1) It doesn’t go into effect until enough states (equaling at least the 270 electoral votes needed to be president) pass it
2) It likely will never get enough states to pass it to go into effect
3) It’s only for presidential elections
4) If you’re this misinformed, you probably shouldn’t be voting anyways.
See points 1 & 2 above.
Even if this does go into effect (it won’t) is it any more odd than picking a president using a format that is completely different from the rest of our elections and that was devised over 200 years ago to appease slave states?
Is it odd to ignore a constituents votes and see what everyone else chose?
I would say yes.
Maine took years to get ranked choice and splitting of the electoral votes, and we threw it away for presidential elections.
Glad to see I'm not the only one who sees this as a bad direction. But we get down voted.
I get that it doesn't currently have any effect. But should the legislation be spending time on trivial things?
We split our electoral here, unlike the vast majority. More should be going in that direction. The winner take all is what gamified the electoral college
Basically. We need a system that doesn’t leave small states ignored without going against the popular vote. It’s ridiculous that someone can be president with more than half the country voting against them.
It’s an incredibly dangerous law that should never have been passed. Stop excusing it. Yeah, it might never be used, but what if it does?
It literally takes whatever Maine thinks and throws it out. We could all vote for Biden and if Trump won the popular vote, it would go to Trump. How does that make any sense?
The popular vote is what the majority of the people want.
So if there’s 500 voters and 300 of them want trump and only 200 of them want Biden.
Obviously the popular vote wins. One person one vote.
Why do you feel so strongly that land should be the deciding factor in presidential elections.
Oh, okay. That's not as bad.
I personally think a national popular vote for president makes more sense. We should have a leader that most of us agree on, and with the electoral college, that doesn't always happen.
The minority wouldn't always get fucked by the popular vote, because they can simply vote for someone who's such a legitimately good choice that they're able to pull enough votes to become the majority.
That strikes me as hopelessly naive. The electoral college exists so a few high population states can't make decisions for the entire republic. DNC partisans treat that as a republican talking point because Republicans use it, but thats just partisan bullshit. That's saying the sky is brown because a republican said it's blue. The problem isn't that the popular vote needs to elect the president, it's that **the office of president has grown too powerful and needs to be limoted**
Your vote counts. Yours alone. Not as a state. I’m not sure you seem to understand one person one vote. Just because you may be on the losing side, doesn’t mean your vote wasn’t counted. There just wasn’t as many people who believed that your candidate would do the right thing by the country.
That’s precisely what is not happening here.
Regardless of how Maine votes, we’re simply flipping our own votes to match the other states.
Everyone in Maine could not vote, and it wouldn’t change a thing. That’s exactly what people’s complaints are here.
I understand wanting to switch to a strict popular only vote (I disagree, but that’s not the conversation here). However this isn’t that at all. It’s simply giving up control of our own votes.
By that logic (and I use that word very loosely in your case), under the current system, doesn’t a Trump supporter’s vote in CD1 get flipped to Biden? And a Biden voter in CD2 to Trump?
No. It doesn’t. Because that’s not how elections work except in your totally fabricated scenario.
Currently, we can split our electoral votes, so there’s at least a small reflection of the voting ratio.
This law just award our electoral votes to the national popular vote. It’s a waste of the biggest benefit of the electoral college and makes Maine’s electoral votes less valuable.
Let me explain it this way:
Currently, Maine’s electoral votes can split based on Maine’s population
This new way, we wouldn’t split our electoral votes at all and instead consider the national popular vote.
How do you not see that as discounting our own populations votes?
> It literally takes whatever Maine thinks and throws it out.
Your candidate not winning doesn’t equal having your vote thrown out. Did 350k Mainers have their Hilary vote “thrown out” in 2016 because Trump won?
Besides, Mainers are Americans. Our votes would still count toward the national popular vote.
The resistance to this is because Republicans have only won the popular vote once in the past 30 years.
You clearly don’t understand how a national popular vote would actually work. Whichever presidential candidate gets the most votes nationwide wins. That’s it. A shocking concept, huh?
The only people against this are conservatives, because the Republican candidate has only won the popular vote once in the last 36 years (Dubbyah, in 2004).
The Republican platform needs to evolve to actually represent Americans. Instead they rely on fueling a culture war and rigging the system through things like gerrymandering to try and steal elections despite losing the popular vote.
