We the people in the US don't elect the president.

The Electoral college does.

There is no federal mandate that electors vote the way the state votes, but there are various state laws and party pledges made.

What would it take for the electors to vote a different way?

1 major candidate proposes massive deportation and talks glibly about use of nuclear weapons.

1 major candidate has an open FBI criminal investigation, and details and charges may come out after the popular vote that may/may not disqualid said candidate.

The hole american elective system is stupid.


The electoral college allows a candidate with less votes to get elected, and makes the election pointless in all but a few bunch of states. Hundreds of millions of americans effectively have their vote that doesn't count. A republican in NY or a democrat in Texas doesn't get to have a voice on his president.

Added to that you have a first-past-the-post voting that effectively makes voting 3rd party a damage to the "least worst of the 2 main candidates", and can help electing a candidate you hate against a candidate you only dislike. It furthers increase the chance of a candidate getting elected when more than half the population didn't want that candidate becomming president.


Really, how can a country that claims to be the champion of democracy be that much undemocratic?


2 great videos explaining both problems:
- Electoral college: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wC42HgLA4k
- First Past the Post: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

Oooh, Teamguns. I miss you, tell me about how America's lack of gun laws increase violence when you're in a country with more gun laws and a higher death rate.

On the serious, America's voting system comes from a time when states were essentially countries that could break off pretty easily, you really didn't want to piss them off so giving the state power over the popular vote was probably a compromise.

Note, America should really implement a vote of no confidence option, even if you don't see anything you like, you probably see a lot of stuff you don't like, and no confidence let's you express that.

Democracy is shit

Edited 10/30/2016 23:27:43

The electoral college allows a candidate with less votes to get elected

In theory yes, but in practice, they are highly correlated at a rate of around 95%.

Technically, the electoral college only penalizes candidates who fail to appeal to a wide geographic base of support. Say that for example a candidate got 100% of the vote in just enough states to make up a majority of the population, and 0% elsewhere. Those ten states are California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, and North Carolina. In this scenario you would get 51.09% of the vote, but only 240 electoral votes. And it's honestly a stretch to say that this is unfair, since the president is a nationally elected official and people from 77% of the nation voted against you.

Hundreds of millions of americans effectively have their vote that doesn't count. A republican in NY or a democrat in Texas doesn't get to have a voice on his president.

Actually, states flip all the time, and candidates not paying attention to "safe" states results in things like nebraska and indiana voting democratic in 2008 or New hampshire voting republican in 2000.

Really, how can a country that claims to be the champion of democracy be that much undemocratic?

America isn't even a democracy, and as far as I know the constitution never says this either. There may be some (or a lot of) uninformed americans who claim america is "the champion of democracy", but are we really going to cite uninformed people as a source of information?

Edited 10/31/2016 04:07:19

There may be some (or a lot of) uninformed americans who claim america is "the champion of democracy",

We are a democracy, where the majority are the masters, or all the hopes and purposes of the men who founded this government have been defeated and forgotten.

Woodrow Wilson was really uninformed

Wilson was fucking stupid

Well yeah, but he was anything but uninformed

Woodrow Wilson was really uninformed

He probably wasn't uninformed but he was a politician, a group of people who are known for saying untrue things to advance their political goals.

Edited 10/31/2016 00:34:29

A defense of the Electoral College by one of the most brilliant legal minds: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/view_from_chicago/2012/11/defending_the_electoral_college.html

But back to the topic, would announced criminal charges be enough for electors to deviate from their state's popular vote?

tell me about how America's lack of gun laws increase violence when you're in a country with more gun laws and a higher death rate.

Relevant and on the point, as usual.


Last time I checked France had a much lower murder and gun murder rate than the United States.

Plus I'm sure you know that problems are the absolute majority of times caused by a big and diverse number of variables. It's super easy, and probably dumb, to look at gun laws and then violence, pick two examples that defend your idea and draw conclusions out of it. And it's a thing I'm affraid you have a huge tendency to do.

Instead of a simple MSGB equation Change of the number of guns = More/Less violence, you really should look more at a Guns+Who owns the guns+General Population Education+Economic Segregation+Country Stability+Quality of the police+Culture+(...) = Violence level of a country.

No one factor explains a consequence. Got economy, violence and stupid electoral systems alike.


As for the electoral college, I get the points to defend it, but it's still an archaic system. Small states are already over represented in the senate, and the electoral college sure can and often gets the right candidate, but a 5% failure rare when you're choosing a president is rather alarming. Bush 2 coming to power has all to do with the electoral college getting it wrong. Perhaps America would have stayed out of Irak if Al Gore had been president, ISIS wouldn't be a threat and wouldnt be getting the highest in flux of refugees since WW2. And maybe Obama wouldn't have become president, or Hillary for a fact, relations with Russia would have been better, Lybia wouldn't be in chaos and the hole world wouldn't be laughing at the big joke that this election is.

Well lots of ifs, and as I said earlier often one consequence can't be drawn out of only one change of variable, but all of them were made possible by a electoral college failure.

Edited 11/1/2016 11:07:24

but a 5% failure rare when you're choosing a president is rather alarming.

The thing is though, it's not a "failure". Al Gore is a classical example of what I was describing about failing to appeal to a wide base of support. Just take a look at his county level results:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/2000prescountymap2.PNG

@Teamguns, reminds me of similar statement: X isn't perfect, but its the best we got.

We would need to come up with a better system than the electoral college to complain about its 5% failure rate you quoted.

Also, are you trying to say that the electoral college fails when we fail to get someone good in office? It seems like a better argument is that the electoral college fails when the candidate elected doesn't represent the will of the people. But then the follow on question is, what really is the will of the people and how would you measure that?

Yea it's probably hard to find a perfect system. Even direct democracy has numerous flaws...

I think that a good system of electing representatives is the one where you rank the candidates from best to worse and take the one most people are satisfied with. This system has the benefit of 3rd party voting not hiting the chances of the major candidate you prefer to win, and raises the chances of them as well. Under this system we could have dozens of candidates running and you voting for them without fearing that Trump or Hillary get elected, as your vote ends getting redirected to them as we take out of the equation small candidates. And if the major two candidates are very hated like this year, we could have all the votes against them redirected to a third candidate, which could well up end with him getting elected.

And the electoral college could be partially fixed if you attributed votes proportionaly so that votes in deeply red or blue states matter for candidates and force them to make 50 states campaigns. This would also greatly reduce chances of the electoral college fucking up too.

Edited 11/1/2016 17:06:46

Monarchy. Democracy is retarded because 51% of the population can vote themselves the money of the other 49%

Democracy isn't always best. Only the sane should vote

Yea it's probably hard to find a perfect system.

More of impossible to find a perfect system.

Relevant and on the point, as usual.

It was a joke you [I insulted you here and I feel like it was excessive]. I know sarcasm is essentially impossible through text though, and joking is almost as hard, so sorry.

Edited 11/1/2016 21:19:47

Eh I didn't take it as an insult. Took it more like your usual random blabing xD

The thing is though, it's not a "failure". Al Gore is a classical example of what I was describing about failing to appeal to a wide base of support. Just take a look at his county level results:

What does this matter? Last I checked the president was supposed to represent the people, not the land.