Right ND, the question is whether or not the lack of binding commitment is a good feature or a systemic error. I can see where it would theoretically be a useful check against a would-be tyrant that's polling well, but I worry about the precedent set for a democratic state where some select individuals (even if they aren't per se significant powerbrokers in society) have unilateral and, apparently, uncheckable power to alter the results of the vote in the area they represent.

"@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."
If he doesn't back her, she doesn't get the vote. 270 no matter what.

"However, they are not bound to do so. "
Unless the state legally obliges an elector to vote the way they were bound by their party.

lock her fkin up, stupid shit with all her fkd up emails. retarded endless scandals, fk that. we dont need that shit in the oval office and fk her screwed policies and her flip-floppity ass. remember benghazi. she will burn in the bottom of hell at her life's end for fking with power and manipulating federal power to her whim.

The man said he's willing to pay the $1000 fine for not complying with the way the people voted, which is the penalty set up by the state of Washington.

Could someone explain one feature of the system to me a little bit more?

ND said:

"
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."

So, the electors are chosen by the parties?

So, like, if my imaginary US state of Jamifornia has 5 electoral college votes, does that mean that the Democrats choose 5 electors, and the Republicans choose 5 different electors.... and then if the popular vote in Jamifornia goes the way of the Democrats, it would be the 5 Democrat-chosen electors who would make the final vote?

Is that how it works?

@Jamie: Correct.

Ok, got it, thanks.

If you must have an electoral college, then, would it not make sense for the electors to be activated on the basis of the proportion of the popular vote in the state they represent?

Like, if Jamifornia had 10 electoral college votes, and the popular vote was 60% Republican vs 40% Democrat, then the final votes would be cast by 6 Republican electors and 4 Democratic electors.

Doesn't that make more sense? I mean, if you need to have the college at all?

I may be wrong, but i believe each state is allowed choose how they distribute their electors. Thus, while that would make sense, it is not seen as being in the state's interests.

I believe one or two states are like this...

"Except for Maine and Nebraska, all states have chosen electors on a "winner-take-all" basis since the 1880"

"Maine and Nebraska use the "congressional district method", selecting one elector within each congressional district by popular vote and selecting the remaining two electors by a statewide popular vote."

Not exactly proportional and there are of course claims that the electoral districts in Maine and Nevraska are fixed to ensure one or another candidates are guaranteed their seat (ie drawing up congressional boundaries so that democratic or republican congress man's seat is safe... Which presumably fixes the electoral college votes for those districts aswell.)

Which is shite, i mean having more local relevance seems like a great idea. People could actually feel the need to vote or their state/district would go to the opposition; but when all seats are safe, there is no point voting red in a blue state, or vica versa..

Jamie's proportional idea sounds good. I kind of like it, but right now no states do it like that.

The closest example is what Orathaic pointed out and that is how Nebraska and Maine both allot electoral points based on congressional districts. However, both states also allot electoral points based on state wide victors so it is kind of a split system.

^ thanks ND.

The only problem with a proportional system is say, for example, what if both candidates receive 50% of the vote and the difference is just like 100 votes. How would you proportionally split something so close in the vote count?

That's true, there would have to be some kind of rounding or threshold mechanism.

A bit of information that may have slipped through the cracks here is that the number of electoral votes per state is equal to its number of congresspeople - that is, two more than its number of districts. Structurally therefore, it makes more sense to assign electors based on these districts than truly proportionally.

They have a rounding mechanism for the primaries, ND.

yes, zybodia

you're never going to get it, jamiet. sorry to be harsh. it's about rural states receiving a slight edge, not a popular, majority take all vote.

but don't worry. I love brits. me mum was one.

I have never understood why people believe the Republican Party is finally going to "see the light" and liberalize after this election. According to RealClearPolitics, Trump is projected to win 241 electoral votes, essentially 1-2 states short of winning. Let's compare that with the last two elections.

John McCain got 173.
Mitt Romney got 206.

Both of them were considered the poster boys of moderate Republicans. For God's sake, Romney was once considered the most liberal Republican governor in America when compared to his contemporaries. And McCain was famous for being a moderate maverick who reached across the aisle to enact policy. Both got absolutely roasted in the general election.

Trump, despite being a demonstrably sexist, race-baiting, boorish, isolationist, economically-illiterate, policy-void populist... is slated to do better in the general election than the seasoned moderate statesmen of the last two elections. Think about that for a minute and what it means.

If this upcoming election ends up being a narrow loss for Trump, the GOP isn't going to hang their heads in shame and decide to suddenly become the Democrat-lite party. They're going to say "We need a version of Trump who has more public charisma". The party is going to double down on the ethnonationalism, isolationism, and social conservatism because there's rock-solid numerical evidence that this kind of Republican does better than the "moderates". But next time, they're going to pick someone who is more slick and cosmetically passes himself off better.

@ four:
I'm just commenting as an outside observer. I just find it surprising that the American people are content to persist with such an undemocratic arrangement. If it were me, I'd want my vote to count directly rather than simply serving as a signal to an "elector" to vote on my behalf.

Democracy: It's your vote that counts.
Feudalism: It's your count that votes.
;-)

Jamie, don't you live in this awefully unproportional system of fptp in the UK?

I mean, accepting that you don't get to vote for PM unless you live in their constituency. (And you don't get to vote for head of state at all) The popular vote and the government are teo very different things.

In the US the electoral college system usually leads to the person who won the popular vote winning. In the UK Theresa May - who wasn't leader of her party when the last election was called, is part or a group with just over 50% of the seats, and thus 100% of the power, while garnering something less than 38% of the votes? (Can't remember off the top of my head).

Meanwhile UKIP and the SNP got within about 5% of the same number of votes, and yet one has 56 seats and the other has closer to 2/3 (again, my memory... I'll look these things up after i post this)

Yes indeed. The UK isn't a democracy either. FPTP is an awful system. I think we should have PR.