Should the USA use the popular vote now?

[Kayleigh2005]

I was going to post this just for Democrats 🤣

But, I got interested in this discussion!

[KostasKouvalis]

The electoral college was created by the founding fathers in Philadelphia as compromise because the delegates couldn't agree on how the president should be elected. One group didn't want congress to have all the power because they believed it could lead to corruption and overlap of the other branches. The others didn't want a direct vote from the people because they thought they weren't informed enough. And this notion that certain states would always be deciding everything while others wouldn't have a voice is completely false. It would NOT affect smaller states because every single vote WOULD count not by state but by INDIVIDUAL.

I once brought up the suggestion that the candidate who wins the most states should be president. Someone said this wouldn't be fair as it wouldn't be what the majority of the people want. Neither is the electoral college. And the states already have so much power. Inflation, high prices and unemployment can't be the President's fault because some states are doing much better than others.

Bottom line, we're basically voting for someone else to choose our President for us. How is that a fair system?

[Anonymous]

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[NewWaves]

No, because as I understand it it's not even the make up of the system.

[RingOfFire]

First start off with this. The electoral college will never be abolished. Why? Because the electoral college is the law within the US Constitution. And the Constitution can only be changed if 38 of the 50 states vote to change it.

That is never going to happen because most of those 38 States would be losing some of their electoral power by voting for it since they will get more representation through the electoral college then they would with the popular vote.

So people need to realize the topic is purely academic. The electoral college is the law and the chances that it will ever change are infinitesimal.

Having said that, while the electoral college is not perfect, and the founders who put it in the Constitution realized that, neither is a system based on the popular vote of the majority perfect either.

The advantage of the electoral college is that it gives less populous states a voice in the decision about who becomes the president. That means that states, most of whom contribute something critical to the country such as farmed food to factory products and so forth get to have some say and aren't just shut out by a handful of states with gigantic populations. It gives "minority states" some say in the choice of president.

A pure democracy is not necessarily a more moral system. As the saying goes...

A democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding what to have for dinner.

[genericname85]

i mean that would probably be slightly more "democractic" but it would have brought the same result this time around because unless you've fallen for fake bullshit news, trump has won the electoral college AND the popular vote.

it's just the dems way to cope with loss. trying to lie about their loss. to be fair trumps way to deal with loss last time was way worse than that but it is what it is.

fact is: trump got 74,672,841 votes;
Kamala got 71,144,667. you can look it up. and then you'll realize the picture you posted is as wrong as this one picture the republicans like to post where most of the country is colored red, ignoring that these large red zones are areas where very few people live. so there's bullshit on both sides. i'm trying really hard not to be biased.

either way this time around was a clean sweep for the republicans and that's really not a surprise given how the dems spend years alienating vast majorities in the country, hyper focusing on tiny majorities.

[AviatorTom]

No, the Electoral College ensures that people in every state have a say in who is elected President. It is also essentially the same voting mechanism that parliamentary countries use to elect their Prime Minister. In the UK, for example, the Prime Minister is not determined by the nationwide popular vote, it's determined by the Members of Parliament, each from a defined area called a constituency, voting.

There are potential changes to the way each state allocates electors to the Electoral College, without having to change the Electoral College, abolish it or replace it with something else. Though most states follow a winner-takes-all process, Maine and Nebraska allocate electors per congressional district and state-wide vote. I personally would like to see other states do that.

[Twalli]

That's actually what I want to happen. A candide shouldn't get all the electoral votes of a state that they win by a narrow margin.

[KostasKouvalis]

The electoral college was created by the founding fathers in Philadelphia as compromise because the delegates couldn't agree on how the president should be elected. One group didn't want congress to have all the power because they believed it could lead to corruption and overlap of the other branches. The others didn't want a direct vote from the people because they thought they weren't informed enough. And this notion that certain states would always be deciding everything while others wouldn't have a voice is completely false. It would NOT affect smaller states because every single vote WOULD count not by state but by INDIVIDUAL.

I once brought up the suggestion that the candidate who wins the most states should be president. Someone said this wouldn't be fair as it wouldn't be what the majority of the people want. Neither is the electoral college. And the states already have so much power. Inflation, high prices and unemployment can't be the President's fault because some states are doing much better than others.

Bottom line, we're basically voting for someone else to choose our President for us. How is that a fair system?

[AviatorTom]

@KostasKouvalis People who live in many other countries vote for their MPs who then vote for the Prime Minister... not much different.

[Anonymous]

No, we are a union of 50 states not 333 million people.
Nobody would belive the results of most any election if we had to trust every state's popular vote numbers.

