You are missing the point, and have been ever since after the election:
The aggregated vote totals across all 50 states and the District of Columbia are irrelevant. Yet you (and others) point to them as if they do have some relevance. Which they don’t. And then you get all upset when people use metaphors and similes to show why they aren’t relevant. If you don’t want to be argued with on this topic, don’t keep bringing up irrelevant statistics in discussion of the presidential election.
Do you know what the word analogy means?
No, the President does not “represent” everyone. He’s not a “representative.” He/she is the head of the administrative branch of the federal government, the person who runs how our money is spent, tells our military what to do, and talks to the leaders of foreign nations. He is most decidedly NOT the representative of the people; the framers of the Constitution considered that idea and rejected it soundly. And he is not chosen “by the people”; he is chosen by the states, who collect electors who vote for who should be this presiding officer of the administration. The fact that the states have generally decided since the mid-1800s to allow their voters to make this choice for them doesn’t change the basic premise of who/what the President is.
Which is why the statistic you refer to is irrelevant (note, I don’t say “meaningless”).
ETA: I do wonder sometimes if people ever really get a good course in civics any more, not to mention a good understanding of American constitutional history.
Yeah, the “popular vote” is meaningless in terms of presidential elections. Like someone else said-- to make references to American football-- the aim of the game isn’t to put up more yards than your opponent, but to score more points them your opponent. And Trump scored more points. No one thinks “Team A” should have won because they outgained their opponent by 200 yards yet scored 20 less points than “Team B”.
Complaining about that when both parties went in knowing the rules reeks of being a sore loser.
But the reality in the 21st century is that, for better or worse, Presidential decisions do have a direct impact on people’s lives, regardless of what the founding fathers intended.
We need to recognize that reality and stop giving people in some states more political power simply because where they live is sparsely populated.
We should stop this hijack now. I keep doing this and I apologize for that. This thread is for discussing the hopeless attempt at a Florida recount.
From post #1
http://www.salon.com/2016/12/01/skip…-donald-trump/
Yes, throwing the election into the hands of the Republican led Congress which already has rules about what to do in the case of neither party obtaining the necessary 270 electoral votes, but first it will have to be fast tracked by the Supreme Court and they will surely see this as a bribe or some legal term like that making the votes not count for either side.
If this happens all hell is going to break loose … do you think for one minute that Donald Trump and half of the voters (minus two million or so voters) of the USA are going to stand for this?
I am sure a bunch of Democratic electors are going to be able to “sway” 37 Republican electors…
So far I am not aware of any Republican electors whatsoever “swayed”. One resigned, and will be replaced.
The “Hamilton Electors” sounds like just as much of a money-grabbing scheme as Jill Stein’s recounts. I wonder if they’ll each pay themselves a generous salary out of the funds raised, you know, just to cover their expenses while they’re so hard at work “swaying” Republican electors.
They’re highly relevant if you want to know what the majority (or plurality) of US voting citizens would prefer to elect to a national office.
They evidently don’t.
My point regarding creepiness refers more to those calling for the electors to disallow the winner and select someone the petitioners prefer — or in some far-gone cases ‘Anyone but Trump’, be it Pence, Romney, Cruz or Rubio. *
Seeing as how all these old creeps will be so much better for the poor and liberal.
Cruz and Rubio are 45 yrs old. What age are you?
He wasn’t the choice of the people. Hillary got the majority of the votes.
But the adding up all of the votes across the US is irrelevant. It’s no more a measure of the “choice of the people” than a restaurant with the highest Yelp rating being the best restaurant in town.
Both candidates campaigned based upon the election rules as laid out. Are you going to suggest that campaigning doesn’t matter? If the election rules had been determined to be majority of the popular vote across all states, then the campaigning would have been drastically different. We don’t know what the outcome would have been.
But you can’t have it both ways. If the popular vote isn’t what chooses the President then you can’t say he’s the choice of the people. He’s the choice of the states or the electoral college or whatever.
I never called him the choice of the people, hell I didn’t even vote for him.
For the complete junkies, here is the WI recount spreadsheet for 2 days:
I see the largest difference in fully recounted precincts of 4 votes or so.
But it is interesting that most (I think) recounted precincts show some small counting errors - who knows if it is in the original count or in the re-count. Shows that the error rate in counting votes (and this applies both to hand-counts and machine-counts) is way higher than just one vote.
Then you shouldn’t have jumped in the middle of two people discussing exactly that.
About that recount spreadsheet I posted - one thing that bothers me a bit… In a lot of precincts the recount total votes do not match the original total. I understand that during the election process, the total number of voters is also marked off in the registration books (at least that is how it was at my voting place).
Granted, the mismatch is in low single digits, but shouldn’t those match the counting total on the election night, and if not, should they not count again until they do?