Donald Trump Secures Electoral College Win, With Few Surprises | Hacker News Reader

Donald Trump Secures Electoral College Win, With Few Surprises

npr.org

The electoral college needs to go. It's broken and this just cements it in my mind. Why have a popular vote if the majority winner doesn't determine the outcome? Why have the electoral college if they can't vote their conscience?

>Why have a popular vote if the majority winner doesn't determine the outcome?

Except you dont have one. The popular vote in US elections is nothing but a meaningless statistic. Nobody in their right mind would compaign pretending its all about the popular vote when it really is about EC votes.

Plus, since it is about EC votes, republicans in California would never even bother to go vote cause it would never change the outcome that California will be blue while democrats do likewise in Texas.

If you want to take the popular vote into account, you need to make the election alla bout the popular vote before election season starts. You can't keep the existing system and then critize the result when it doesn't fit your wanted outcome.

> They can't vote their conscience.

Surprisingly, four electors for Hillary didn't show up, and another four didn't vote for her. So in addition to the two that didn't vote for Trump, it looks like they might vote their conscience indeed.

EDIT: Oh, I see, the votes for Powell were an attempt to move Rep. electors off Trump. Makes more sense to me now.

Why would a person think Powell would be seen as an alternative for a Republican. He burned his bridges. Strange thing is he could have ran and won at least the nomination before.

We don't have a popular vote. We have a state vote.

I find it odd that you don't think the people voting for Trump (or for that matter Clinton) were voting their conscience.

Anyone got the story on what was going on in Washington? Those are some odd votes.

If someone does try to influence electors in the future, the whole threats of violence didn't work, and personal appeals should know the sex of the elector before making the video.

Robert Satiacum had long pledged not to vote for Hillary (even before the election).

Chiafalo had said tentatively that he would consider doing the same thing, but then the election happened, and he had a public tantrum and suddenly decided he would get electors to switch to Clinton. Then his plot failed and he tried something else.

Since our next President had already clinched the votes, the other electors decided to make a statement.

> ... the whole threats of violence didn't work...

Good. That's not how politics is supposed to work here.

> ... and personal appeals should know the sex of the elector before making the video.

In other words, that didn't work either. Also good.

Whether the result is good... we'll see. But at least we're not doing politics by violence yet.

I too am happy threats and personal appeals didn't work. An elector needs to represent the rules of the election for their state absolutely. Some states give discretion and some don't.

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