Lets face it californium elections are soo screwed up with vote harvesting and crooket rules their popular vote is basically nonsense. Dito many other states. Oregon is a joke too.

[NamerOfStars]

It should've from the beginning. The idea of the "electoral college" is predicated on the belief that the people in different states have bigger differences between them than within them. If that was ever true, it ceased to be so long ago.

[Kayleigh2005]

Well, the Democrats wanted a popular vote, but now they don't?

[Kayleigh2005]

What would happen to the minority?

[Alexandrubaschet08]

Minorities need to respect the will of majority and the majority must not persecute the minorities.
But if you are a minority and even in a country that you don't historicly belong then you should not have the right to say nothing.
I have the right to vote in UK, but i refuse because i don't want to push my ideas from another country and culture on a diferent one. In my case I think is the responability of British people to take care if theyr country and me as a "minority" i will obey theyr decisions and if i feel persecuted i will simply live and let them have my job.

[Kayleigh2005]

@Alexandrubaschet08 - really just look at what the Democrats tried to do to Trump.

Let's just use the law to lock people up?

Just seems a bit unrealistic to trust a crowd 🤔

[NamerOfStars]

That's what democracy IS.

[Kayleigh2005]

Except we are a republic!

[Alexandrubaschet08]

But is true that Trump did ilegal buisnes, he even have deep relationship with the ex-KGB, witch that a dangerous red flag.
In East Europe we want death to thous who have such conections.
If the world is going in a bad direction it mean that world is not inform properly.
But at this moment Trump made a good thing for me at the moment, he increase the GBP (UK money) and when i go back in my country i take more money.
So we start at the moment pro-trump 1 - 0 anti-trump (but i'm still very sceptical)

[Alexandrubaschet08]

Republic is a democraty is just a diferent way to organizate.

[Alexandrubaschet08]

Personal, even afther the USA foolish desicion, i will like USA to use more the popular vote in order to give a more important purpose to the vote of the people and make them understand what responsability they have.
When theyr vote will matter even more in that case.

[Kayleigh2005]

What would happen to the minority?

[Kayleigh2005]

Actually how much free stuff will the people want?

[Alexandrubaschet08]

Minoritys we survive as long they want to. There are minority groups in my country for hundrets of yares (even before America was discover).
And they survived because they belive there is theyr home, they pass the language and traditions furder.
Minoritys as i sayd they need to obey the majority because the mountry is made by the "majority".

[KrakenAttackin]

The people do not understand the issues and cannot be trusted to decide.

[onedarkcloud]

Well if you get rid of the Electoral College just think that you would only need to concentrate on maybe 12 to 15 maybe a few more large cities to cast votes the rest of the country need not vote

[Kayleigh2005]

And how long would it take to bankrupt the country 🤔 after voting for all free stuff?

[NaultD]

Even if they only focus on the top 50 population city's that's like still only 15% total votes. That's clearly not enough for election.

[Kayleigh2005]

@NaultD - think he wrote 12-15 states, with the biggest cities.

Either way even with Republicans winning the popular vote I didn't think it's a great idea 👍

Also, dems have been pushing the popular vote for year, BUT why not now?

[onedarkcloud]

Should have put state. My bad

[Kaneki05]

Of course, as anarchy brought by democracy is fair. If 90% want to fire a nuke I say we should because that's what 90% want, the 10% can say it's a bad idea but they do no matter that's how voting works.

[MrShaun]

That's a good question.

If the question becomes, "Does the electoral college do as it was intended?", then the answer would be that it doesn't and the electoral college should be abolished.

However, the electoral college does provide more influence to those smaller states not as heavily populated. As a result, we are a more balanced republic and the electoral college serves a more important purpose.

[goaded]

Yes, but also instant runoff voting. You have many candidates, the one that gets chosen is the one acceptable to most Americans. Trump got a 1.7% majority over Harris, and won. Clinton got a 2.2% majority over Trump and lost. How is that reasonable?

(FYI: a mandate looks like Reagan's nearly 10% majority.)

Imagine 2016 with Clinton, Sanders, Trump, and Cruz...

[goaded]

OMG, all the "what will happen to the smaller states" people: they will still have the same overblown representation in the Senate, and that's fine. The president should be the president for all Americans.

[monorprise]

You @goaded really seem to have a hard time understanding how American elections actually work as well as how different areas of America have very different interest and needs.

Pleasing the largest number of people is not a desirable objective when those people are different.

[goaded]

@monorprise No, I understand how US elections work and it's insulting of you to suggest otherwise. I just think that the way the presidential elections work is ridiculous. If your state has a senator per 250,000 people and another only has one per 20,000,000, you already have an out-sized say in government. The presidency is different.

