Why is electoral college type voting better?

As a uneducated European, I just need to ask.... Why is electoral college type voting better than just vote counting? Why is it better to let a few big states dictate the outcome and let some smaller states be irrelevant? Why is it better to let the candidate who had less votes become the winner? I'm am not trash talking, I'm just genuinely intrigued.

 

It isn't! It's simply a way of allowing manipulation. And it's only for the president. Actually, in extreme red or extreme blue states, a lot of the voters don't even have a vote because it's decided before they even vote who their state will give their 'winner take all' votes to.

This ridiculously over-rated country tries to pretend it's a Democracy when it's not. We even try to pretend we have three equal and separate branches when we don't.

But we are the most arrogant bunch of assholes in the world. Just see how the ugly Americans acts when we visit your countries. I can remember many times hearing uneducated, but well paid union workers, visiting countries I was in, down in South America, and hearing them criticize a local's English. I'd usually interrupt and say, "you know, they speak fluent Spanish so why don't you just speak Spanish to them?"

What this planet needs is a world government that's above all of the other governments. And a world military that is the most powerful! That way when we have spoiled brat dictators like Kim, Putin, Xi, Netanyahu, and of course the biggest brat baby of them all, Trump, the sane world leaders can put them in their places, back in their cribs.

 

America is such a large country there is a big cultural divide. Republicans like the electoral college because even though they are less of the total population they have many more small rural towns where they live compared to large Democratic voting cities. So they can argue they are the "real America" and that it's unfair to let large cities decide elections. Someplace like New York or Los Angeles can equal thousands of their small town's in population and they hate it.

Republican presidents like Trump rarely win 51% of the vote. So any Republican will not want to change the system.

Laws are changing though and you will find many Americans who want to change things especially after the election of Trump. Those voters get most of the attention in Europe but they are not most Americans.

 

A latent function of the electoral college is to discourage third parties, and some pundits consider that to be a good thing. It's hard for a third party to muster a majority in each state. Billionaire Ross Perot's Reform Party was able to achieve ballot access in 24 states, but failed to win any votes in the Electoral College, because his support was spread relatively evenly across the states. Segregationists George Wallace (American Independent Party, 1968 carried 5 states and won 45 electoral votes and Strom Thurman (States Rights Democrats) carried 4 states and won 39 electoral votes, because of their regional stronghold in the South. But it takes 270 votes to win a majority in the electoral college. Some pundits think discouraging third parties is a good thing because they think it promotes stability.

 

Yes... Things are quite stable right now, aren't they.

 

Actually Perot was on the ballots for all 50 states
Ross Perot - Wikipedia
. A June 1992 Gallup poll showed Perot leading a three-way race against President Bush and presumptive Democratic nominee Bill Clinton. Perot briefly withdrew from the race in July, but re-entered the race in early October after he qualified for all 50 state ballots.

If only he NEVER withdrew he had a legit chance and could have changed the course of EVERYTHING alas twas not , many people myself included thought that Trump would be like Perot unfortunately I was wrong

 

You have electorates as well, your elections aren't decided by the popular vote and as it's Europe it's likely the voters of your country don't choose your leader, a political party does

Tell me which country and I will tell you exactly

 

Calmer, thanks again for your message last week of "good luck to those in the US". Today may be the start of a return to sanity. But I'm concerned that the next 2 1/2 months, before this takes effect, while there's still time for mischief, will be risky. Hopefully not. Thanks again. (BTW, some of us here watch live-feeds of your parliamentary proceedings and can't figure out how all that shouting and yelling somehow works!)

 

The live parliament use to be used to air the political topics of the day and setting agenda's. Now it's just used to attack your rivals with (not so) veiled insults and underhand digs whilst appearing to be gentlemanly. It's so primitive and archaic.

 

Except that when it was written in the Constitution, the idea of us being a two party system was not something most of the founders wanted. Say we had something like ranked choice voting, that wouldn't effect the electoral college but would allow more parties to compete. The real issue is the winner take all nature that 48 states employ. If more states did like Maine and Nebraska and allocated proportionally, we could keep the function of the electoral college as a check against California controlling the destiny of Wyoming, yet also allow the minority party in a state to get some representation.

 

Republicans have not won the popular vote in several modern elections, but have won the electoral college vote, so don't expect them to want any change. Regardless of how voting takes place, you can count on them to cheat and make rules to help themselves. Or change rules if necessary. Honesty has nothing to do with how they conduct themselves.

 

I agree the real issue is the "winner take all" system. The Electoral College today doesn't function as intended. The Founding Fathers were suspicious of democracy and thought the electors would be a notch above the ordinary voter in education. Instead, they are party hacks.