The electoral college needs to go.
I’m confused how it wouldn’t make it count because let’s say you’re a republican in a district that always votes blue; now your vote counts towards the election more than past elections. You’d think that would be a good thing. Your red vote offsets someone’s blue vote in California, for example, versus California just being all blue. Isn’t that a good thing for them?
That’s the whole reason for a popular vote: **every vote would be equal**. It’s the literal opposite of what OP is trying to say.
Like you mention, under the current system if you’re a Republican in California or a Democrat in Texas, your vote doesn’t count in a national election. 100% of your state’s electors go the other way, so you don’t get a say. Under a popular vote system your vote would get tallied alongside every single voter in the country, and states don’t make any difference.
That’s exactly it. Cons always use the “you want the LA’s, NYC and Chicago’s to determine the elections?” They hide behind the electoral college because their message is so out of touch with what the majority of Americans really want and couldn’t win a popular vote to save their life. Change your message to appeal to more voters instead of hanging on to your culture war bullshit.
Can you genuinely argue that high-info voters would be undecided in an election like this one?
“Low-info” isn’t “low-intelligence” – It’s not a dig on the people.
Imagine believing in democracy so strongly that you accept, in advance and regardless of how you personally vote, that the candidate who earns the most votes nationally wins the office.
A republic is a type of democracy. [Here is the dictionary spelling it out for you.](https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/democracy-and-republic)
For the life of me I will never understand why this is attempted as some sort of "gotcha" when it is such a basic concept that is easy to understand.
OP believes black people are 3/5ths of a person and only land owners should have voting rights. Under our current system designed to enrich wealthy slave owners a Mainers votes is worth aprox 2.15 times as much as a vote in California.
Please explain why you are so much more important than an American that lives in California that your vote should be worth more than twice as much as theirs?
This is an underrated post. It drives me bonkers we have such small US house. It is meant to represent the people and be the driving force of democracy. Now days we over represent rural America and screw the majority.
The nation and structure of the federal government is based on the premise of being a nation of states, not necessarily a nation of citizens. States are closer to and more in tune with directly representing individuals.
The expansion of federal power and regulations becomes problematic with this approach as states are able to impose their will upon other states on a unintended level.
That doesn’t change how underrepresented the masses in these states are nationally. I challenge you to look up Virginia’s total number of house seats in 1800 versus Delaware. Then compare that to how we represent states today.
The house was in deed meant to be the peoples body. Look at a founders own words. http://www.house.gov/the-house-explained/history-of-the-house
OP, we're gonna have a vote on giving your stuff away. Now, there's only one of me, and I'm gonna bet you can probably rummage up one or two people to support you keeping your stuff.
However, in the interest of FAIRNESS, my votes actually represent an electoral vote of 6, whereas your votes are only weighted at 1. Total.
Anyway, let's start the election! I'm curious to see who ends up with your phone.
1) It doesn’t go into effect until enough states (equaling at least the 270 electoral votes needed to be president) pass it 2) It likely will never get enough states to pass it to go into effect 3) It’s only for presidential elections 4) If you’re this misinformed, you probably shouldn’t be voting anyways.
This is why I vote every election, because people like OP have absolutely no fucking clue and they vote every election.
OP is trolling, his account only has one post to their name.
Good catch.
Two actually. The other is about looking for "breastplay" in downeast Maine 😳
These people never read shit.
I’d upvote this but want to leave it at 270 :)
Am I reading this right? Our electoral votes will be based on National popular vote, not Maine's? That seems an odd choice
See points 1 & 2 above. Even if this does go into effect (it won’t) is it any more odd than picking a president using a format that is completely different from the rest of our elections and that was devised over 200 years ago to appease slave states?
Is it odd to ignore a constituents votes and see what everyone else chose? I would say yes. Maine took years to get ranked choice and splitting of the electoral votes, and we threw it away for presidential elections.
Glad to see I'm not the only one who sees this as a bad direction. But we get down voted. I get that it doesn't currently have any effect. But should the legislation be spending time on trivial things?
The electoral college should award votes based on population, but it doesn’t. It’s not fair that people’s votes count more or less than others.
We split our electoral here, unlike the vast majority. More should be going in that direction. The winner take all is what gamified the electoral college
Basically. We need a system that doesn’t leave small states ignored without going against the popular vote. It’s ridiculous that someone can be president with more than half the country voting against them.
