I know you have it.
I'm asking why.
Why not just decide the outcome on the basis of what people actually vote for?
Aren't you a democracy?

Oh Jamie, didn't you know they think thu are a Republic, not a Demmocracy...

I mean there is some arguement for smaller rural states being invested in the electoral college - where 'swing' states get all the attention and not just the most populous cities. (How many cities contain ~50% of the US population?)

Because back in the days of yore when they wrote the Constitution, Virginia and Massachusetts could have elected whoever they wanted with the popular vote. With the electoral vote, at least the smaller states made their voices known. Of course, that isn't implying it worked; most of our early Presidents were Virginians.

Well, the combined population of the 50 largest US cities only amounts to about 15% of the total population, so...?

Oh right, it's yet another of those daft American things that is the way it is because that's how it was when God handed down the divine Constitution back in the days when slavery was cool. Right.

Yeah, jamie, i just added up those populations, and that was my conclusion too...

I for one am surprised. Living in what i think of as a tiny city (by european standards) Dublin seems like it is huge by US standards...

No, it's yet another one of those things written into the Constitution as a failed compromise.

https://www.reference.com/government-politics/purpose-electoral-college-c9f12a8548d434ee#

Pretty well summed up. Antiquated thinking.

Interesting article, Bo, thanks for sharing it.

"Although the Founding Fathers wanted the people to have a say, there was concern that a charismatic tyrant could manipulate public opinion and come into power."

...heaven forbid.

The United States is not a democracy. It is a representative Republic.

The electoral college is a system that is designed so each state has a determining factor in who wins the election. Basically each state has a number of congressional representatives and two senators. That number forms its total electoral value.

Whichever party wins the popular vote of the state gets its electoral votes if all of the electoral vote 'electors' vote for that candidate. In very RARE circumstances an elector will not vote for the candidate, but the candidate/political party does choose its electors so it is very rare that an elector does not back the candidate that wins because that elector was chosen by the candidate/party that won.

In America, the candidate that reaches 270 electoral votes wins the presidency. If neither candidate gets to 270 electoral votes then the House of Representatives must decide who becomes President. It is not decided based on a popular vote, but almost always the candidate that wins also wins the popular vote. This did not happen in 2000, but it almost always happens.

I believe the election of 1800 and 1824 were the only two times that the House of Representatives chose the President. Ironically, this year, it is very possible that there will be a tie in the electoral college with both candidates receiving 269 electoral votes.

It's a possibility (not very high) but it might happen which would be really big deal.

Also, representatives are allotted to each state based on the ten year U.S. census data. That is determined entirely by population. So states with higher electoral vote totals have more people living in them. Each state gets two electoral votes automatically because each state has two senators by default.

The Electoral collage was to prevent the top 8 cities out voting the rest of the country. It forced them to campaign the whole country!

I did try to warn ya:

@"The United States is not a democracy. It is a representative Republic.
"

Stupid bullshit semantics. Please mute.

Pretty much the founding fathers wanted a system that forced candidates to travel the country and not just campaign in Philadelphia, New York City, and like Boston which were some of the biggest cities back in the 1780s.

Also, ND, i suspect the rest of what you said is entirely accurate, but uninteresting... Surprisingly the average european seems to know more about US national politics than the average american (though we are not a sample of averages)

Of course at the same time, the average european knows virtual nothing about state/local politics. We'd hve no idea about elected sheriffs or how school boards are selected - which is nothing like the norm over here.

In reality the Electoral College was a compromise to the states giving up sovereignty they had under the Articles of Confederation. Then the president was elected by the congress to a one year term in a mostly ceremonial office with no power. If the country was to have a powerful executive branch the College was a way that every state had a say in the choice. For many years the state legislatures chose the electors without any popular election. State sovereignty was very important up to the American Civil War. After that state power has diminished but still exists.

School boards are selected by whose name appears first alphabetically on the ballot.

Boy, you are a bunch of wet behind the ear youngsters aren't you.

I don't know what "wet behind the ear" means but none of the possibilities in my head make it sound like a phrase you should ever use in a sentence again.

"This means that Clinton now needs 271 electoral votes to win!"
I've been bogged down with legislation and shit all day, and even *I* know that math isn't how it works.

then twenty-three skiddoo to you bo

Are you a pirate?

Like I figured your name might just be an uncreative title, but that got me thinking.

no my title is not 'uncreative' it is a commission.

I don't know how I feel about this. Frankly, Clinton being elected in the midst of an FBI investigation where charges of treason wouldn't be wildly unrealistic strikes me as exactly the type of scenario that would call for a sort of "check" or "balance" like electors refusing to vote her in, if you were going to have such a system with the purpose of having such a balancing mechanism.

But... where's the oversight to ensure that this power is used responsibly... whatever 'responsible' use of this power would even be? I want Trump to win and I really think Clinton shouldn't be able to be President. But if she's fairly elected by the people and we just circumvent that because of reservations about Clinton, where does that go and where does it end? That strikes me as an awful precedent, as badly as I wouldn't mind it happening to her.

@TrPrado: One of the electors from the state of Washington refuses to back her so she will need to pick up an extra elector vote somewhere.

@PE: It's true that the people's voice shouldn't be ignored, and electors almost always vote as the party intends them to vote. However, they are not bound to do so.

There have been several rare instances when a state elector refuses to cast the electoral vote for the candidate that wins the state.