How to win the electoral college with 22% of the popular vote

Our anti-democratic ruling class tells us that we must worship the Constitution like Fundamentalists worship the Bible, complete with the "Founding Fathers" as the 12 Apostles and the Federalist Papers the Epistles of St. Paul. Because of this viewpoint, our self-appointed leaders are committing a sacrilege.

So to hell with an 18th Century overriding set of laws that was written behind closed doors. The hell with the Amendment process, which is purposely designed to protect the deified document and weaken the will of the people. People don't realize that if we keep treating the Constitution as scripture instead of as a temporary start-up document, we will meekly submit to the Constitution's typical hatred of the people in that it allows the electors to vote any way they want, regardless of whom their states voted for in the Presidential election. A few bribes here, a few bribes there, and the Constitution will achieve its original intent when it was written by slick lawyers for the colonial 1% paid to establish an American House of Lords.

 

To represent a state's ruling class. It's a lot easier to bribe 100 or so state legislators than millions of the state's voters.

 

Combine the electoral map imbalance with the fact that almost every one of the states used in the map are rife with Democratic Party massive voter fraud, and we see why Obama won in 2012, and why we are losing our democracy.

If we don't put a stop to the voter fraud, and make voter ID the national ENFORCED law of the land, we will live in a single party fascist state by 2020.

 

Right, and we should let the Presidential electors exercise their Constitutional right to vote any way they want. That will prevent mob rule. What Constitutionazis want is Snob Rule. Go for it! It's about time the elite provoke a revolution again. They are no different from the snooty Redcoats.

 

The plutes need them. The statehouse hacks are usually nobody losers who can easily be bribed. Most people who run for Senator are somebodies who are harder to bribe and may even have ideas of their own. Besides, the plutes would have to bribe millions of voters, too.

 

Bad news for the Enronites. Houston is only 10th in Metro population. Dallas is 9th!

 

oh I know.... the point is still valid. Democrats complain about the electoral failing because it was their guy that lost, last. The previous time was in 1888.... so whatever.


and skip Maine in that scenario go to the next smallest state and it's still under 30%. How many states aren't winner take all.... can't be many.

The purpose of winner take all was to prevent a democratic electorate refusing to vote republican, despite the state going that way.... and vice versa.... it locked them into voting the way the state decided by popular vote. There is a purpose of winner take all.

 

If I were a liberal I would grow balls and rob the rich myself. You (not you specifically) will reap greater rewards with minimal effort. Or perhaps get mauled down by angry Rottweilers or meet the wrong end of a .357 mag in which case the gene pool will be cleaner.

 

Yet you continue to live here.

 

I thought the liberal freaks love dissent and differing opinions. That's kind of the point of democracies.

 

So we are supposed to blindly follow some self-appointed guru financed to make a Red Herring video? It has no distracting attraction to anyone who can think for himself.

 

The purpose is to further humiliate and alienate the people so they become resigned to letting the ruling class have all the power.

 

It astounds me that statists always fail to recognize that there is a viable third option - which is no tyranny at all. But I will give you credit though - at least you admit that tyranny is the only option while the state exists.

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Why would the majority do that when they're the ones who gave them their power and wealth over our country in the first place?

 

You are delusional if you believe that. There is nothing that the ruling class in this country hates more than the Constitution.

Nonsense. It wasn't written behind closed doors, it was written by politicians who were elected representatives of the people. And if the people will the Constitution to be amended, then it will happen. It's already happened 17 times.

If the Constitution was treated as scripture, it would be capable of being amended; so there goes your analogy out the window. If you've got a problem with the electoral college being able to vote any way it wants to, regardless of the will of the states, then vote for politicians who will amend the Constitution.

Otherwise, what do you propose to do? Have a revolution and throw the old Constitution out? I'm sure that the ruling class would love nothing more, because then they can write the new one behind closed doors.

 

I'm sorry, I didn't know you are a liberal freak. Me bad.

 

We don't live in a democracy. We live in a Constitutional Republic. You, as an individual, don't even have the right to vote for President at all, though all 50 States have chosen to allow it. But any State Legislature could, simply by deciding to do so, change the rules and decide upon a different method for selecting their electoral college delegates.

 

The scenario in which a Democrat wins Alabama, but loses California seems too far-fetched for me to worry about. I would like to see the exact popular vote breakdown, just out of curiosity

I guess it would be a nice symbolic gesture to abolish the Electoral College. It is a relic of our nation's history. Opponents of it would feel good for a short time. If you think it would have any impact greater than that, you are deluding yourselves.

 

That was more likely to happen in 1800. The chances of the Electoral College openly thwarting the popular vote in 2014 is incredibly low. Besides, the biggest campaign contributors have invested in both parties. They win no matter what.

 

As it stands the chances currently are 5% of the elections. Which is not at all low. A 5% chance the person the people did not elect winning the white house is way too high.

 

How did you come up with 5%? I was also responding to the poster where he envisioned a scenario where the electoral college openly voted against the will of the voters of the state. I'm assuming he is talking about a situation where Candidate A wins 40% of the vote, but the electors vote for him anyway. I was casting doubt on the chances of that happening. Maybe if Candidate B was a member of the Socialist Party, but I don't see that happening any time soon.

 

Not my preferred arrangment.

 

Depends on the State. They are bound, by law, to vote according to whatever rules their state has, as stated, most ave a "winner take all" approach. Should they choose to vote otherwise, they would face whatever legal sanction their State Law calls for, but the vote would still count as cast.

 

Because of the state-by-state winner-take-all electoral votes laws (i.e., awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in each state) in 48 states, a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide. This has occurred in 4 of the nation's 57 (1 in 14 = 7%) presidential elections. The precariousness of the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes is highlighted by the fact that a shift of a few thousand voters in one or two states would have elected the second-place candidate in 4 of the 15 presidential elections since World War II. Near misses are now frequently common. There have been 7 consecutive non-landslide presidential elections (1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012). 537 popular votes won Florida and the White House for Bush in 2000 despite Gore's lead of 537,179 (1,000 times more) popular votes nationwide. A shift of 60,000 voters in Ohio in 2004 would have defeated President Bush despite his nationwide lead of over 3 million votes.

 

Maybe if Slick Willie and Al Bore weren't throwing Florida blacks in jails at a record pace during their administration, he would have won the state. Hard to feel sorry for him. I would have rather flipped a coin if it was a statistical tie.

 

I wouldn't even care, but the power elite openly thwarting "democracy" like that would be suicidal.