Original post on old forums
Did you know that last night an alarming number of people's votes didn't count for anything? No don't worry they wouldn't have changed the outcome of the election. No not even because it was 50,202,473 votes that didn't count. It doesn't even matter that it was a full 43.96% of all votes cast last night, it still wouldn't have changed the election outcome…. this year.
With the electorial college system that we use any vote that is cast for a person that doesn't have the majority in that state is a wasted vote. The two major parties are always quick to talk about how voting for a third party canidate is a wasted vote, but they never bother to talk about it for them. If you voted Democrate in kentucky, did you really think your vote would matter? If you voted Republican in California did you really think your vote would matter? Most of the 50 states are so locked in with what they end up that the canidates don't even bother to run ads in them, let alone actually show up in them. Your vote matters…. well as long as you live in one of the “swing states” or maybe you vote with the dominate party in your state.
I pulled down the stats for voter turn out that they had this morning and did a little totaling. The results are here.
If you want to know the states names just put them in alphabetical order down the side. We are out building democracies for other countries and they aren't bothering to do this dumb electorial college thing. Why are we?
The electorial college system was originally designed because the founding fathers didn't think the average people were smart enough to pick a president. So instead they voted for a party and then the electors for that party got together and picked a president. In a way, I guess, they are still right. We don't really have enough information to pick the people that are running, but we don't really pick them anyway. The members of their party do and then just give us system where it looks like we get to pick them.