Does your vote count?

The title says it all.

Does your vote count? "It is important to remember that the President is not chosen by a nation-wide popular vote. The electoral vote totals determine the winner..." The people of the United States do NOT directly choose who they want to be president, they do so indirectly.

The answer is yes and no.

"It is important to remember that the President is not chosen by a nation-wide popular vote. The electoral vote totals determine the winner..."

Why the answer is yes...

After you submit your vote, it’s added to the running tally for your state. Once all the polls are counted for your state, the total is submitted. Either the majority voted for Democrat or they voted for Republican.

Then the Electoral College will submit that your state voted for whichever party got the majority. If you voted with the majority then congratulations! Your vote counted. If you voted with the minority, your vote has been forgotten due to a "winner takes all" law in 48 states.

 

Why the answer is no...

There have been 4 times that the majority of the citizens of the US voted for someone other than who the Electoral college voted for. The last time was in 2000 when the people of the United States voted for Al Gore and got George Bush instead. This is a rare thing, but it does happen and maybe now that it’s happened in our time, people will stand up and take note.

 

What is the Electorial College?

Put someone what simply, our founding fathers wanted to make sure that every state in the union had equal representation for their population. That is why the House of Representatives is based on state population, and the Senate has 2 representative for each state. The number of people in your states Electoral College is equal to that number.

Another way to put it is that for the Presidential elections, you have a second House of Representatives and Senate in office for a day or two. The only reason for this is because the founding fathers wanted it that way. This dates back to the time when the states were new and arguing amongst themselves a lot, threatening to break away from the new Union if they didn’t feel that they were being treated fairly.

Now a days, it seems to be more of a waste of time, energy, and taxpayers money. If we MUST have a group that is elected to represent us, why not just leave it as the House and Senate. They already are elected to represent us! There’s no need to reelect anyone for this one task every 4 years.

Something though, that we must all keep in mind is,

The interesting thing is this...if the majority of the population votes for a Democrat, that Democrat will take office. However, on occasion the majority will vote for that Democrat and get the Republican. So, if the majority decides what the Electoral votes for, and on occasion the Electoral accidently goes against what the majority votes for, sounds like there’s a flaw with the Electoral and we need to get rid of it.

 

Getting rid of the Electoral College

"Public opinion polls have shown Americans favoring abolishing it by majorities of 58 percent in 1967; 81 percent in 1968; and 75 percent in 1981."

Sounds like we’re overdue for another opinion poll, especially after the 2000 election. I’m all for getting rid of the Electoral College. I would like to have some personal say in which President is elected, wouldn’t you?

In the 2000 election 540,520 United States Citizens voices were not heard, and George Bush became president. Five-hundred and forty thousand!!! If it was only one-thousand I could understand, but instead it was 540,520!

If the majority vote works all the time and the electoral only most of the time, we need to back off to what always works. That’s all there is to it.

 

 

 

 

http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/faq.html#popularelectoral

Reviews

[Chad Wesley Allbrett]

Yep, I totally agree. The Electoral College is an antiquated cow, that need culled, and sent down to market.

[Glenn]

A shame that most people do not know this. I try telling people this all the time and they are in disbelief. I mean it is taught in civics. And it is a scary thought of how this government can so easily become a rogue government. If it so chooses to completely ignore its citizens. I would definately back the abolishment of the electoral college but more than that I would also allow more people into the run for president. We usually end up with a two person vote because we have a two party system but I say there should be a far wider scope of candidates. Who should not be eliminated from the race.

[Nicole (Carpe Diem)]

informative -- you showed the facts -- nicely done