Hillary Clinton

[swake]

What are you talking about?  I absolutely can't stand Trump, but (apparently) he won fair and square.

We HAVE NEVER had a popular vote for President, so not sure what you mean by "anymore".  And it is a lot more direct than it used to be.  Only relatively recently have the electors been bound by the majority vote in the state they came from.  Originally, the general public was not considered to have requisite knowledge, etc, to directly elect the President.  Hence the electorial college.

I'm not happy with the result, either, but insinuating that the election process is "unfair" in some way reeks of the same inuendo that was coming out of the Trump camp when they thought they were going to lose.

It is according the rules, but the rules aren't working anymore. I haven't seen total votes yet but this election will most likely again see Democrats not only get more votes for President but also for the Senate and the House. Democrats got the most house and senate votes in 2008 as well and were in the minority in both houses.

Despite losing the overall popular vote in both houses and the Presidency, Republicans control all three.

We have lost our democracy/republic.

[AquaMan]

But it is unfair and becoming a liability for our country. It was designed to protect against an illiterate population and may indeed be useful with today's population but now electors must vote as the popular vote did. Regardless of the size of that vote. My brother, r.i.p. who was a staunch republican represented the conservative repub view that it was not working anymore and discriminated against evangelical states. I hadn't really thought about it that way. Now, I think he was partly right.

It discriminates against the popular vote! Why? Because when a turnout is low, which republicans also champion through suppression in swing states, a candidate can take the electors from a large state even though it doesn't really represent the demographics of that state. So, if New York shows up to vote with its huge population it still only gets the New York electors. When 65% of California votes democratic it still only yields those same electors. But when a North Carolina population doesn't show up the candidate gets all the electors too. So, a collection of three large states, like California, Florida and New York with a high turnout can not overcome the electoral votes of 20 smaller states that didn't show up but voted red. The election turnout was 1% less than in 2008 from what I've heard. Thus a popular vote yields to a group of repressed voting states. It worked in 2000. It was a good plan for the Trumpicans and it worked this time as well.

Its a double edged sword but you have to know that it is a tool.

[swake]

There's also the money, from both sides, that skews elections. This is something the founders never could have envisioned and our democracy must evolve as today it is being subverted.

Citizens United must be overturned and now that is very unlikely to happen.   

[rebound]

Well, let's stick to one line of discussion.   Citizens United and discussions of money are valid discussions but that is a different topic than the mechanics of how we vote, etc.

On the mechanics,  it all comes down to whether we still want to consider the states as separate entities.  If so, any comparison to popular vote is irrelevant, as due to the wide variance in the size of the states and the population make up of each, there is ample opportunity for electorial votes, and particularly congressional votes, to be out of alignment at a national level. 

The senate is an extreme example.  Each state gets two Senators.  But CA is massively larger than OK.  I'm sure the overall DEM vote in CA and OK (added together) would be much higher than the GOP vote, but yet OK still voted in to GOP Senators.   Extrapolate that basic idea, and you get all kinds of opportunity for popular vote to not match up with POTUS and congressional seats.

But also remember that the House/Senate configuration is/was itself a compromise in trying to balance the power of the small and large states.  And while I suppose other compromise ideas could be envisioned (and probably were back then) this particular facet of our government isn't going to change.   So especially for House and Senate races, comparing specific results to overall national party results is simply not applicable.

As far as the POTUS election, again, I don't think we will see the electorial college being abolished anytime soon.  And because each state controls exactly how they partition the electorial votes from that state, a National standard will be hard to establish. 

Having said all that, there is one relatively minor change to the current process that would allow the current process to much more accurately reflect the overall popular vote: Get rid of the winner-take-all electorial voting process, and have each state apportion it's electors by a percentage of the popular vote.  (Heck, even in OK the Dems would get an elector or two in this model.  And the GOP would get some in CA, etc, etc...) A few states still do this, and it would not be a major hurdle to implement. But at least right now, each state would have to enact their own changes.   And since the states went to all-or-nothing due to perceptions related to political and Party power, it's going to be difficult to get all of them to change. 
 

[erfalf]

None of you can say the results would have been different sans EC. Who's to say a bunch of Rs didn't vote in Cali. You cannot take this static event and read that much into it. It is far to big and complicated.

The EC is the great equalizer. We do NOT want mob rule. Anarchy was a real concern when the EC was instituted. The EC truly does represent the states, not just those that voted. grumble and moan all you want, it works. We are the "United States" of America. Not the individuals of America.

[swake]

We just elected a truly evil man. A sexist bigot that has spent his life ripping people off, calling people ugly names and sexually attacking women. And then he brags about it. He's incompetent, stupid and an ugly human being. And we did it all against the will of the people.

