Can someone explain to me why Americans think the popular vote system is the best system? It's the worse thing!
Ive done a little research on the American voting system (and i mean a little, so i could be wrong) trying to understand wtf is going on with this election and found that 'the popular vote' is actually pretty pointless and doesnt really count for fck all...
I also found that American 'voters' dont even really vote for who they want to become president!!! They are voting for their electors??? wtf
SOURCE:
The Electoral College skews the numbers, it even affects the promises candidates make. How would a popular vote change the landscape of US elections?
en.as.com
How does the popular or electoral vote affect elections?
In the 2016 election Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, nearly 3 million more votes nationally than Donald Trump, but because Trump secured 77 more electors than Clinton, in part due to narrow Trump victories in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin (in total 77,744 votes), he still won the presidency.
The reason this was possible is that the number of Electoral College members match the number of state’s members of congress, and these aren't representative. The number of congressmen assigned to each state in the House of Representatives hasn’t changed for over a century, so that today there are is
one voting member for every 747,000 Americans; more than triple the original ratio.
However, this elector-to-voter ratio is an average. The real flaw in the system is that it varies wildly from state-to-state. Meaning that individual voters in some states hold a huge amount more real power than others.
Voters in Wyoming have nearly four times as much influence as Californians do, for instance.
An example; Montana’s 1,050,493 people have just
one House member but Rhode Island, a state with only 9,000 more residents is tipped into the bracket of having two House representatives, which is one for every 529,820 citizen. Suddenly every resident in Rhode Island has almost double the power compared to someone living in Montana.
In the most extreme case, npr reported that it would be possible to win a presidential election with just 23 per cent of the popular vote.
Voters living in states where the majority don’t agree with them end up feeling leads to voter disillusioned and sometimes even abstain from voting.
SOURCE:
The US has a highly arcane, indirect system of voting where voters do not elect the president. They choose presidential electors who then vote for the president and vice president.
thewire.in
What is the Electoral College?
‘Electoral College’ is the term given to the body of individuals who are selected or elected to be “electors”.
With no constitutional right to vote for the president or his running mate, US voters are basically voting for presidential electors on the general ballot. These electors then vote for the president and vice president of the US.
Why does the US adopt this complicated system of election to their highest office?
For the US’s Founding Fathers, their overlying concern was that one group or individual should not have overwhelming political power. “…authors of our constitution were very concerned about the American public might be fooled by a dangerous demagogue who flatters the people, who’s not a burning responsible leader that they felt that there had to be a check, in case the people decided very poorly and they wanted to give the electors discretion to vote as they please,” said Mark J. Rozell, Dean of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University.
The original system was for legislatures to choose electors, who were supposed to be distinguished citizens and were free to give their vote for their presidential candidate.
