Founding Fathers distrusted popular vote to pick a president

Winning the state is very important for the two presidential candidates.

In hindsight, the polling consensus went astray in two major ways.

It’s not hard to understand the fear that mid-America would be ignored if only the popular vote mattered.

The fact that Hillary Clinton most likely won the USA popular vote but won’t be president has some people wondering, “Wait, why do we do it this way?” News organizations also produced a blizzard of stories meant to calculate the probability of victory for the two candidates. The bookies got it wrong. The electoral college, an undemocratic vestige, distorted the election by giving battleground state voters more weight and smaller states disproportionate representation. The state has until November 28 to make the results official. She won the popular vote, however, 48 percent to Trump’s 47 percent, by more than 200,000 ballots. Given the circumstances, the Democrats are under no political obligation to do more than acknowledge that Trump, because of his electoral vote majority, has merely won the right to plant his backside in the presidential chair of the Oval Office. The state races were not akin to a string of coin tosses but more like 51 rolls of a set of weighted dice. But at least at this writing, even more Americans voted for Hillary Clinton.

The Framers of the Constitution gave us a federal republic, not a unitary democracy. Probably the most famous instance in recent times was Al Gore’s loss to George W Bush in 2000. Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said, “This was something that we all were waiting for and we had predicted this”.

Unfortunately, the sceptics of polling and prediction – some of whom may now adamantly say looking into a crystal ball has the same effect – because of Tuesday’s missed mark. It also highlights how the otherwise empirical process of polling rests on a subjective foundation.

However, to properly understand this voting method and what it stands for, an appreciation of its historical foundation becomes unavoidable and imperative.

“A final reason why this election is so unpredictable is because the voter turnout is unpredictable”.

The electoral system has been tweaked over the years, but the gist endures.

In a presidential campaign that focused more on the character of the candidates than on policy, Clinton and Trump accused each other of being fundamentally unfit to lead the country. Demographic breakdowns aren’t available yet.

He drew overwhelming support from white working-class voters in Rust Belt states like OH and Pennsylvania, winning enough states to capture the White House even as he lost the popular vote.

Here’s an example. IL has 18 Representatives, and like all states has two senators.

Emotions are still raw for some after Donald Trump wins the presidency. The AP-GfK poll found that 74 percent of likely voters believe Clinton will win, up from 63 percent in September.

“In most states, they have to follow exactly what the popular vote total was in those states”.

The United States Constitution has been such an enduring document precisely because it is so hard to change, and that’s why the Electoral College will probably be around for the foreseeable future.

A new Associated Press-GfK poll released Wednesday shows Clinton is leading Trump nationally by a staggering 14 percentage points among likely voters, 51-37.

The petition has over 2.4 million signatures with a goal of 3 million signatures. The other six are held in order to be used by the Electors in December, according to U.S. Electoral College.

Times were when there was the Harris poll in the US and the Carl Stone poll in Jamaica and even CADRES in Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, andwhen they called it – well, it was invariablytotally correct.

Assuming all state issues are resolved, state Electors meet and will vote separately on President and Vice President.

Calls for electoral reform are not unique to the U.S. Canada is examining its political system, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has vowed to overhaul it. To be elected president, the victor must get at least half the total plus one – or 270 electoral votes. He just wants to make sure the next contest ensures the votes of all Americans will be counted equally.

The dynamic campaigning of both parties started in June 2015. “The forecasting models, which assign probabilities or chances to candidates, are no better than the polls themselves”, he said.

In North Carolina, a must-win state for Trump, Democrats lead Republicans in early ballots, 47 percent to 29 percent.

“It is not worked the way it was intended nearly from the very beginning”, continued the editorial, which also suggests states follow Maryland’s lead by essentially joining a movement that could side-step needing a constitutional amendment to change the system. “The trick of course is how to communicate that with the larger public”.