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[MetalSlimeHunt]

I don't think we're ever going to beat the unlikeliness of this outcome. Though you could technically win the EC vote with as little as 27% of the popular, almost all of that range is in the Functionally Impossible bracket. Even this margin is just insane.

[smjjames]

If it were something closer to the margin that was in 2000, it'd be less of a 'Gah! What the hell!!?!?', but yeah, a margin of 2.5mil and counting and not win is just crazy.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Why don't we just use the popular vote anyway? 

"Oh, but then California would have more of an impact!" Of fricking course it would! It has more people!

"Oh, but then politicians would only care about the larger states! Nobody could care about the tiny ones..." This implies that the electoral college favours smaller states. It... doesn't. It favours swing states - those are the ones that politicians care most about. California will be blue and Texas red, and nobody even cares about Rhode Island. Florida and Wisconsin, that's where it's at.

There will always be some states with more of an impact on the outcome than others. So why not the larger states?! Why is it better for Florida to matter much, instead of California?

[McTraveller]

Why don't we just use the popular vote anyway? 

History. The President is supposed to represent the States, not the people.  This is why originally there wasn't even a popular vote for the president. The house of representatives was designed to be the popular vote portion of the government.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Why don't we just use the popular vote anyway? 

"Oh, but then California would have more of an impact!" Of fricking course it would! It has more people!

"Oh, but then politicians would only care about the larger states! Nobody could care about the tiny ones..." This implies that the electoral college favours smaller states. It... doesn't. It favours swing states - those are the ones that politicians care most about. California will be blue and Texas red, and nobody even cares about Rhode Island. Florida and Wisconsin, that's where it's at.

There will always be some states with more of an impact on the outcome than others. So why not the larger states?! Why is it better for Florida to matter much, instead of California?

Why don't we just use the popular vote anyway? 

History. The President is supposed to represent the States, not the people.  This is why originally there wasn't even a popular vote for the president. The house of representatives was designed to be the popular vote portion of the government.

That's not - for some bizarre reason - the vote that matters. In an essentially two-party race.

Why is that, again?

No, that's such a widespread misunderstanding that it might as well be a conspiracy theory. Faithless electors are not and have never been the intention of the EC, they're just an unfortunate consequence of it (which is why it's illegal in so many places, and would be illegal in all of them if anything had ever been decided by a faithless elector as opposed to the protest votes they really are).

The electoral college exists as a relic of the US beta testing democracy and a Presidential system between an association of 13 different states all with very divided opinions on what that all should look like. To give you the short form, slaveholding states supported having Congress elect the President because their slave populations were counted under the 3/5ths Compromise for the number of representatives they would have, while free states supported having a direct popular vote because the lack or relative rarity of slaves meant they would have more influence electing the President.

The electoral college was the most easily agreed upon system to prevent everybody from killing each other or smothering the union in its cradle and becoming vulnerable to the European powers/Canada/each other.

We've been trying to get rid of it ever since. You might think of it as a generational curse, almost.

Totally called it on the generational curse thing, by the way.

The purpose of the electoral college is to promote mutual peace between the states who keep men in the state of perpetual slavery and those who do not.

This Information Injection will grow until all are imbued with burning Truth.

[smjjames]

Which is why we have to find some sort of balance. However, we're the only country in the world that even has this system, it's completely unique.

So, non-US Bay12ers, I wonder how other countries have it, when politicians in your countries campaign, do they generally focus on the most populated areas of the country or do they pretty much campaign everywhere?

[smjjames]

Why don't we just use the popular vote anyway? 

History. The President is supposed to represent the States, not the people.  This is why originally there wasn't even a popular vote for the president. The house of representatives was designed to be the popular vote portion of the government.

The US was also a heck of a lot smaller (geographically as well as population size) back then,  not to mention much more rural, so, what may have made sense then, doesn't really work as well for a much larger country with a much more diverse population. I know it's been 'working' for the most part, but we've been undergoing demographic transitions that are making it not work so well.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Why don't we just use the popular vote anyway? 

History. The President is supposed to represent the States, not the people.  This is why originally there wasn't even a popular vote for the president. The house of representatives was designed to be the popular vote portion of the government.

It was mostly rhetorical, but thanks for the info! *not sarcastic*

And that was okay, of course, because Congress had most of the power, right? The Supreme Court didn't do the "is this law concordant with the Constitution" stuff, and the President didn't do as much. So much for "balancing the powers" if they change over time...

Why don't we just use the popular vote anyway? 

"Oh, but then California would have more of an impact!" Of fricking course it would! It has more people!

"Oh, but then politicians would only care about the larger states! Nobody could care about the tiny ones..." This implies that the electoral college favours smaller states. It... doesn't. It favours swing states - those are the ones that politicians care most about. California will be blue and Texas red, and nobody even cares about Rhode Island. Florida and Wisconsin, that's where it's at.

There will always be some states with more of an impact on the outcome than others. So why not the larger states?! Why is it better for Florida to matter much, instead of California?

Why don't we just use the popular vote anyway? 

History. The President is supposed to represent the States, not the people.  This is why originally there wasn't even a popular vote for the president. The house of representatives was designed to be the popular vote portion of the government.

That's not - for some bizarre reason - the vote that matters. In an essentially two-party race.

