basics as we all understand it ... but how is it that the Electoral College who's supposed to reflect the popular vote, does not?  It seems to me that the only one who really votes are the Electoral College voters.

Perhaps I should of asked how is it that when a popular vote goes for one candidate, the Electoral College vote can go elect the other?  With today's technology, I think it is time to allow each vote to carry its own weight and get rid of the Electoral College.

The electoral college was set up in order to reduce the dominance of heavily populated states. If it went by popular vote, then small states such as yours really would not have any affect on presidential election. The election is based on the states, with each state electing members to the electoral college who vote according to the voters of the state. Your vote does count, in how your state votes for the president. 

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4 hours ago, OneLight said:

That is how it was designed to work.  Yet, is this a true "We the People" view?  I see it as more "We the Electoral College".  I see everyone in this country as equal, meaning each vote should count. 

Every vote does count. If it went by popular count only then every vote only counts in certain states while the rest of us might as well do something else on election day. 

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6 minutes ago, GoldenEagle said:

 

 

 

Other One I have actually done some studying into the Electoral College in the USA. From this site and article back in 2012 here's 10 problems with the Electoral College system in the USA: https://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2012/10/10-reasons-why-electoral-college-problem 

 

There are more recent articles but this one really narrows it down to 10 major points. @OneLight check this out too. Thoughts on the main points 1-3?

God bless,
GE

 

Problem No. 1

It creates the possibility for the loser of the popular vote to win the electoral vote. This has happened multiple times throughout USA history. This has happened 5 out of 57 of the last US Presidential elections or 8.8% of the time.

 

Problem No. 2

It distorts the presidential campaign by incentivizing the parties to write off the more than 40 states {in 2012} (plus the District of Columbia) that they know they either can’t win or can’t lose. Take for example the lack of interest in candidates visiting states or spending advertisement dollars in states like California, Texas and New York. Which among the 3 of them make up more than 25 percent of the U.S. population!

 

Problem No. 3

The Electoral College system further distorts the presidential campaign by causing the candidates to grant extra weight to the parochial needs of the swing states. See this link: http://www.amny.com/news/elections/swing-states-explained-what-they-are-why-they-matter-in-the-2016-election-1.12408775

 

Here's the {very surprising} results of the 2016 Presidential election so far.

  • Arizona (11 electoral votes) ... likely Trump
  • Colorado (9 electoral votes) ... Hilary
  • Florida (29 electoral votes) ... Trump
  • Georgia (16 electoral votes) ... Trump
  • Iowa (6 electoral votes) ... Trump
  • Michigan (16 electoral votes) ... TBD
  • Nevada (6 electoral votes) ... Hilary
  • New Hampshire (4 electoral votes) ... TBD
  • North Carolina (15 electoral votes) ... Trump
  • Ohio (18 electoral votes) ... Trump
  • Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes) ... Trump
  • Virginia (13 electoral votes) ...  Hilary
  • Wisconsin (18 electoral votes) ... Trump

 

How is arizona surprising? Arizona has a history of voting republican in presidential elections. How is virginia surprising? Virginia governor pardoned hundreds of thousands of criminals at the last moment so they could vote, and they were expected to vote democrat. 

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