11-16-2016, 03:21 PM
(11-15-2016, 01:48 PM)username Wrote: With all the ways and means we have of voting, plus tv's in most every home etc., I don't think the rural areas need be under represented unless they just don't get off their fat asses to vote (so they don't deserve a vote as far as I'm concerned). Fuck them. I heard last night that roughly 45+% of the population didn't vote. I think the electoral college "fixes" that for them but it's inherently unfair. Majority ought to rule IMO.
How do you really feel, French Fry?
Almost half of all eligible voters in every part of the country, rural and urban, don't get off their fat asses to vote. We rank 31 out of 35 countries in terms of percentage of people who vote in popular elections.
Still, it's looking like more people voted in 2016 than ever before and Hillary Clinton may well become the candidate who earned the most popular votes in our country's history (according to the latest estimates with almost all the ballots now counted). Part of that is due to the fact that the voter-age population has grown and she got more of the younger vote than Trump. In any case, I think it's great because it can serve as a popular check/balance to full GOP control of all branches of government.
I subscribe to the Wall Street Journal and they've got a great interactive map that shows the vote counts and percentages for each county across the country if you're interested in checking it out.
Ref: http://www.wsj.com/graphics/elections/20...-they-won/
Related stats: http://graphics.wsj.com/elections/2016/results/
Anyway, I think I agree with you that the compromise solution -- states continuing to get a certain number of electoral votes, which would be awarded to the candidates according to the percentage of votes cast, instead of the current winner-take-all method -- might be the best and most fair solution, at least in the short term. It would likely encourage voter turn-out and discourage voter-suppression efforts. And, it would continue to ensure that the rural populations aren't disadvantaged just because only 20% or less of U.S. citizens live in rural areas. At the same time, it would increase the importance of each person's individual vote in every state across the country.
(As for the millions of people petitioning to have some form of popular vote count be the win-criteria for 2016, I disagree with them. It would be cheating to change the win-criteria after the game has already been played according to existing rules - not that I think it's gonna happen anyway.)