Biden running again.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Trump isn't getting back in. And if he does, its Biden's fault, just as it was Hillary's fault before him. Because if enough Americans can look at a motor-mouthed, pussy-grabbing, orange-skinned, science-denying, ''this election was rigged'' liar and think ''yes. I want four more years of him'' then frankly something somewhere went seriously wrong with 46's premiership

The fact you're British may have insulated you from the biggest advantage than Trump had and it wasn't Hillary (who beat all the other candidates despite what some people say). It's the fact that Trump has been an American celebrity for most of the lives of American voters. There's no such thing as bad publicity and Trump has been everywhere and in everything from professional wrestling to movies to being parodied in countless shows.

And he won by a handful of votes.

What does confuse me being British is the idea that someone can be elected president by getting less votes than their opponent. If the president of some Arab or African nation won with less votes than the other guy America would be calling that country undemocratic and calling for sanctions.

That electoral college system man... its not good.

Because we're not exactly a one-state country. We're much closer to the European Union in political breadth.

[CharlesPhipps]

=

What does confuse me being British is the idea that someone can be elected president by getting less votes than their opponent. If the president of some Arab or African nation won with less votes than the other guy America would be calling that country undemocratic and calling for sanctions.

That electoral college system man... its not good.

Weirdly, as a super liberal anarchist, I'm not against it. It's supposed to give the less populace states more influence so that the urban areas don't dominate the rural ones like the Hunger Games. It was an anti-slavery measure too.

However, because urban areas tend to be more progressive, many progressive types think of it as Satanic.

[ProfessorDetective]

=

What does confuse me being British is the idea that someone can be elected president by getting less votes than their opponent. If the president of some Arab or African nation won with less votes than the other guy America would be calling that country undemocratic and calling for sanctions.

That electoral college system man... its not good.

Weirdly, as a super liberal anarchist, I'm not against it. It's supposed to give the less populace states more influence so that the urban areas don't dominate the rural ones like the Hunger Games. It was an anti-slavery measure too.

However, because urban areas tend to be more progressive, many progressive types think of it as Satanic.

Because it makes it so a few dozen groups of MAYBE a couple thousand people (often less) each can throw up massive roadblocks for MILLIONS of people hundreds of miles away via their disproportionate representation in Washington. We need to end the College and uncap the House. Proper MAJORITY rule.

[CharlesPhipps]

Because it makes it so a few dozen groups of MAYBE a couple thousand people (often less) each can throw up massive roadblocks for MILLIONS of people hundreds of miles away via their disproportionate representation in Washington. We need to end the College and uncap the House. Proper MAJORITY rule.

I'm all in favor of majority rule, except the majority in my state want to kill people like my friends.

So....

Limits on majority rule.

[ProfessorDetective]

Because it makes it so a few dozen groups of MAYBE a couple thousand people (often less) each can throw up massive roadblocks for MILLIONS of people hundreds of miles away via their disproportionate representation in Washington. We need to end the College and uncap the House. Proper MAJORITY rule.

I'm all in favor of majority rule, except the majority in my state want to kill people like my friends.

So....

Limits on majority rule.

I meant on a FEDERAL level. That is STILL terrible, though. I am very sorry to hear that.

[phantom000]

Trump isn't getting back in. And if he does, its Biden's fault, just as it was Hillary's fault before him. Because if enough Americans can look at a motor-mouthed, pussy-grabbing, orange-skinned, science-denying, ''this election was rigged'' liar and think ''yes. I want four more years of him'' then frankly something somewhere went seriously wrong with 46's premiership

The fact you're British may have insulated you from the biggest advantage than Trump had and it wasn't Hillary (who beat all the other candidates despite what some people say). It's the fact that Trump has been an American celebrity for most of the lives of American voters. There's no such thing as bad publicity and Trump has been everywhere and in everything from professional wrestling to movies to being parodied in countless shows.

And he won by a handful of votes.

What does confuse me being British is the idea that someone can be elected president by getting less votes than their opponent. If the president of some Arab or African nation won with less votes than the other guy America would be calling that country undemocratic and calling for sanctions.

