That reminds me, have you noticed that SlimJims have way upped their amount of Tabasco in the past ten years?

I highly suggest you look up the definition of the term "gerrymandering". It has virtually no effect on a Presidential election. Here's a hint, state borders do not change every 10 years with the census...

And the only reason I said "virtually" is that 2 states (Maine and Nebraska) have the ability to split electoral votes giving the potential to gerrymander a grand total of 3 EC votes in the worst case scenario. Given that Trump did win a vote in Maine while losing the state (he won Nebraska and all districts - so no issue there), it's possible one EC vote was gerrymandered but you'd have to look at which party was in power in the state the last time the states districts were drawn.

As to popular vote, it has always been meaningless and reflects little. In the very "one-sided" states, voting is likely suppressed. I wouldn't be surprised, for example, if a large number of Republicans don't vote in California because their is no chance to win. Same for Texas and other ideologically lopsided states. And this works both ways.

That and the fact that voting rules are different for every state...some states have the polls open for a week, no excuse absentee balloting, longer hours, etc. To get a fair measure of a "true" popular vote is difficult at best. Without a lengthy analysis of each state and the effect of how the voting rules affects turnout in each state, and I have no idea how one measures the effect of demoralization in solid red and blue states, its essentially meaningless.

The worst thing about changing this to a popular vote...

Could you imagine a close race and a recount of each and every district in the entire country in order to determine a winner? You think it was bad this time with a recount of just a few states...

Since nothing is perfect, you'd have this political bickering and arguing over every changed vote in each and every state. That would be a nightmare.

Let's face it...the people arguing for a change to popular vote haven't really put a lot of thought into the issue. Seems to me they just want to find a way to change the results in favor of their candidate no matter the means.

Not to mention how every politician will only care about the biggest states. How would you like Federal tax cuts for just Texas New York and California? Nebraska needs a new bridge as it gets too old? Nah, not enough voters to be worth it... If you want to know why there is an Electoral College, it's precisely for this reason.

I wish companies hire me without any experience as people of US elected Trump as the POTUS without any experience.

I don't usually agree with you... but I'm fully capable of admitting it when your make a good point. You pretty much nailed it in this post... in much better way than I could. +1

How would we know if it's one of those historic moments? Right now, it's only been about 12 hours since his inauguration. Ask again in 4 or 8 years :)

I don't see how this is embarrassing for the U.S at all though. We voted, he was the winner, that's it. Our Republic works as well as it has always worked, and the transfer of power went through.

Now, what's really embarrassing is how people on the streets are smashing and destroying cities to show their disapproval, and even spitting and beating on law enforcers. I don't mind protests, those are well in our right, but destroying other people's livelihoods and creating an unsafe environment for everyone? That's awful, and that's breaking the law, and that's going against what our Republic stands for. Hurting each other and causing problems just divides our nation, which is a shame. We should be united and be happy that the transferal of political power has taken place. Even if you do not agree with Trump's policies or behavior, the majority of the states have voted in his favor, and that's what matters in the 'United States'.

This goes for both sides of course, sorry if it sounds like I am only bashing on Anti-Trump protestors. Pro-Trump protestors have probably beaten up just as many innocent civilians, it's awful.

That's my opinion anyway :) Hope everything will settle down in the next couple of days, it's sad to see friends turn on each other based on their allegiance to a particular political party.

Vote recounts shouldn't be necessary. They certainly don't seem to be a thing anywhere else in the world despite everyone using the popular vote. If someone voted and it's registered, that's it, there shouldn't be a need to recount it.

If there is a need in the US, isn't this a point towards streamlining how voting is done in the US rather than a point against the popular vote? You yourself said it's already an issue.

Then again, the voting process itself is an entirely different can of worms that we could open, particularly how strange the whole voter ID endless debate is to most of us outside the US.

This is another argument I hear against discussion, the "You're a sore loser" argument, but say, when should the merits of the Electoral College come up for discussion if not precisely when it shows its ugly head by disagreeing with the popular vote?

