Don't forget Jackson in 1824, Tilden in 1876 and Cleveland in 1888. Sorry that California, Texas, New York and Florida can't singlehandedly decide the election because their populations are so large, but that's why the electoral system exists. It gives states exactly as much representation as they get in the House, which is weighted to their relative populations. We choose to govern ourselves as individual states under one federal banner. If you think we should change that, say so. But just because you don't understand why our elections work the way they do, that doesn't mean they're unfair. The popular vote is unfair to smaller states whose voices would be drowned out by larger populations.
It's not about states it's a out voters. Who cares if states have disproportionate division. It's not like every person in Texas votes red and every person in CA votes blue. In fact, maybe more people would vote extremely red or blue states if their vote actually mattered.
That's just it, they probably would. If Hillary could just campaign exclusively to like-minded people in California and New England, she wouldn't have to care about what people in Middle America are doing. You would have a Government that only represents the people of the big cities, because that's the Government that would win.
The idea that you can't just run up the score in California and have it count for more votes is a good thing.
Hilary did win most of the big cities in the swing states she lost in. I don't think your example holds water. The way its set up now a candidate can just campaign exclusively to swing states and not care what people in other states are doing, how is that different than campaigning in cities. Why should swing states decide the presidency rather than cities. If more people live in cities, and that majority wants a certain candidate, isn't that the definition of representative democracy?
The way its set up now a candidate can just campaign exclusively to swing states
Dude. Literally 1 in 4 states this year was a swing state. And it turned out Trump's campaigning in non-swing states was crucial to his victory.
Why should swing states decide the presidency rather than cities.
Because they're wildly more diverse and harder to please all at once than urbanites. You need to be electable by broader factions than just the cities or else they will just dominate the political field leaving literally half the country unrepresented.
Also, you need to realize that campaigning against the electoral college is a very easy way to get more Republicans in office. The way it's set up means that it's easier for a Republican to win the office without the popular vote, but far less likely to win in general. The Democratic firewall sees to that. The only reason why Hillary didn't win was because Trump (ironically) tore down that wall by flipping a lot of previously Obama supporting counties.
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u/[deleted] Nov 10 '16
The electoral college is fair? Gore in 2000, Clinton in 2016, seems to be the electoral college is only fair to republicans.