Why is that, again?

No, that's such a widespread misunderstanding that it might as well be a conspiracy theory. Faithless electors are not and have never been the intention of the EC, they're just an unfortunate consequence of it (which is why it's illegal in so many places, and would be illegal in all of them if anything had ever been decided by a faithless elector as opposed to the protest votes they really are).

The electoral college exists as a relic of the US beta testing democracy and a Presidential system between an association of 13 different states all with very divided opinions on what that all should look like. To give you the short form, slaveholding states supported having Congress elect the President because their slave populations were counted under the 3/5ths Compromise for the number of representatives they would have, while free states supported having a direct popular vote because the lack or relative rarity of slaves meant they would have more influence electing the President.

The electoral college was the most easily agreed upon system to prevent everybody from killing each other or smothering the union in its cradle and becoming vulnerable to the European powers/Canada/each other.

We've been trying to get rid of it ever since. You might think of it as a generational curse, almost.

Totally called it on the generational curse thing, by the way.

The purpose of the electoral college is to promote mutual peace between the states who keep men in the state of perpetual slavery and those who do not.

This Information Injection will grow until all are imbued with burning Truth.

Yes, yes, that's why we did it this way. My question was really - why don't we change the damn thing?!

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I told you why: The Electoral College is a generational blood curse placed upon the American nation for engaging in slavery.

[Shadowlord]

Why don't we just use the popular vote anyway? 

History. The President is supposed to represent the States, not the people.  This is why originally there wasn't even a popular vote for the president. The house of representatives was designed to be the popular vote portion of the government.

It was mostly rhetorical, but thanks for the info! *not sarcastic*

And that was okay, of course, because Congress had most of the power, right? The Supreme Court didn't do the "is this law concordant with the Constitution" stuff, and the President didn't do as much. So much for "balancing the powers" if they change over time...

Uhhhhh.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Why don't we just use the popular vote anyway? 

History. The President is supposed to represent the States, not the people.  This is why originally there wasn't even a popular vote for the president. The house of representatives was designed to be the popular vote portion of the government.

It was mostly rhetorical, but thanks for the info! *not sarcastic*

And that was okay, of course, because Congress had most of the power, right? The Supreme Court didn't do the "is this law concordant with the Constitution" stuff, and the President didn't do as much. So much for "balancing the powers" if they change over time...

Uhhhhh.

That seemed okay to the people back then. That is what I meant.

The SCOTUS sort of bootstrapped its powers of looking over laws, right? And the President has become more important over time? I think that's right? Of course, this could be misremembered misinformation...

I told you why: The Electoral College is a generational blood curse placed upon the American nation for engaging in slavery.

Does the blood curse override Constitutional amendments?

[smjjames]

-quote pyramid snip-

Yes, yes, that's why we did it this way. My question was really - why don't we change the damn thing?!

There have been attempts at amending it, I've read that it was about 700 attempts, making up a good chunk of failed amendments. The reasons why they all failed are probably legion though.

A state based solution via an arcane loophole in the constitution rather than a constitutional amendment solution is slowly making its way through though.

[Phmcw]

Which is why we have to find some sort of balance. However, we're the only country in the world that even has this system, it's completely unique.

So, non-US Bay12ers, I wonder how other countries have it, when politicians in your countries campaign, do they generally focus on the most populated areas of the country or do they pretty much campaign everywhere?

You're not, Belgium use a complicated system but basically the result of the vote is not proportional to the popular vote to account for the French minority.

German federal election weight its votes too, and the number of sieges won decide the weight that you will have in the government, so it's pretty much the same concept.
The formulation of the question show that Americans are being sadly mislead on how the rest of the world's electoral system works.

Edit : damnit wrong quote

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

-quote pyramid snip-

Yes, yes, that's why we did it this way. My question was really - why don't we change the damn thing?!

There have been attempts at amending it, I've read that it was about 700 attempts, making up a good chunk of failed amendments. The reasons why they all failed are probably legion though.

A state based solution via an arcane loophole in the constitution rather than a constitutional amendment solution is slowly making its way through though.

Bureaucracy strikes again - slowly, we must hack together a shoddy, weird, ugly, and error-prone simulation of a directly democratic vote for the president, made from all the red tape surrounding us, if we want to change things for the better. Instead of, you know, just doing things right.

[smjjames]

Why don't we just use the popular vote anyway? 

History. The President is supposed to represent the States, not the people.  This is why originally there wasn't even a popular vote for the president. The house of representatives was designed to be the popular vote portion of the government.

It was mostly rhetorical, but thanks for the info! *not sarcastic*

And that was okay, of course, because Congress had most of the power, right? The Supreme Court didn't do the "is this law concordant with the Constitution" stuff, and the President didn't do as much. So much for "balancing the powers" if they change over time...

Uhhhhh.

That seemed okay to the people back then. That is what I meant.

The SCOTUS sort of bootstrapped its powers of looking over laws, right? And the President has become more important over time? I think that's right? Of course, this could be misremembered misinformation...

I don't know about SCOTUS history, but the Presidency has become more important and increased in power over time. Teddy Roosevelt couldn't have done the reforms he did if it was attempted 100 years before his Presidency, and the Presidency got a LOT more powerful during and after WWII.