But isn't that basically like the Electoral College system already? The election seems to be in the hands of a few swing states already that get most of the campaigns' attention, with very little energy being put into campaign in states that lean towards your party anyway, or ones that lean to the opponent. As for after being elected, X state needs a new bridge? That's a red/blue state, they'll never vote for me in reelection anyway, it's not worth it. I don't think that actually happens now, or at least I don't think I've heard of preference like that being shown, why would it be shown under a different system?

Please allow me to introduce you to Ulysses S. Grant.

Trump is right. It's not worth it to listen to loud vocal minority.
Workplaces, factories - that is what makes people happy. Not LGBT thing.
Europe can keep LGBT thing to herself. Maybe it will make it live well and in prosperity.

The loser usually will request a recount when the vote is really close in certain states, and when those states EC points can put them over 270. This process is really slow, and would only be made worse with the popular vote (since the entire vote count would need to be done again, and not on a state by state basis). It is the right of the losing party to request this... since sometimes votes are missed, etc. Sometimes a few thousands votes can be found. This margin would be a lot higher on popular vote obviously.

It's not that strange. You got to be an American citizen to vote, regardless of what Obama says on TV (still can't believe he did that). Most of people want voter id to reduce illegal voting by illegal aliens (except that left since they usually benefit the most from it), though I don't even think that would work honestly. Of course they will say this doesn't happen (at-least to a large degree), but it's unbelievably easy. It happens... they just don't want to admit it.

Well for one your going to have a larger spread in the EC. Trump said it himself, If the election was based on popular vote he would have focused on two states. NY and CA. In EC they got to focus on about 10 states. Then there is a chance that a state you expect to not ever flip, actually flips like PA or MI. This is what we call the rust belt states. Typically always Democrat, but Trump was able to flip them. So states you think don't have to be focused on isn't always true. As I said it's a game of chess.

It defiantly happens though... politicians are more willing to make promises and keep those promises in places they have a chance of losing. Not saying it's directly related to bridges or anything though.

Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba Group, Chinese billionaire, said that if USA invested 13 trillions dollars into American infrastructure, that they wasted on waging wars on Earth, they wouldn't have been talking about China "stealing theirs workplaces". Waged wars with no result. All USA's money is in Wall Street and in Silicon Valley, no jobs for simple Americans.

Trump said he sees mostly Mercedes Benz on 5th Avenue. And no American cars. Ding-ding, Germany.

To be honest, i don't understand why you're annoyed. You don't like that workplaces will return to USA? Or you're a pissed of gay? He is not going to put you to prison or to psychiatric ward for being gay. Calm down.

I could not agree more. The system did it's job perfectly. I don't care which side wins, you respect that system and you respect the peaceful transfer of power. You keep an open mind and you wait to see actions before condemning a President to failure. Trump may have different polices then those that came before him but the United States will continue to be as it has always been. We will endure and survive regardless of the outcome. So will the world. Good post.

These people rioting are only pushing people in the middle farther to the right and only making people agree when Trump says we need law and order. These people are proving his point for him.

Like I said, you shouldn't be losing "thousands of votes", this isn't a point against the popular vote because if there is a problem then it's already a problem right now and it needs to be fixed ASAP, popular vote or not, it shouldn't be tolerated just because it's not as bad as it could be.

Yes, it is extremely strange. Nowhere else in the world would you be allowed to vote without ID. In the US it's an issue because there's people who say they can't get IDs for one reason or another. The simple solution to appease both sides is the same most other countries in the world use it, an easily obtainable mandatory national ID that is garanteed everyone will have. Why the US doesn't have something like that is beyond me. The only explanation I can think of is all the anti-federal government "FEMA has imprisonment camps" nuts would throw a fit at the very idea.

At this point I still think we have to remember that you are indeed courting votes and not states, and that you're not the only one. Not everyone in a state is going to vote for the same person so just because you invest heavily doesn't mean the candidate would get all the votes in those populous states. It's not the winner takes all that happens with now with the state's Electoral College votes.