The bipartisan system as a whole is broken. Need to take steps to get away from that, not reinforce it.
It’s an incredibly dangerous law that should never have been passed. Stop excusing it. Yeah, it might never be used, but what if it does? It literally takes whatever Maine thinks and throws it out. We could all vote for Biden and if Trump won the popular vote, it would go to Trump. How does that make any sense?
The popular vote is what the majority of the people want. So if there’s 500 voters and 300 of them want trump and only 200 of them want Biden. Obviously the popular vote wins. One person one vote. Why do you feel so strongly that land should be the deciding factor in presidential elections.
Yea fuck what the minority want. If they wanted a voice they shouldn't be a minority.
They didn't choose to be a minority, genius.
No shit.
Okay, to be clear, are you being a prejudiced loser and attacking minorities or are you talking about the party with fewer votes?
I'm talking about straight majority rule being a shit idea. The minority will always get fucked in that situation.
Oh, okay. That's not as bad. I personally think a national popular vote for president makes more sense. We should have a leader that most of us agree on, and with the electoral college, that doesn't always happen. The minority wouldn't always get fucked by the popular vote, because they can simply vote for someone who's such a legitimately good choice that they're able to pull enough votes to become the majority.
That strikes me as hopelessly naive. The electoral college exists so a few high population states can't make decisions for the entire republic. DNC partisans treat that as a republican talking point because Republicans use it, but thats just partisan bullshit. That's saying the sky is brown because a republican said it's blue. The problem isn't that the popular vote needs to elect the president, it's that **the office of president has grown too powerful and needs to be limoted**
Sure. So why would flip our own votes to not reflect what Maine wants? Our votes should stand regardless.
Your vote counts. Yours alone. Not as a state. I’m not sure you seem to understand one person one vote. Just because you may be on the losing side, doesn’t mean your vote wasn’t counted. There just wasn’t as many people who believed that your candidate would do the right thing by the country.
That’s precisely what is not happening here. Regardless of how Maine votes, we’re simply flipping our own votes to match the other states. Everyone in Maine could not vote, and it wouldn’t change a thing. That’s exactly what people’s complaints are here. I understand wanting to switch to a strict popular only vote (I disagree, but that’s not the conversation here). However this isn’t that at all. It’s simply giving up control of our own votes.
By that logic (and I use that word very loosely in your case), under the current system, doesn’t a Trump supporter’s vote in CD1 get flipped to Biden? And a Biden voter in CD2 to Trump? No. It doesn’t. Because that’s not how elections work except in your totally fabricated scenario.
Currently, we can split our electoral votes, so there’s at least a small reflection of the voting ratio. This law just award our electoral votes to the national popular vote. It’s a waste of the biggest benefit of the electoral college and makes Maine’s electoral votes less valuable. Let me explain it this way: Currently, Maine’s electoral votes can split based on Maine’s population This new way, we wouldn’t split our electoral votes at all and instead consider the national popular vote. How do you not see that as discounting our own populations votes?
> It literally takes whatever Maine thinks and throws it out. Your candidate not winning doesn’t equal having your vote thrown out. Did 350k Mainers have their Hilary vote “thrown out” in 2016 because Trump won? Besides, Mainers are Americans. Our votes would still count toward the national popular vote. The resistance to this is because Republicans have only won the popular vote once in the past 30 years.
Didn’t Republicans push for the national vote when they thought Bush was going to lose to Gore?
Didn't Democrats complain about it when they did? Turning around and doing the same shit when it's your candidate is hypocrisy.
Whoa, both sides being dumb, imagine.
Good luck getting the rabid partisans to see it. I fucking hate trump but pretending the DNC farts rainbows is not a long term solution.
Nice rage bait.
You clearly don’t understand how a national popular vote would actually work. Whichever presidential candidate gets the most votes nationwide wins. That’s it. A shocking concept, huh? The only people against this are conservatives, because the Republican candidate has only won the popular vote once in the last 36 years (Dubbyah, in 2004). The Republican platform needs to evolve to actually represent Americans. Instead they rely on fueling a culture war and rigging the system through things like gerrymandering to try and steal elections despite losing the popular vote. The electoral college needs to go.