That's far from great. 

[erfalf]

Let's just dump the Senate while we're dumping the EC.

[Conan71]

And we did it all against the will of the people.

Absolutely incorrect.  Nearly 1/2 of the voters who voted for either the Democrat or Republican candidate elected him.  That’s not against “the will of the people” at all.  It might have happened against the will of Clinton and Johnson supporters but you make it sound as if Trump was elected in a vacuum.

Trump wouldn’t have happened in the first place if it weren’t for people like the Clintons and the establishment Rethugs.

This wasn’t a referendum on racism or sexism.  People are tired of the BAU politics.

I’m not happy about the GOP/Dem duopoly and I’m not particularly rejoicing in Trump’s victory.  However, he will be our president and I’m willing to at least give him the chance to prove himself as our leader.  Same as I would have if Clinton had won.

[AquaMan]

Two things. One, no one takes a post seriously that continues to misspell "electoral". And two, it was against the will of the people. She won the popular vote and he didn't. He won the race because of the electoral setup, she didn't. The question of rigging which the president-elect insisted was happening, may very well have happened and his idiocy begged the objection. Some salesman.

Bonus round! It is indeed about a litany of elements including racism, homophobia, misogyny, xenophobia, climate change, supreme court appointments and tons more. Most of which the population has differing views than the president-elect. All we did was raise the climate of suspicion of our country's motives and who we really are. Now, we get to look forward to the will of the people expressed as more vitriolic obstructionism by the same tired players and an outsider. Whoopee.

[Bamboo World]

The EC truly does represent the states, not just those that voted. grumble and moan all you want, it works. We are the "United States" of America. Not the individuals of America.

No grumbling or moaning from Bamboo World about the electoral process... 

The USA is a federation of individual states.  The electoral system is a way for the states to chuse a presiding officer for the executive branch of the federal government.  It's not a perfect method of chusing, but it's better than chusing by a nationwide popular vote, in Bamboo World's opinion.

A few minutes ago, I looked at an online election map, updated by The Washington Post.  According the Post's website, Clinton's popular vote count stood at 59.85 million.  Trump had 220,000 fewer popular votes, but he was likely to receive a majority of electoral votes from the various states.  It seems as though the numbers for Arizona, Michigan, and New Hampshire were too close to call yet.

A nationwide popular vote system would be fraught with too many problems and pitfalls in very close elections such as this one, or the 2000 Gore-Bush race, for example.  If it wasn't up to the individual states to certify vote totals, then who or what would?  The process of re-counting 120 million individual ballots to "settle" a 220,000 vote margin would be time-consuming and open to corruption within and amongst the various states. 

I'm looking at the numbers and seeing 59.85 million versus 59.63 million as a "tie" in the popular vote.  The electoral process, in this case, breaks the tie and allows the states to chuse a president.

Presumably, both Clinton and Trump knew about the process of chusing a president.  Clinton conceded today (although I didn't hear her speech).  She knew that she could win a plurality of popular votes, but that if she did not win a majority of electoral votes, winning the presidency wouldn't be guaranteed.   
                   

[swake]

My wife and children are not white. My wife and daughter are women.

I have never been more ashamed of this nation.

[saintnicster]

No grumbling or moaning from Bamboo World about the electoral process... 

The USA is a federation of individual states.  The electoral system is a way for the states to chuse a presiding officer for the executive branch of the federal government.  It's not a perfect method of chusing, but it's better than chusing by a nationwide popular vote, in Bamboo World's opinion.

A few minutes ago, I looked at an online election map, updated by The Washington Post.  According the Post's website, Clinton's popular vote count stood at 59.85 million.  Trump had 220,000 fewer popular votes, but he was likely to receive a majority of electoral votes from the various states.  It seems as though the numbers for Arizona, Michigan, and New Hampshire were too close to call yet.

A nationwide popular vote system would be fraught with too many problems and pitfalls in very close elections such as this one, or the 2000 Gore-Bush race, for example.  If it wasn't up to the individual states to certify vote totals, then who or what would?  The process of re-counting 120 million individual ballots to "settle" a 220,000 vote margin would be time-consuming and open to corruption within and amongst the various states. 

I'm looking at the numbers and seeing 59.85 million versus 59.63 million as a "tie" in the popular vote.  The electoral process, in this case, breaks the tie and allows the states to chuse a president.
                   

a nation wide popular vote can still be run state by state.  Hell, as of right now the EC is 50 popular votes that are weighted together.  All we're asking is that instead of throwing everyone into different buckets at the end, Judy combine them.
At the very least, the EC should move away from a winner-take-all model at the state level..  Have the voters select a rep for their congressional district. Then, whoever wins the popular vote for the state could get the votes representing their senators.

