Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris
The college acts to give slightly greater weight to the votes of people living in smaller states who might otherwise be ignored as candidates concentrated their campaigning and their policy offerings on the relatively few areas of high population density across the states. Both candidates were fully aware that it was college votes they needed to win, and targeted their campaign resources accordingly.
Had the aim of the game been to win the highest number of ballots cast, then they would have played it by those rules. But that wasn't the game, and that's not how they played it.
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I agree with the argument the popular vote isn't a useful measure in this case because people would have voted differently. Could have been more or less for Clinton. Trump is the legitimate President. However the popular vote reminds us this was a close election and it's a divided country.
I think the electoral college has become a bad system though. It exists largely to separate the voters from the college votes (i.e the electors) to theoretically act as a check in case the voters did something stupid and because it's the United
States of America and the concept of Federalism was even stronger when the college was implemented. The President was more of a distant figure to them.
I have seen the image floating around about how it's there to counterweight the coasts but America didn't have an West Coast when it was set up. It didn't have the area from the louisiana purchase either. It was a small collection of states on the East Coast. It was set up in a different time for a different America.
This is also the second time it's happened in the last 20 years. It's a problem.