Without mentioning any candidates by name. Which one is better? Technically the popular vote is the will of the people. But without the electoral college major cities determine all election outcomes. Both kinda seem unfair based on your situation. Maybe candidates should have to win both or we get a new election.
I have no idea. It makes sense when explained but when it comes in conflict with the popular vote it seems wrong.
Popular vote is used for everything EXCEPT the presidency. That's what makes it so weird. Nobody in Congress lost the popular vote, and there's plenty of Republicans in Congress that get most of their support outside of major cities.
I'm 100% behind the electoral college over the popular vote. Popular vote would all but remove smaller states from the election.
Flip side is the reality of how many states have partisan gerrymandered voting districts that artificially inflate the number of wins for certain parties, both at the state and federal levels. At the very least, a nationwide popular vote for president would provide a check and balance to that.
I am opposed to direct democracy. The thought of 51% being able to impose their will upon the other 49% is frightening, especially after the reactions to this elections. I am also opposed to NY and CA being able to dictate national elections because they have the best indoctrination systems in the country. I grew up in NY and I did not realize how much they cram liberal ideology down children's throats until I left. It was like leaving a bubble and it was liberating. My preferred solution to the problem is a severe reduction in the power of the President, so that we don't need to concern ourselves with who sits in the role as much as we have to know. We have allowed too much consolidation of power into one person.
The ideology in this country is actually rural vs. urban, which is ultimately the fatal flaw in the Republican regression towards fascism. They're not politically popular in the most powerful economic centers of the United States. Push comes to shove, they'll lose to the big cities in an outright power struggle.
Popular vote would favor heavily populated coastal cities. NYC and LA would determine the outcome of every presidential election. Electoral college gives disproportionate political power to backwater places where few people live, but then again those places would have little or no say in anything without it. I don't think either system is perfect.
I feel the same. You can make reasonable arguments for both ways. With the electoral system, not all votes are equal which kind of goes against democracy. With the popular vote, some votes would never be heard which also kind of goes against the idea of democracy.
I actually did some research after posting this thread. There really is no perfect voting system. I was reading about instant runoff voting. It looks really impressive at first but under certain conditions it can have extremely unpredictable results. Also learned that game theory suggests 3rd party candidates will never be viable. The 2 party system is basically a variation of prisoners dilemma.
I'm thinking we'd need a system where the country is divided into 6 regions and each region has their own primaries and election. Then the 6 winning candidates go to the final round where they all draw straws for the job.