[Conan71]

Two things. One, no one takes a post seriously that continues to misspell "electoral". And two, it was against the will of the people. She won the popular vote and he didn't. He won the race because of the electoral setup, she didn't. The question of rigging which the president-elect insisted was happening, may very well have happened and his idiocy begged the objection. Some salesman.

Bonus round! It is indeed about a litany of elements including racism, homophobia, misogyny, xenophobia, climate change, supreme court appointments and tons more. Most of which the population has differing views than the president-elect. All we did was raise the climate of suspicion of our country's motives and who we really are. Now, we get to look forward to the will of the people expressed as more vitriolic obstructionism by the same tired players and an outsider. Whoopee.

Your mind is a scary neighborhood.  I’m glad I don’t live there! 

IIRC, I’d actually predicted on our election prediction thread Trump would win the popular vote and Clinton the Electoral College. 

Both candidates knew how the electoral system works, they played under the same rules.  It is our system, it will never please everyone.  Somehow, I suspect we would not even be having this conversation had this gone the other way.  Democrats are a bit raw over losing in similar fashion in 2000, I get that.  Everyone figured the Clintons would play it right in the swing states and cruise to an easy victory.  I believe there might have been some over-confidence on the part of the Clinton campaign.

Aside from that, Clinton was a really bad candidate.  The Democrats had a chance to nominate someone who seemed to be much more earnest and who might have had an easier time defeating Trump because Bernie didn’t have a trail of scandals (real or imagined) following him around.  From what we have learned via leaked emails, the DNC put the fix in for HRC.  If you are upset, you should first be upset about how your party let you down by apparently rigging their primary system so that HRC was a foregone conclusion.  By your’s and swake’s logic, we could say that HRC became the Democrat nominee against the will of the people.

[erfalf]

a nation wide popular vote can still be run state by state.  Hell, as of right now the EC is 50 popular votes that are weighted together.  All we're asking is that instead of throwing everyone into different buckets at the end, Judy combine them.
At the very least, the EC should move away from a winner-take-all model at the state level..  Have the voters select a rep for their congressional district. Then, whoever wins the popular vote for the state could get the votes representing their senators.

Dumping the college (at least in favor of popular vote) is a monumentally bad decision. Again, had we had popular vote that does not necessarily mean Hillary would have won. It may be provides solace to some today, but by no means can you infer that the results of Tuesday would have bore out identical if the circumstances were different. Not to say I believe Trump would have won anyway, just that an inference can't be made.

We have the EC because states (you know, the United ones) matter. Eliminating it will make so many states inconsequential. Just think, last night there was a point where Nevada might have been a pivotal state (6 votes). If you were gaming that system you would hit the biggest population centers only. The EC is the great equalizer when it comes to states. And I personally think that giving all the delegates by and large to one candidate only bolsters that effort. For the same reason you have a United States of America, you have an electoral college. If you don't like it, try out the EU, see how that works for you. It's more or less weighted by population anyway, but with the added equilizer of two extra delegates for each state (and D.C.). It's actually quite fair.

The "rules" are working exactly as designed. They just aren't selecting the candidate you wanted. That doesn't mean it didn't work. The simple fact that Hillary got more popular votes in no way indicates that the EC isn't working. You're going to have to try harder than that.

[swake]

Dumping the college (at least in favor of popular vote) is a monumentally bad decision. Again, had we had popular vote that does not necessarily mean Hillary would have won. It may be provides solace to some today, but by no means can you infer that the results of Tuesday would have bore out identical if the circumstances were different. Not to say I believe Trump would have won anyway, just that an inference can't be made.

We have the EC because states (you know, the United ones) matter. Eliminating it will make so many states inconsequential. Just think, last night there was a point where Nevada might have been a pivotal state (6 votes). If you were gaming that system you would hit the biggest population centers only. The EC is the great equalizer when it comes to states. And I personally think that giving all the delegates by and large to one candidate only bolsters that effort. For the same reason you have a United States of America, you have an electoral college. If you don't like it, try out the EU, see how that works for you. It's more or less weighted by population anyway, but with the added equilizer of two extra delegates for each state (and D.C.). It's actually quite fair.

The "rules" are working exactly as designed. They just aren't selecting the candidate you wanted. That doesn't mean it didn't work. The simple fact that Hillary got more popular votes in no way indicates that the EC isn't working. You're going to have to try harder than that.

Why are states more important than people? That's ridiculous. But then, companies are people now, right?