All of this brianstromig belies the fact that at least 46-47% of the population voted for the other candidate. We live in two Americas and no one's going out of their way to flatten that divide.
I live in NY and yes, it does suck that my vote counts less than someone in Wyoming. But that's the system. There's a reason for this system - it's to prevent the most populous states having all the power in choosing the president. The system was designed this way because we are a Republic - not a Democracy. Big states get to elect the most house members and still have massive influence in the election. Just because one side consistently wins a state doesn't mean it's not deciding the election. NY still casts a ton of electoral votes. It just so happens it's not in doubt, where Ohio and Michigan are. We can't get rid of that system just because the candidate we wanted to win lost.
The numbers are completely relevant and worth discussing. Not as a jumping off point for trying to sabotage the electoral college but as an outline for identifying voters in swing states that could be turned the next election based on demographics in blue states.
The numbers are largely irrelevant. There is no significant trend. You can't take 4 to 6 election cycles and pretend its going to last for decades. The fact we continue to talk about swing states is ridiculous. Red and Blue are not some life long sports team in which we subscribe to and choose to defend regardless of how bad our favorite party maybe. The issues our country faces continue to evolve. What is important today may not be as important as the issues of tomorrow. The candidates that get nominated to represent the party makes an election, not the blind straight ticket voters. If any election has taught us this, it would be this year.
Greg Popovich was in the Air Force. You can imagine the kind of Xenophobe racist stuff was prevalent since we're talking about the United States Military here. So why was he so shocked and distraught at the Trump victory? That interview had me, I've been and suffered from racism my whole life, even more distraught over the situation. Stan Van Gundy also distraught. I guess I should be way more concerned about this type of hate than be oblivious.
This is my quick understanding of EC: When U.S. citizens go to the polls to “elect” a president, they are in fact voting for a particular slate of electors. In every state but Maine and Nebraska, the candidate who wins the most votes (that is, a plurality) in the state receives all of the state’s electoral votes. The number of electors in each state is the sum of its U.S. senators and its U.S. representatives. (The District of Columbia has three electoral votes, which is the number of senators and representatives it would have if it were permitted representation in Congress.) The electors meet in their respective states 41 days after the popular election. There, they cast a ballot for president and a second for vice president. A candidate must receive a majority of electoral votes to be elected president. In modern practice, the Electoral College is mostly a formality. Most electors are loyal members of the party that has selected them, and in 26 states, plus Washington, D.C., electors are bound by laws or party pledges to vote in accord with the popular vote. Although an elector could, in principle, change his or her vote (and a few actually have over the years), doing so is rare. The EC isn't what it was meant to be. EC today just vote based on "popular vote" per state. They can't override the popular vote per state. Since it's a popular vote anyway, it's a dumb system. It's not what it was meant to be - a Republic and is not exactly a Democracy.
The final national poll average had Clinton up 3.6 pts (most said 3-4 %, but the avg was 3.6%). For all the talk about polls being wrong, the national polls avg were bull eye accurate this election.
From liberal site ... Voting Rights Activists Urge Clinton To Challenge PA, MI And WI Vote Counts According to Gabe Sherman, a group of concerned voting-rights advocates and computer scientists are urging the Clinton campaign to challenge the results in Pennsylvania and Michigan. Voting-rights attorney John Bonifaz and director of the University of Michigan Center for Computer Security and Society, J. Alex Halderman, were part of a group which held a conference call with John Podesta and other Clinton campaign officials to press them As it pertains to Wisconsin, some rather disturbing anomalies surfaced last night in the spreadsheets published for Outagamie County. In three separate instances, the sum of the votes for Clinton and Trump exceeded the number of ballots cast. This raised the eyebrows of many, who also noted that the one precinct with paper ballots went to Clinton. Further, the discrepanies only occurred in the results for the Presidential race, and when corrected, caused Trump to win by a substantially lower margin than they originally showed. Apparently the White House doesn't want any challenges to the vote. I completely, wholeheartedly disagree with this. If these experts have identified patterns which should be more closely examined, it is within our rights as citizens in this democracy to call for an examination and audit of the vote in those states -- full stop. It could be that such an audit will show that the vote did indeed go for Trump. Or not. We need to know. Update: Election law expert Rick Hasen weighs in: He has more to say in that post about some of the more outlandish theories flying around, too. I would have to say that Clinton winning on a recount would be an extreme long shot ... but ... there could be voter fraud here which given our current political climate should be thoroughly investigate.
Somewhat off topic but....why is a random audit (say 1-5%) not a feature of our election system? I don't think they should start now just because of Trump Midwest performance CT. But when I read those stories I just wondered why the system doesn't make automatic post election checks in the month following the election?
The USA was originally founded to be much like the EU is of today. Just like the UK left the EU, States once had the right to leave also. The States were designed to basically run themselves and to leave the Federal Government to handle international issues and maintain an army to protect the borders and regulate commerce between the states (the states essentially were mini-countries). One can pack up their belongings and move to another state without being considered an immigrant , just as countries in the EU can do now. This is why States Rights are constantly being thrown around and why we have such archaic laws varying from state to state. This is also why we have an EC and not a popular vote. The President was suppose to represent the States, not the whole population of every state. The governor of each state was suppose to represent their people, the House of Representatives were suppose to represent the people of the state to the Federal Government and the Senate was suppose to represent each state to the Federal Government (which is why originally Senators were appointed by the state, not elected). Of course the Civil War ended this and we essentially dissolved states rights and the Federal Government took over. We have been in this hodge podge system where states clamor for rights but only are given if the Federal Government chooses to give or fight them. That said, we really need to dissolve States Rights. We will never return to the original intent and there are too many archaic laws that are being abused by each state that are truly affecting our elections.
For what? Voter fraud and abuse? Remember, there are only 53 cases out of 1 billion votes that have been attributed to voter fraud.
Actually, 64.2 million compared to 62.2 million does not give her anything like a 3.6% lead, unless my arithmetic is rusty. The voting anomalies in the midwest are fascinating, but that's a complete dead end. Even if you could prove malicious tampering (i.e. hacking) with the automated machines, who in this country would believe it? I honestly mean no disrespect to our populace, but with a large % believing our current president is a muslim, and another large % doubting the theory of evolution, why does anyone think a complicated argument about statistical variance will carry any weight at all? That's why a hack, if it happened, is so beautifully clever. Just sway the % a tiny bit. Nobody would believe that and it would be devilishly hard to prove.
The problem with this theory (as with 9/11 conspiracy) is that it would take a lot of planning and a lot of resources. How are you going to hack thousands of machines across three states (MI, WI and PA) and get the results that we had? One would need something on the level of Stuxnet virus, and that virus was dealing with a very static environment. While hacking is not impossible, getting the results we did in those three states make it almost impossible. Occams Razor is the best explanation.....by far.
If changes were made to the electoral college, would you want the changes made to wait until the next election cycle or to make the changes retroactive to the election that just happened?
Meaning he won the popular vote by over 2.5 million votes outside of New York and California, winning several key states for the first time in decades. I hope Democratic leadership continues to forget this. Interesting...you mean in terms of not having unified support, or ....?
People believe whatever fits their preconceived narrative. Can you imagine how ill behaved the Republicans would be if their candidate won the popular vote by 2 million and lost the EC vote, where some swing states had issues. The Republicans would give "statistical variance" a full-on embrace, not because they understand it but because it fits their narrative.