That electoral college system man... its not good.

The thing about the Electoral College is that it was implemented in a time when it took a month to go from the Atlantic Coast to the Mississippi river, and even that was consider fast because it meant you spent four weeks constantly on the move. In 2023 you can go coast to coast in a day, you can even have breakfast in New York City, lunch in San Francisco and dinner in Anchorage if you got the cash. So what is even the point?

Most arguments in favor of keeping the electoral collage usually go something like 'without it the big cities would control the presidential elections and they would ignore all the small towns and rural areas.' The problem with that is that all together the 10 biggest cities are only 7.5% of the total population so even if you somehow got everyone in all these cities to vote for the same person (which is not going to happen anyway if you consider their demographics) it would still be just a drop compared to the rest of the country. Also, if the point of the electoral college is to keep elections out of a few densely populated regions then it is self-defeating because most of the states have less than 10 electoral votes while California has 54 by itself, Texas has 40 and Florida has 30 and since most of the states use 'winner-take-all' even if all the voters in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Idaho North and South Dakota all voted for Biden, but 1 person in California voted for Trump he wins.

I think if you don't want to get rid of the electoral college it needs to be reformed.

[TGLS]

What does confuse me being British is the idea that someone can be elected president by getting less votes than their opponent. If the president of some Arab or African nation won with less votes than the other guy America would be calling that country undemocratic and calling for sanctions.

OK, you understand how the house of commons works right? Well imagine that there was only two parties, Conservative and Labour. An election is held, and the Conservatives win by ten seats. However, the Conservatives won those last ten seats by about a hundred votes apiece, and many of the seats they won by large margins have very low population relative to seats Labour won by a large margin. If you look at the popular vote, it might look like Labour "won" because they won a majority of the population, but they were at a disadvantage based on how their voters are distributed.

Now obviously the main difference is that parliament actually has a function beyond deciding who the PM is, unlike the Electoral College. But this is basically how Trump and Bush won despite losing the popular vote; they already were winning states with low populations, while they won other states by narrow margins.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

So it the tourament of who the shiniest of three turds then.

I mean, I'd say the non-neofacscist turd is the winner. I just wish I had almost any other democratic candidate to root for.

[Riedquat]

Because it makes it so a few dozen groups of MAYBE a couple thousand people (often less) each can throw up massive roadblocks for MILLIONS of people hundreds of miles away via their disproportionate representation in Washington. We need to end the College and uncap the House. Proper MAJORITY rule.

Which leads to the larger population centres being able to throw up massive issues for people they've nothing in common with hundreds of miles away. It's enough of the problem here, where there's frequent criticism of government being far too London-centric. Simple majority rule looks much fairer in principle but it's not problem-free either; the challenge of any democratic system are the opposing problems of some peoples' votes counting more versus the tyranny of the majority. There's no perfect answer.

I'd imagine that this is more of an issue in a federal system, where states can be of significantly different sizes but still need to have some meaningful say in order to join, although the level of self-governance can mitigate against it to a degree. I'd actually be in favour of a federal-like approach to the UK, but I can't see how it would work in practice with England having a much larger population than Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, at least not without splitting England up, a move that I don't think would be all that popular.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

=

What does confuse me being British is the idea that someone can be elected president by getting less votes than their opponent. If the president of some Arab or African nation won with less votes than the other guy America would be calling that country undemocratic and calling for sanctions.

That electoral college system man... its not good.

Weirdly, as a super liberal anarchist, I'm not against it. It's supposed to give the less populace states more influence so that the urban areas don't dominate the rural ones like the Hunger Games. It was an anti-slavery measure too.

However, because urban areas tend to be more progressive, many progressive types think of it as Satanic.

Getting less votes than the elected official isn’t a feature of the system.

What you’re describing entails the function of the bicameral legislative branch along with the 3-seat minimum for the house and electoral college. Neither of those are primary contributors to such phenomena.

The popular vote discrepancy has more to do with each state voting in first past the post system. Anything above 50% leads to all of the seated votes for the whole state.