[monorprise]

Once again just because progressives don't have a clue why the union exist and zero respect for anyone else's right to think, talk, and act, much less govern themselfs doesn't mean we are a union of 333 million people.

We are in fact a union of 50 states and unlike Germany @goaded we were NOT conquered and we don't need Washington to tell us what to do on almost any subject at all.

Our equal representation in the senate is the foundation of the union for the senate itself represent the original nature of the union itself. Do you know how the president is elected if the electoral cottage fails? We vote on him as equals among as States NOT individuals.

Because at the end of the day My state doesn't need the president, or a house of representatives. We are more than powerful enough to do all of that ourselves as can every other real state can. The only thing we really want is partners and peace NEVER masters or servitude.

[goaded]

@monorprise You still think people have the same opinions and attitudes as in the late 18th century. They don't. Most people don't think people should be left to starve, especially working or disabled people, nobody thinks people should be owned, and most people have gone beyond the idea that gay people are anything but people.

You were a small union of 13 tiny colonies that revolted with the aid of other world powers and came up with a mechanism for governing that has until recently stood the test of time. It explicitly allowed for and even welcomed being change (that's why they're called amendments). Almost every generation amended it until recently; that's not because it's now perfected.

Germany, by the way, is a union of states, too, which you'd know if you'd bothered to look. It was like that since its original formation in the 19th century. And I grew up in Britain, which was last successfully invaded in 1066.

Did you not understand that I was saying the Senate is where states should be able to assert their independence? I've only said that choosing a president with more power to some Americans than others is a bad idea. A selection of candidates where voters have an equal say and can safely make their preferences clear without it throwing power to the worst candidate would be preferable to the current system.

[DerekC321]

Haha you're funny, because it's true. This liberal thinks so. But whatever, for all the Trump fans, he won the Electoral College vote and the popular vote too. Fair and square. So a very clear message to the Dems. Clusterfuck.

But yes, there should be a popular vote. It's just mathematics. Every vote should count the same.

[Kayleigh2005]

Seems to me the EC keeps things 50 / 50 ?

Move to a swing state if you want to change the most powerful country in history?

Not a big ask to me 🇺🇸

[monorprise]

@Kayleigh2005 Althou your not entitled to a vote for president you do have one in every state. Just because you happen to lose the election as you do every other if you have chosen to live among people who disagree with you doesn't mean you don't have a vote.

That is a silly argument, swing states are only swing state because the people there have chosen to be persuadable.

[Danny_dan92]

I think using the popular vote makes more sense. Total vote counts are more representative of what the overall population of our country wants.




Because with the electoral college, all the politicians have to do is win the states with the highest population. And they win. Which if you look at the map there are only a handful of states that have a high electoral college vote count. 90% of the country comprises of states that only have a few electoral votes each.

[Anonymous]

without the electoral college, politicians would just focus on campaigning in big cities rather than the rest of America

they would pander to celebrities and upper-class folk more than middle-class or lower-class folk spread throughout America

if the election went via the popular vote, it'd be Hollywood movie stars dictating the lives of Michigan autoworkers, it'd be blue-haired feminists dictating the lives of military soldiers, it'd be the rich folk dictating the funding of police in bad neighborhoods

the popular vote at least is more so about bragging rights and allows Trump to justify his policies because most Americans support him now

[Kayleigh2005]

You had to throw Trump in there 🤣🤔🤔

What happened to we need the popular vote from Democrats now 🤔

[Opinion Owner]

those Democrats are awfully silent now because the majority of Americans have spoken

they're starting to realize something was fishy going on with Biden winning 81 million votes in 2020 and Kamala only 66 million votes in 2024 while Trump wins roughly the same amount of votes in 2020 and 2024. without the electoral college, cheating can be much easier with a decent hacker to change the stats around

if Trump does a good enough job (which he most likely will), his popular vote won't reverse but a lot of reasonable Democrats would find themselves switching over in 2028

[thenerdone]

No. Direct democracy leads to tyranny of the majority; we discovered this in Ancient Greece. Our electoral system is in the interest of a republic maintaining popular sovereignty, not a pure democracy.

[MannMitAntworten]

…and in California where a Super Majority exists.

[Amur8711]

No because mob rule isn't a health form of government.

[Kayleigh2005]

Right, don't understand why people don't know that smh

[Makeushiver]

@Amur8711 Gets brought up every election but bear in mind that Clinton had more popular votes than Truml. So did Gore running against George Jr. In 2000. As a Republic web? live in a representative democracy not a true democravy.

