*Someone* didn't like my response to your post and decided to remove it... LOL... The lame excuse is language... (uh-huh) So, I'm just copying it back in... Here it is...

First of all, California has some of the most productive farmlands in the nation, but that's aside from the point... There's a little something you are leaving out of your fantasy my friend. It's called trade. There is NOTHING produced in the heartland of America that can't be imported from Canada or Mexico. This is why a lot of Trump supporters in rural states like Kansas hate trade agreements like NAFTA, they don't WANT other states to buy from Mexico or Canada, they want a monopoly on food. (here's the "offensive part, I'll use alternate words 'cause that's how petty this site is) Screw THAT poop!

I don't understand why you have such an aversion to states leaving the union anyway. You don't LIKE California, you don't want California votes to count in federal elections... So why do you insist that we stay in the union?

Is it because states like California, New York and Illinois provide more money to the federal system than they take which makes it possible to subsidize weaker states like South Dakota and Alabama?

So what do you call that genre of movie being projected onto the interior of your own forehead Carol?

BTW, the United Nations doesn't have an army or a police force.

They DO seem to grasp at straws whenever the subject comes up.

Is that because the border between California, Nevada and Arizona is longer or because without dollars from California tax payers the funding would be insufficient?


LOL... I'm pretty sure it would be the other way around. The immigrants to California still far outnumber the immigrants FROM California by millions.


Which Californians are you referring too? California has a LOT of Republicans and a LOT of Democrats and they are ALL blaming each other for "ruining" their state.

Correct.


Partially correct... the popular vote of the citizens only determines WHICH electors are appointed, based on WHICH party wins the popular vote. The actual NUMBER of electors is determined by the number of representatives the state already has and that's where my issue lies.


Correct.


I seriously doubt half the population of ANY state is under 18. The U.S. Census Bureau says 22%. ('not exactly half)


Yes, according to the Public Policy Institute of California, their "best estimate" is 6.3% of the total population in California.


You incorrectly said that about California... I won't bother to verify this because I don't see how isolating Los Angeles makes any difference to your argument. 22% of Californians are under 18, Los Angeles is part of that.


Adults with half children? I'm not sure what that even means, but according to the U.S. Census Bureau New York has 19,849,399 people and 3% of them are under 18. It seems like you're trying to say half of the adults in New York are children.


Wait... THREE states? You only listed two. Do I really need to tell you that Los Angeles is not a state?


Well, some of your inputs are incorrect and as they say in my business, "garbage in, garbage out". Also, you are ignoring states like Washington, Oregon, Colorado, New Mexico, Minnesota, Illinois, Virginia, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland and Hawaii, all of which Clinton won.

Rather than go through your complex and trashy calculations, why not just look up the popular vote? That is after all an official count of how EVERYONE in the country voted. 65,516,951 people voted for Clinton, 62,844,908 people voted for Trump. Simple.


No offense but this doesn't make any sense. It *seems* like you are talking about the process of choosing electors but that process varies from state to state. Electors are appointed by the parties, usually during their national conventions. So if a state has 9 representatives (so 9 electoral votes) each party appoints 9 potential electors of their own. Which of these electors get to cast a vote is determined by the general election. In *some* states, the party that wins by one popular vote wins ALL the electoral votes... So in my example, say the Republicans win by one popular vote, all 9 Republican electors get to vote and ALL of the Democrat electors sit out. Other states like Nebraska and Maine, split their electoral votes to be more democratic.

In any case, this process of one vote takes all is not how the president is ultimately elected.


Incorrect. Only 270 electoral votes are required to win the election. This is based on the total number of electoral votes, which is based on the total number of seats in Congress. The reason why Trump won is because he reached that number which actually happened BEFORE the votes in the Pacific time zone were even counted!

What makes this possible is once again the uneven distribution of representation. California has 55 electoral votes which isn't enough to change the 270 electoral votes required to win. But if Californians were represented equally, let's say the same as voters in Wyoming (I use these two states as my example because I already did the math) California would have 275 electoral votes... add that to the total and the number of electoral votes required to win would be 408, not 270.

So the 275 votes in California would have to be considered and, yes Clinton would have won.

So, you can count your blessings that Clinton didn't win, but don't try to fool me into thinking it's all straight math or that it's even justified. Trump won legally, that's about all you can say about it.

Well at least you're bringing in someone else's argument here... that's better than "because I said so". But the article is simply stating the reasons for the Electoral College and what you still don't seem to understand is that I am not disputing the need for an Electoral College.

I have stated numerous times on this topic alone that I do NOT oppose the Electoral College. So I'll try once again to make this clear... My issue is with the uneven distribution of representatives that dictate the number of electoral votes. This specific issue is not addressed ANYWHERE in the article.

The author states... "The reason that the Constitution calls for this extra layer, rather than just providing for the direct election of the president, is that most of the nation’s founders were actually rather afraid of democracy." This is covered in Article II of the U.S. Constitution, which states... "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector."

So, it's NOT a direct democracy... check. (I never said it was nor have I ever said it should be)

But look at what I highlighted; my issue isn't with appointing electors, my issue is with the current distribution of representatives that the Constitution clearly states is the basis for how many electors are appointed... "equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled"

Now, try to stay with me on this...

When Article II was written, congressional districts were intended to not exceed 60,000 people. (Southern states were allowed to count their slaves as a fraction of a person). This is why the 1st Congress started with only 59 seats. It took 59 districts to cover the total population at 60,000 people per representative. By the end of that session there were 65 seats. In other words, Congress was expandable so it could handle the expanding population.

