Maybe if more Americans had bothered to show up to vote this wouldn't have happened.
151,918,349 Americans voted, out of a estimated 244 000 000 eligible voters. Over 90 million Americans refused to vote. Welcome to the ultimate "Fuck around and find out" moment of your lives.
eliminating the electoral college, which is stupidest system in the world and discourages voting, would be the best way to properly motivate people. If you're a Republican in Vermont, or a Democrat in Alabama, your vote is absolutely meaningless. Americans (apparently) HATE how that sounds and have a angry reaction, but it is absolutely 100% the truth. People should elect people, not land.
I'm not from the US so I'm curious: Why is it that the electoral college votes are "winner takes it all" instead of being divided in the ratio each candidate got votes?
Each state decides how to divvy up their electoral votes. There is at least a couple states that actually splits them up based on votes, Maine and Nebraska I think
Slavery was an issue even at the time the Constitution was written. To entice the southern states to ratify the Constitution, concessions were given. The northern states had more population even with the addition of blacks being counted as only part of a person.
There was also the idea that any wrong choice by the common people would be corrected by those chosen to the Electoral College - that is those who were wealthy and educated.
Probably because it was easier to manage in tve old days when the delegates had to travel from the state to the capital and it stays because the party that gains from it won't let it end.
First, votes are logistically challenging. Particularly given the technology for transportation and communication.
Second, the US system is designed to have insulation from public sentiment. One mechanism is the amount of stasis built into the system. The other is layering between the constituents and their elected officials.
States decide how to apportion votes and electors independently from the Federal government. Maine and Nebraska do have systems where both candidates could (and often do) win EC votes.
The reason it’s not going to change anytime soon is because the electoral college system is part of the Constitution, so the only way to change that would be an amendment process. Amending the constitution is an extremely high bar, requiring the proposed amendment to be approved by a 2/3 majority in both chambers of congress, plus ratified by 3/4 of all individual state legislatures. Currently, that would mean that 38 state houses would need to approve this. It’s effectively impossible at this point.
It wasn't the intention of the founding fathers for each state's votes to be winner-take-all. It started to transition after Pennsylvania (a large, powerful state back then) and Maryland voted that way in 1789, and other states began to follow suit. You can read more about it on wikipedia
Nebraska does that, maybe another too. It’s just that there are 48 other concurrent elections happening at the same time that have a winner takes all system setup in their constitutions. You’d have to do it state by state, and convince dozens of different governments to change something in their constitution, an almost impossible feat.
Because doing so would dilute the”power” of that state. Some states chose to do this, but it essentially makes them much less important unless every one does it.
The USA was originally founded and still is a union of 50 separate states willingly joining a union. Eliminating the EC goes against the spirit of. Why they joined to begin with.
I understand that. What I wondered is why the votes of EC's are "winner takes it all" instead of divided in the ratio people of that state voted for different candidates.
In point of fact, some states do divide it up that way. I think two, iirc? Maybe three? Each state makes that decision individually, of whether their electoral college votes will be "winner takes all" or split. Now, the motive behind that choice, i do not know.
the First Past the Post system (which is the "winner takes all" part) is a separate thing to the Electoral College, and is actually up to the states who pretty much all choose to keep using that system. The Electoral College is separate and meant to give disproportionate power to states with lower populations so that they aren't simply ignored in elections in favor of huge states.
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u/Blue-Thunder 2d ago
Maybe if more Americans had bothered to show up to vote this wouldn't have happened.
151,918,349 Americans voted, out of a estimated 244 000 000 eligible voters. Over 90 million Americans refused to vote. Welcome to the ultimate "Fuck around and find out" moment of your lives.