You DO know that the Health Care bill did not PASS? That's what happens when you get in with the electoral college and not popular vote.

It's not even trying to kill.  It is just total blatant ignoring anyone that is not THEM.

I know Stu.  I am not whining about Hillary.

I am saying that he did not win anything with this outmoded manner of choosing the President.

I don't know how to change the operation.    I know it needs to be re-tooled.  Times change.  This is not 1800.  Because of the populous, we are at the mercy of a few red states.

Is that fair and balanced?  Do you think the founding fathers would have a clue as to how to solve this issue?   They were working with less people in the USA than all of the people in New York City for godsakes.

This post was edited by WM BARR . =ABSOLUTE TRASH at September 28, 2017 12:12 PM MDT

But it's disingenuous to complain about the outcome after the fact when all candidates ran under the same rules in the same system we've always used. Sometimes the outcome is desirable to some and other times it's desirable to others.

The main reason we have it is to prevent a few states with the biggest populations from deciding the outcome. Just as the EC may be seen as unfair by folks in states like California, Colorado, New York, and Florida, a straight popular vote would be seen as unfair by folks in states like Alaska, Maine, Montana, and Nevada. Never the twains shall meet.

And the only way to change it would be by a constitutional amendment ratified by 38 states. That will never happen.

No.  That is not my beef.

I think it calls for a CHANGE because of what keeps happening as life changes.

Seems like you're biotching about Trump winning because of the EC. Even if the system could be changed, it would not affect that outcome.

Bad idea, VERY bad idea, irrespective of your distress caused by the most recent Presidential Election outcome.

The Electoral College was crafted into the Constitution to prevent heavily-populated portions of the country from having full say to the total exclusion of the less populous States. And since we've evolved from an agrarian society to one more large-city based that method of selecting a President is more germane than ever before. If we were to amend the Constitution to elect the President by popular vote then New York City and Los Angeles county would pick the President to the exclusion of everyone else's wishes. This post was edited by Salt and Red Pepper at September 27, 2017 5:18 PM MDT

We don't need to amend the Constitution.
The states decide how their EC operates.
There is a growing number of states that are working on laws that would require their EC to cast vote based on the popular vote of the US.  So a candidate could win the popular vote of that state, but lose the EC vote of that state because they didn't get a majority of the national popular vote.

Of course, the "unintended consequence" of such a change would mean candidates didn't have to campaign AT ALL in those states, unless it was a large population state such as NY or CA.

Yes, actually we do need to amend the Constitution if we want to eliminate the Electoral College System of electing our President. Sorry, but no political machinations would be exempt from changing back later and none would be exempt from Supreme Court scrutiny which in all likelyhood would find such laws to be unconstutional as they're obviously designed to circumvent that Supreme Law of the Land.

I seriously doubt that "a growing number of States" are working on such laws. Doing so is virtually giving away the individual States' voice in the Presidential election process. There may be groups in some States that are attempting to craft such legislation though. I'd be curious to know which States and which groups those are. Can you elaborate?

One other point is that most States have a "winner take all" EC system. But there are a few that divide the EC members equitably among the winners. Either way the EC represents the wishes of the State, not the entire popular vote.

My point was that we don't need to amend the Constitution, in order to change the EC to represent the popular vote (rather than a "winner take all" system).  As you point out, there already are some states that appoint the EC votes on the basis of popular vote ratios.

Here's a link to the "National Popular Vote Interstate Compact" :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact

If we have another Presidential election where the winner of the popular vote loses the EC, I bet we will see more states pressured into adopting the compact legislation.

So, in this last Presidential election in how many individual States did the Electoral College go to the current President while the popular vote in the State went to the losing candidate?  State by State now, not aggregated across the country. Just curious . . . (Pretty sure that the only way that's going to work out for those that don't like the outcome of the last election is for votes to be aggregated across ALL States, not just to change from the "winner takes all" to a popular vote across the State. I seriously doubt that such a change will have much impact, if any, on the EC outcomes of the individual States.

(Oh, by the way . . . I think that at least two of the States do have EC's that reflect the popular vote within the State. One of those went to Trump, the other to Clinton.)

And I do find it interesting that the most populous extremely BLUE States are the only ones represented in the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. 

And as much as the blue State voters would like to wipe their behinds with it the US Constitution STILL has to be amended for that popular vote change to have any meaning or even be considered Constitutional. I seriously doubt that the requite majority for such an amendment could be reached. 

Since the Federal Constitution doesn't mandate how the Electoral College works ... there is no requirement for a Constitutional Amendment, if a state decides it wants to change how their EC works.  (Though, maybe a change to the State Constitution.)

I haven't heard of any state where the EC didn't match the popular vote.  But then again, I haven't really delved into it.
What they're wanting to do, is get around the EC - likely so their future candidate doesn't have to spend as much time and money campaigning nationally, and can focus exclusively on winning large population centers. 

Personally, if they're going to tie it to the nationwide vote, it should split the EC votes along the same ratio as the popular vote.  That way, at least 3rd Party candidates still have a chance.  With the proposed "winner take all" legislation, we would be stuck with the broken "Two Party System".

The EC was also crafted to force politicians to campaign in a variety of places rather than just in the highly populated areas, exposing more of the nation to their campaigns. This is irrelevant in the modern age now that we can see campaigns online and on TV. Additionally, it has hardly fixed that issue. Politicians now campaign primarily in "swing states" to the exclusion of the rest of the country, and the result is that those in states that aren't "swing" may feel their vote is meaningless. Doesn't matter who I vote for, California will always "go blue" and thus my vote feels worthless. This post was edited by Benedict Arnold at September 27, 2017 5:19 PM MDT

In a non swing state your vote will matter in your primaries. I realized that when I lived in Illinois also a blue state....
But EC is to prevent the larger more populous states from ruling over the smaller states. Which is what would happen if we went to straight popular vote.

It was also intended to prevent a charismatic, popular person ... who wasn't qualified ... from being elected.
After all, the Founders were uppity snobs who didn't trust the masses.

And yet Hil-LIAR-y did poorly in the States that she ignored, that she didn't actually show up in personally. So no, I don't agree with that. Television is a 2-dimension media that's tightly controlled and edited. The viewer only sees what the director wants on the air. "Up close and personal" is 3-dimensional and gives the voter a chance to observe the prospective candidates for "tells" when they're both answering a question and when listening to others. Nothing beats "pressing the flesh", yet.

But now you've got me thinking that schools don't even bother to teach US History during the mid to late 1700's anymore. There were two reasons that the Electoral College System to elect the President was added to the Constitution, neither the one you suggest. The primary reason was the one that I mentioned. In fact some of the smaller States refused to ratify unless it was added to give them a bit more power. The second reason was our Founding Fathers feared a direct election lest some tyrant would pull one over on the "undereducated" citizenry. Looking at who's run for that office and has been elected to it over the last 50-years or so I would say it didn't have the effect that they were going for on that last point . . .  But then again it also looks like we've steadily traded critical thinking and common sense for that edukayshun . . .