[Amur8711]

@Makeushiver, where are you getting that data?

[Amur8711]

Also, I am not entirely sure what you're getting at with your reply.

[Makeushiver]

Its in any periodical or any reasonably non-profit partisan website

[KrakenAttackin]

Hell, fucking, no. Pure democracy is three wolves and two sheep deciding what to have for dinner.

[D_Bone_Steak]

You went Aristotle mode on that one... short and simple. Like an Aesop's fable lesson.

[D_Bone_Steak]

"The Wolves and the Sheep" by Aesop

[KrakenAttackin]

@D_Bone_Steak Yes sir!

[exitseven]

no, the electoral college is not perfect but it prevents all the influence being concentrated on the coasts.

[Anonymous]

Yes, but it wouldn't have changed the outcome of the 2024 election.

[Kayleigh2005]

Democrats seem to not want the popular vote anymore so never mind 🤣

[Opinion Owner]

Democrats want power and control, however they can get it.

[Anonymous]

No. No state should have more say over other states than any other state. There should be an equal amount of electoral college points for each state.

You wouldn't say a house has more say than another house in an HOA just because they have more people living in the house.

[Dargil]

We could have this time. Study Civics and learn why there is an Electoral College.

[JesterRose]

The point of being a constitutional republic is so the minority can’t be oppressed by the many. Democracy is little more than mob rule at its base. And let’s be honest, when was the last time you witnessed a well informed and rational mob?

[Hispanic-Cool-Guy]

Should have been long ago.

If you put the right candidate and he knows how to connect with the people and has the right agenda for the people and country they will win.

It's literally that simple.

[Kayleigh2005]

Dems say Trump is a Nazi, what if Nazis win from now on?

[monorprise]

@Hispanic-Cool-Guy If that were true dictatorships and their hereditary form known as absolute monarchies would be a consistently great form of goverment.

Democracy exist precisely because we usually don't get the "right candidate" and if we ever did he ceases to be "right" not soo long after or simply dies and can't be replaced.

[dreamstar72]

We should delete the party system, everyone will be label as independent. All donations will be equally distributed to the running candidates.

[OddBeMe]

I think so. Small states are repped in the senate. The 8 counties that elected trump shouldn't have that power.

[Kayleigh2005]

Dems say Trump is a Nazi, what if Nazis win from now on?

[Kayleigh2005]

Keep in mind the 4B movement so Dem women quit have babies too 🤣🤣😛

[OddBeMe]

Am I ok with Nazi supported candidates winning? No. Are you?

[monorprise]

Large states are represented in the house which was originally the ONLY form in which a union between 50 states NOT 333 million people they were ever suppose to be represented at all on the sole account that they paid more taxes.

So that argument makes no sense at all @OddBeMe

[DrPepper12]

Yes. National voting compact will do that.

If we don't change to public campaign finance we're doomed

[shortster]

If the Democrats really wanted to get rid of the electoral college; why do they still have super delegates?

[Kayleigh2005]

I heard that a a couple of times?

[shortster]

It makes no sense, they want direct democracy when voting for president; but not when nominating one?

[Snakeyes7]

No electoral college is still better. It gives the people from all lifestyles including urban and rural a voice on who they want their leader to be.

[SolitarySolace]

The founding fathers created an electoral college for a reason. Why change that?

[Alex-Snow]

Of course. The electoral college is way outdated

[IHateBeingaMan]

no doubt Republicans will want to keep the electoral college, because thats the republican savior in the 21st century.

[Gerard567890]

Democrats wanted the popular vote and we got it. We shouldn't complain if we lose fair and square. Which we did. That's it.

[JohnK123]

La county had a higher population than 40 states.

[Crazzyyworld]

Yes Hillary won the popular vote. She is the true president!

[BLP11520]

No, you do realize Trump won that by 7 million votes?

[Anonymous]

It's politics. There will never be a fair election.

[Kayleigh2005]

Ok, now Democrats wanted a popular vote up until a week or so ago 🤣🤣🤣

[Opinion Owner]

Ditto, four years ago when you were still a baby and unable to vote. And four years before that. And four years before that. Educate yourself.

[phraseology]

Nope.

[phraseology]

The 17th amendment should probably be repealed so that you guys actually understand what our federal government was meant to be.

[beefcakebradybatson]

Ranked choice voting would be better.

[monorprise]

What does that have to do with the electoral cottage @beefcakebradybatson
?
With the cottage any state can experiment with any electoral system they like without effecting other states.

[Deserter2]

Republicans won both this time around

[Kelley1]

Of course not.

[josepppiiii]

I love trump