2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumI don't believe it will happen, but let's be hypothetical here.
Hillary will probably receive a minimum of 10 million more votes than Trump and still lose.
It's another reason to get rid of the electoral college. It's not democratic and it's obsolete.
Who disagrees with me?
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yourpaljoey
(2,166 posts)JRLeft
(7,010 posts)
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)results before the conventions. It's the worst time to be influenced by them.
Cal33
(7,018 posts)Last edited Wed Jul 13, 2016, 06:26 PM - Edit history (1)
use their myriad ways of cheating during the elections. They always have. Can they
be stopped? I doubt it. And there are more Republican Governors than Democratic
ones. I hope 2016 will not be a repetition of the Bush-Gore affair of 2000, when
Gore actually won, but still lost, because of crooked means.
What can Democrats do to prevent it from happening again?
JRLeft
(7,010 posts)I wouldn't rule out 20 million more votes than him.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,710 posts)Even in 00 Gore won by .05% and 500,000 votes
We should do away with the EC though.
JRLeft
(7,010 posts)
TwilightZone
(25,456 posts)Based on what? If something isn't possible, it's not "long overdue". It's impossible.
JRLeft
(7,010 posts)KMOD
(7,906 posts)The Democratic candidate starts with a big lead going in.
Prediction markets have her winning the electoral college, none so far show Trump winning.
http://www.270towin.com/2016-election-forecast-predictions/
Chan790
(20,176 posts)Ignoring the myriad reasons why abandoning the EC is the most idiotic and anti-Democratic idea imaginable. Ignoring that there is a minimum correctable MoE in direct elections and that means in the closest races we will never know who actually won. (As an example, no matter how many recounts are done, there is factually no way to know who won Florida in 2000. The best we can have is a best guess. There'd have been no way to know the national popular vote...generally this MoE is ~2.5%)
Ignoring that...there is a concept called structural defeat. It means that it is possible for the situation on the ground to become such that no matter how the popular votes goes that there is no path to victory for one party or candidate because of the rules of the system. They start the election season with no discernible path to victory, no combination of swing states that will get them there and have to hope the party with the structural advantage literally throws away the election.
Generally it's a strong assumption that a party subjected to sustained structural defeat over several Presidential terms is dead...literally dead and on the verge of ceasing to exist entirely. Certainly there is no path back without repudiation of their core-ideology and co-opting large portions of the dominant party's ideology...basically conceding the issues that have put them there. Imagine a GOP that had to concede fully to Democrats on gun-control, abortion, civil rights, marriage equality, "moral issues", worker protections and the social safety-net...why would we not want that? Why would we throw it away?
Because...that's where we are. If they can't win the Presidency, they will inevitably recede from power in Congress too...and it's downhill for them from there running towards oblivion. The name may survive but this GOP will not.
In every election since 2004 through the present the margin has shifted towards the Democrats on that front and if we can win in 2016 and 2020, it's likely the end of the Reagan revolution and the end of movement conservatism. The means would be at-hand for us to roll back every bad thing the GOP has done over the last 40 years and to define the political spectrum. Their ideas would be dead and expelled from the viable mainstream on social issues. If Gore had won Florida in 2000, we'd probably already be in a post-Reagan America.
Jerry442
(1,265 posts)...as engineers would say. Some people will come to the polls and pick a candidate based on hairstyle or their horoscope. The reality in a very close election (assuming it wasn't stolen) is that it's a statistical tie. We count votes minutely to break the tie -- not to ascertain who the theologically correct winner is. It's not a bad system usually, but in 2000 in particular, it shone a spotlight on how sloppily we do elections. We should do elections well, not because we always want to pick the true and perfect winner in a very close election -- ain't no such thing -- but because we all want a process where we can agree that the result is as legitimate as we can make it. The game is over. One side won. One side lost. Time to move on.
As you recall, didn't quite work that way in 2000.
Cal33
(7,018 posts)any shape or form. Would the Electoral College become superfluous then?
And how about the other democratic nations, do they all have ECs or
their equivalents? Would the difference between voting for individuals or
for parties become less"?
And isn't a "post-Reagan America" what most Democrats are hoping for?
whatthehey
(3,660 posts)Your scenario is wildly implausible to begin with. It's theoretically possible yes but EC math favors Dems right now not the other way around.
THE EC as a practical need is obsolete but the political need is still realistic and necessary. We are a republic of several states; our government is set up that way, to ensure high population states do not marginalize lower pop ones. It's why the Senate has 2 seats per state of any size, and it's why we elect Presidents in a way that gives more relative influence to those smaller states. In a pure mass election candidates wouldn't give two shits about anybody In the middle or south of the country outside a handful of megacities like Atlanta or Houston.
merrily
(45,251 posts)The last substantive amendment to the Constitution of the United States over which there was any controversy at all was adopted during the Eisenhower administration, when people were in a relatively unified mood post World War II. It's not going to happen in this partisan atmosphere, when Americans have not even been able to be sane enough to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment.
Republicans love the electoral college and will never even let this out of Congress and, if, by some miracle, it did get out of Congress, it won't be ratified, much as the Equal Rights Amendment did not get ratified. A Constitutional convention opens up the entire Constitution, which is far too dangerous, given that some Americans seem to be batnuts when it comes to political matters.
There is also that attempt to change state law to require the state's electors to cast their votes in accordance with the popular vote. Red states are not adopting that either.
The only realistic solution is to get more votes in swing and red states.
Ya say ya wanna revolution? VOTE and GOTV http://www.democraticunderground.com/127711022
It's about numbers of votes and how to get them. http://www.democraticunderground.com/127711022
Let's talk polls (Americans are liberal.) http://www.democraticunderground.com/12777036
Orsino
(37,428 posts)NorthCarolina
(11,197 posts)MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)
Squinch
(50,935 posts)polls that favor Clinton.
On DU.
Interesting.
JRLeft
(7,010 posts)are an example why we don't need the EC.
Festivito
(13,452 posts)I like that last check in the process. I wish further that those persons from Florida in 2000 had some smarts and some dignity about the whole thing. But, that's over except for the learning.
Vote totals can be fixed in certain states. We saw that in Ohio where the numbers suddenly changed in otherwise small Republican run areas giving just enough of a change that an election would be determined in their favor. Bad enough. But, imagine that multiplied country wide. Instead of hundreds of places like that spot in Ohio, we have one and we know their names and so do their families.
It does mean that we concentrate on a few states during campaigning instead of all 50. And, although, I am a 50-state guy -- that we should fight the Republican 50-state strategy where they use easily bought down-rightly treasonous media outlets --I think we should run ads debunking their stuff anyway in all 50 states. We will always have sell-outs joining our ranks to disrupt our process to their gain regardless of the existence of an electoral college.
clarice
(5,504 posts)TwilightZone
(25,456 posts)And Trump is behind where Romney was with nearly every demographic.
No idea what the basis for your claim is, but it seems to have little basis in reality.