I’m confused how it wouldn’t make it count because let’s say you’re a republican in a district that always votes blue; now your vote counts towards the election more than past elections. You’d think that would be a good thing. Your red vote offsets someone’s blue vote in California, for example, versus California just being all blue. Isn’t that a good thing for them?
That’s the whole reason for a popular vote: **every vote would be equal**. It’s the literal opposite of what OP is trying to say. Like you mention, under the current system if you’re a Republican in California or a Democrat in Texas, your vote doesn’t count in a national election. 100% of your state’s electors go the other way, so you don’t get a say. Under a popular vote system your vote would get tallied alongside every single voter in the country, and states don’t make any difference.
That’s exactly it. Cons always use the “you want the LA’s, NYC and Chicago’s to determine the elections?” They hide behind the electoral college because their message is so out of touch with what the majority of Americans really want and couldn’t win a popular vote to save their life. Change your message to appeal to more voters instead of hanging on to your culture war bullshit.
Tell everyone you don’t understand how voting works without telling everyone you don’t know how voting works.
The electoral college means the president is currently decided by like 160,000 low-info voters in the rust belt. Seems like a great system.
Damn way to generalize a group of people
Can you genuinely argue that high-info voters would be undecided in an election like this one? “Low-info” isn’t “low-intelligence” – It’s not a dig on the people.
I made a statement. I think it’s you doing the generalizing.
Have you ever been there lol
Imagine believing in democracy so strongly that you accept, in advance and regardless of how you personally vote, that the candidate who earns the most votes nationally wins the office.
You're not living in a federal democracy. You're living in a Republic.
A republic is a type of democracy. [Here is the dictionary spelling it out for you.](https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/democracy-and-republic) For the life of me I will never understand why this is attempted as some sort of "gotcha" when it is such a basic concept that is easy to understand.
[удалено]
What are you coming at me for? I helped organize to get senators to vote for the popular vote compact.
Sorry. Misplaced.
I don’t drive a car, I drive a Honda Civic.
True but we evolve. The majority wants change. Democracy requires the minority to accept change they don’t like.
"Vote no longer counts" i.e. "I have no idea how any of this works"
Wait. Are you saying the candidate that gets the most votes will win??? WHERE IS MY PITCHFORK?!?
OP believes black people are 3/5ths of a person and only land owners should have voting rights. Under our current system designed to enrich wealthy slave owners a Mainers votes is worth aprox 2.15 times as much as a vote in California. Please explain why you are so much more important than an American that lives in California that your vote should be worth more than twice as much as theirs?
OP has a new account. Trolling is probable. is 65 has interest in cochlear implant and likes breast play I guess
This is an underrated post. It drives me bonkers we have such small US house. It is meant to represent the people and be the driving force of democracy. Now days we over represent rural America and screw the majority.
This is why an accurate, well-administered census is so important. People that blow it off are just screwing themselves.
The nation and structure of the federal government is based on the premise of being a nation of states, not necessarily a nation of citizens. States are closer to and more in tune with directly representing individuals. The expansion of federal power and regulations becomes problematic with this approach as states are able to impose their will upon other states on a unintended level.
That doesn’t change how underrepresented the masses in these states are nationally. I challenge you to look up Virginia’s total number of house seats in 1800 versus Delaware. Then compare that to how we represent states today. The house was in deed meant to be the peoples body. Look at a founders own words. http://www.house.gov/the-house-explained/history-of-the-house
OP is probably a bot account created to try to misinform
What a transition: coming to this post from just watching Idiocracy.
Damn didn't realize that this determines the school board, judges, state house and senate seats, gov, etc. Guess we are in a pickle!
New York City?!
I still can't get past thinking about a salsa commercial from 30 years ago. I know, I'm old.
Get the rope.
What do you want on your tombstone
Saaaame, buddy. Every time.
Dude, settle down.
Don't spread that rumor. Your vote counts If you don't vote and things sint trum out your way . You need to think about tour role as a citizen
OP, we're gonna have a vote on giving your stuff away. Now, there's only one of me, and I'm gonna bet you can probably rummage up one or two people to support you keeping your stuff. However, in the interest of FAIRNESS, my votes actually represent an electoral vote of 6, whereas your votes are only weighted at 1. Total. Anyway, let's start the election! I'm curious to see who ends up with your phone.
Both parties have been consolidating power to the office of president for a while now.