As I've already stated pages ago, this principle of proportionally equitable representation has been abandoned after the 1913 census. Here's a graph to help you visualize the problem.

https://www.thirty-thousand.org/graphics/chart_US1a.png

So, I am NOT disputing the constitutional design... I am trying to point out the eventual distortion that started to evolve in 1913 that has yet to be corrected.



Here's is what you said... " Los Angeles County CA has far more people than, say, Blackhawk County IA. California has different needs than Iowa in general. Using your popular vote, the vote of California, a state that is basically out-of-step with much of the rest of the country, would have determined the presidency."
Are you not stating that BECAUSE Los Angeles County has more people that Blackhawk County, the people in Los Angeles should not get an even vote?


There you go again, trying to count geographical divisions instead of people. This time its counties.


Well you have a lively imagination then. I never suggested that ANYONE should matter less. This is the what YOU are saying every time you defend a system that gives sparsely populated areas bigger votes.

And what exactly does that prove?

1. That's one report and limited to likely voters. I was using a source that aggregated ALL of those polled from all major polls
2. 49% still isn't a majority.


None of that changes the fact that the numbers (not even from "stretch if you can" Rassmussen) supports the claim that most Americans approve of Trump. That claim is 100% unsubstantiated.


It doesn't matter if we know who the person is, the fact is that somebody did and that alone is an indication of dysfunction. Can you show me when any such op-ed leaked from any previous administration?


And that was my point.


Considering how the federal government get's more dollars from California than it gives to California, I would call that a bad deal for Trump.


I don't know if you will loose hope but I remember how you folks cried and threw tantrums when Obama won in 2006 and again in 2012. I expect the same thing will happen in 2020.


Then post a new topic.


No offense but I seriously doubt your guns would make any difference.

I think this falls into the same category I was addressing earlier, where people confuse the issue of congressional representation with the Electoral College. You are of course referring to the deal where the South was allowed to count each slave as 3/5ths of a person. Of course slaves didn't vote, so why would they count them at all? The answer is that they weren't counting votes, they were counting people being represented, which also included women and men who didn't own property. None of these people could vote either, but counting them as being represented is what resulted in the number of congressional seats available to a state. The design of the Electoral College had nothing to do with any of that.

The confusion sets in because the number of electoral votes for a state is equal to the number of congressional seats for that state. So by allowing slaves to count as 3/5ths of a person, southern states were able to increase the number of electoral votes. So the 3/5ths allowance was a bit unfair from a pure democratic standpoint but as you say, the southern states were at a population disadvantage to start with... you can call it a handicap. But there are no such slaves anymore making the whole issue moot. The only real problem that remains is that congressional districts are unbalanced.

The only way to restore fair representation is to increase the number of seats in Congress or shift some of the existing seats from states like Kansas to states like California until there is parity. Would that mean that states like Kansas would be at a disadvantage? Of course... This has always been a problem with democracy. Minorities don't win. It's also the reason why these people are trying to justify an unfair system and it's why I am suggesting that the nation is too diverse and populated to remain under a single government.

Why? What would that matter?

No need to start with insults. Also, if you disagree with what I am saying then "singing to the choir" is the wrong euphemism.


The only point I made was that a count of states is not the same thing as a count of people... How the heck is that a strawman?


And yet you capitalize it like it's a proper noun while expecting me to consider a consensus of fools as validation. LOL


AND a representative republic such as what we have... what? Did you mean to say OR a representative republic such as what we have?

Sorry to be such a pest about your grammar but generally speaking, people who struggle with language naturally struggle with comprehension too. This might explain your ignorance.

Almost every country in the world is a democracy of one form or another and the history of democracy goes back thousands of years and you're actually telling me it never works?


Yes, it's a nation of laws, just like every other established nation on Earth but the Constitution does NOT enumerate the rights of all sectors. The Constitution only applies to the government. It's the body of laws that says what the government can and can't do.

[quote=pafret]
What you feel has no import, what you think is fair has no import. Trump won the majority of Counties as well as enough States to give him the Electoral College majority, hence he won in most of the nation.
That still doesn't mean he won over most Americans. I'm not disputing the claim that he won the most states, or the most counties or the most districts or whatever geographic qualification you can come up with. I'm not disputing his victory either. I'm only saying that not all geographic divisions have an equal share of population and that despite the way the population is geographically divided, Trump did NOT win the votes of most Americans.

I KNOW you're getting this because your back-pedaling with ambiguous statements like "he won most of the nation" If you mean most if the states or most of the counties then sure but if you mean most of the American people, you're flat out wrong.


OK,I'm a little tired of this idiot "because I said so" BS... So why don't you show me where in the Constitution it actually says what you are claiming. Go ahead - make my day.

No, Smedly... The Electoral College is NOT designed to obscure or combat the popular vote. Read the Constitution for crying out loud.

Incorrect. I JUST explained all this. So either read and dispute my claims or I will write your rants off as typical right-wing ignorance.


Can you really not see the stupidity in what you are saying? You are actually saying that if one state has more people than any of the others, they should be ignored.


A minority..? Seriously?
Look, the MAJORITY of Americans live in heavily Democratic urban areas, which makes the rural populations the minority. So it's accurate to say that the MINORITY populations in rural areas have little in common with MOST of the country (that is, if we're counting citizens and not squirrels, birds and trees).

You are relying on geographical divisions to make excuses for ignoring the majority of American citizens and I can see right through it. Get a brain.

Apparently, you didn't understand anything I said. I am not opposed the Electoral College. Check your reading comprehension pal.