Not even joking, i watched this exact video today in class
CGP Grey has a few videos on election rules if you guys are interested.
Here is one of those, explaining essentially how flawed the first past the post system (As used in the US, Canada, the UK and many other countries)
Edit: Here is a US specific video
Oh, so they found a legal way to ignore what the population wants instead of just blatently ignoring us anyway. Cool!
Wasn’t that pretty much the deal with Bush vs Gore?
Yep quick research shows that while Bush won the electoral vote by 5 members (271 vs 266), Gore won the popular vote by 500,000.
I’m not gonna delve too deep into this but the Electoral College worked just the way the founders designed it to in the 2000 election. You could chalk up Gore winning the popular vote solely by the state of California as it is the most populous state in the country. The political desires of California do not necessarily represent the political desires of the rest of the country. Conceivably a candidate could only campaign in the most populated states while completely ignoring the rest of the country. The Electoral College was designed to ensure that other states would get a voice. It’s the same reason for the bicameral legislature. The House of Representatives is based on population while the Senate is equal footing for each state. That way if you live in a small populated state, you won’t be overshadowed by larger states.
First-pass-the-post (FPTP) is a very outdated system that doesn’t suit modern politics. Just as an example, the previous Conservative government in the UK (2015) got in on less than 25% of the public’s approval (~40% of the total number of votes which equaled about 25% of the whole public).
This is why we need proportional representation. Things like the Single Transferable Vote system (what a fun name!). They allow for people’s views to be represented so much more fairly. The only reason FPTP has remained is because it tends to produce stable governments.
Side question, what sort of voting systems do you have in your country’s?
@BobLoblaw Excellent explanation. Very well put.
Why can’t the system just be everybody who votes casts a vote on who they want to win and the one who got the most votes wins. Bam. Pure democracy without any hints of olligarchy and no confusion.
That’s how most of the country voting works , at least in my country
P.S : I like Trump due to his characteristic (madness type) , well done America make yourself great again !
The reason is that people like having local representatives, which isn’t an option with the system you are talking about.
There are plenty of systems that offer proportionality while still having local representatives, Mixed-member proportional being one of those,
As for those saying the electoral college makes the future president care about smaller states, watch the CGP Grey video about the electoral college or this link
2/3 of campaign events were in only 6 states: Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, and Michigan
They only care about swing states. No point caring for the smaller states if you know they’ll vote for/against you.
That’d make sense if Presidental candidates actually campaigned in those smaller states more. As CGP’s video said, in the last election, only the 4 states with close elections received any presidential attention. I think e idea of the electoral college could be salvaged if the votes were actually given to the president relative to population instead of winner take all. Because most of my family voted for Trump, but live in New York, where Hillary won. So reguardless of what we wanted, our vote was cast for her. Not exactly representative. Say the vote was split 70 Hillary and 30 Trump in New York. 17 of New York’s electoral votes should go to Trump instead of winner take all. This would make it so that Candidates campaign in all states, even in those where they are safe.
Edit: This just came out. I cannot be happy with the results on an election just because the team I was rooting for won. This is not democracy. https://youtu.be/zcZTTB10_Vo