If you did invest so heavily on those states you would still have your opponent doing the same thing and splitting the vote. Suppose it falls down the middle in those states, or even 70/30 at worst, the election would still be swayed by the millions and millions of votes in the other 45 states that could go either way, or possibly just to the candidate that gave them the most attention.

In the end I think the popular vote makes for less complacent candidates and not more. It gives them an incentive to go to states they have a lead in, or have a history of winning in, and trying to convince even more voters, and it gives then an incentive to go the opponents states and trying to syphon off their votes. Under the EC system any vote you get beyond the 50%+1 needed doesn't matter, and any vote that you know won't ever amount to those 50%+1 also doesn't matter. In the popular vote every voter is valuable and worthy of being courted.

Let me put this bluntly...
When people are talking about the popular vote in conjunction with calling this past election illegitimate because of it, the idea they are "sore losers" becomes quite obvious. When they talk of changing these rules using this election as the example, I'm not sure how else one can fairly characterize it. When it comes to the numbers, I think I just explained why just adding all states together doesn't give reasonably accurate results. The campaigns would have campaigned differently. Voters in solid blue and red states probably would have voted in greater numbers. No idea who would have really won a popular vote but adding each state together doesn't prove a thing.

As to changing the rules, they can try. I think it takes 2/3 of all states to vote for the same plan to change the rules or a 3/4 majority because this plan is in our Constitution. Good luck trying. I think I remember reading that this issue of popular vote has been discussed 700 times in the last 200 years and they could not come to an acceptable compromise.

Addressing your other points. Heck, when I was in line to vote, there was a woman ahead of me holding two ballots. Apparently she messed up her first one and the poll workers gave her a replacement without taking her other one first (maybe so she could transfer her selections? I don't know. They almost didn't take the second ballot from her. She could have put it through the machine twice. It seemed to be handled correctly eventually, but this stuff happens. It's why there are recounts. Votes are sometimes miscounted. A poll worker writes 67 being a little dyslexic instead of 76. People vote on Provisional ballots but they had forgotten to register, or had moved and forgot to change their residence so could have voted twice in two different districts. Shit happens and every time there is a recount the vote pretty much always changes a little. Ask Al Frankin. And I don't want to get into the issues with hanging chads and butterfly ballots...

There are further complications. The USA is a republic of states. Each state is empowered to create their own rules for election. It's called states rights. Most states are going to object to losing the right to elect by their own standards. Making one Federal law on how an election needs to work...good luck getting enough states to agree. Same 2/3 3/4 to make such a change.

As to swing states. The country changes and every election is different. In 1964, a democrat won all but 6 states. In 1980, a Republican won all but 6 states including New York and California. What becomes a swing state in any given election cycle develops over each 4 years. There is no guarantee the same states will be the swing states next time depending on the candidates.

Besides, "swing states" is a media creation anyway. You are right, every election has a handful of swing states. Which states are they? Find all the states which are close between two candidates, add up the ones on either side, decide winning which states will probably win the election. Those are the swing states. They don't start as swing states, they become that after the election has gone on for a bit and the popularity of the two candidates and where solidifies. Even then, polls are often wrong. Wisconsin and Michigan weren't close enough for Trump to win according to the polls...there is a reason people actually vote and we don't rely on phone calls to a couple 1000 people at random...

I never would have thought that a gaming forum would be the place I would find such thought-provoking discussion on this particular issue. Although terms like 'democracy' and 'republic' have been used, I think the applicable term here is 'federation.' Throughout its history the U.S. national government has continued to expand its powers, but it was originally intended as a union that would protect the rights of the individual states which voluntarily joined it.

While I've gone back and forth on this subject myself, I generally feel that the Founding Fathers came up with the Electoral College as a solution to a difficult issue that still works today. But after centuries of the peaceful transfer of power here, I think it's disgusting that people are choosing to riot because they don't like the person who was lawfully elected. There were certainly a lot of people who weren't happy with the election of Obama, but they didn't riot in the streets. These butthurt babies need to either protest peacefully or else be shut down by any means necessary.