Hey, it guarantees against the masses that vote, not the presidential candidates. As you can tell, the rest of America is proving the significance of the Electoral College and delegate system.
Some states have denser populations than others
If all the votes were regularly counted politicians would only try to get the states with the most people to vote for them instead of the smaller states. (iirc theres also a system that involves some states having 2 representative votes instead of 1 etc.)
Superdelegates and regular delegates are members of major US political parties that decide on a viable candidate to run as president on their ticket come the national election in the fall. Once selected, the candidate will go around the country to convince you they make the better choice as president. The media portrays the whole primary/caucus process as essential to democracy but in reality, it is a sham. The voter is not selecting their desired candidate, but a delegate for their state's convention. Here's where it gets crazy. Each state has their own method of handing out delegates to candidates - winner take all, proportional, half-winner/half-proportional, and "F*ck it, we won't have a statewide vote and decide for ourselves at the state convention". Superdelegates are exclusive to the Democratic Party. These are certain national party leaders and VIPs who, in a sense, put their thumb on the scale.
The electoral college is a holdover from the days when people were not able to travel very far to cast their votes and communication took forever. Votes were cast in local precincts and then a few people were chosen to travel to the convention to represent the will of the people. Now it is used as a way to screw the people, since it makes fraud easier for both parties. The whole "super delegate" thing is pure vote fraud.
In the primaries the parties can nominate whoever they want, and we didn't always get a vote anyway. They only let us think we have a say to try to keep us in line.
Even if we went with a straight popular vote, the crooked bastards in both parties would just find a different way to screw us.
The Electoral College is used in the fall for the presidency and not related to the nomination process. It does not "screw the people" nor make "fraud easier for both parties". Only one party benefits from the Electoral College, the winner in the election.
Really? For the presidency? I could have sworn the post mentioned the electoral college. My eyes must be bad. Also, um... The party delegates in the primaries serve the same function as the electoral college in the general. They are the ones who cast the actual votes that either nominate or elect candidates.
And you say the electoral college doesn't screw the people? What happened in 2000??? Didn't Al Gore win the popular vote? The "people's vote"? I don't seem to remember a President Gore. My memory must be bad too.
Sit down and shut up junior. You're not as smart as your mama said you are.
If I remember right, and I do, it was the US Supreme Court that handed the election to Gov. Bush when it ordered Florida to stop counting votes. Based on that decision, Florida had no choice but to award its electoral votes to Gov. Bush, and thus, the election. Your ramblings make it difficult, but not impossible, to understand where you are coming from. Clear and thoughtful statements from you will make it easier on all of us in the future. Thank you.
*Gore won the popular vote. Bush won the electoral vote. Simple language.
*Benjamin Harrison and Rutherford Hayes also lost the popular vote but won the presidency.
*John Q Adams lost the popular vote AND the electoral vote but still won the presidency because Congress stepped in.
*For the record I am a Republican and was happy to have Bush over Gore, but that does not mean I don't find faults with the electoral college.
*Also, the people get screwed more (much more) by the parties and their delegates/nomination practices. Both sides but the GOP screw us worse when they can. There is no law saying the parties have to nominate the winner of the most primary votes. In fact they don't even really have to have primaries. The fact that Sanders has won more states than Clinton but has fewer delegates, and the fact that the GOP are openly threatening to nominate someone other than Cruz or Trump is proof of my thesis.
Reading some of these comments does restore peace to my mind. Thank you fellow humans for knowing our country's government and knowing why it's structured the way it is!
They wanted the president to be chosen by the people, but they didn't really trust the people, so they decided to remove it a step, so naturally they would use the house of reps, but the state congresses had had pretty much total control of the States during the articles of confederation, which means they were wary of giving congress any more power than they had to. So they decided on a separate group entirely, removed from the rest of the government almost completely (aside from when no one wins, then the house votes on it).
Update: All of the voting happening right now is party primaries, which is just the parties deciding which candidate to put their full support behind when the actual election rolls around in November. Because the Constitution doesn't mention political parties at all, the parties can just kind of do whatever they want as far as deciding which candidate to run. That's why right now the process seems so convoluted and messy. Frankly we should probably just be thankful that they bother to ask us at all what we think about their candidates, because theoretically, a couple of party leaders could just sit down in a room and pick who they want to run if they really wanted to.
Tbh they were thinking way beyond their time.
If all the votes were regularly counted politicians would only try to get the states with the most people to vote for them instead of the smaller states. (iirc theres also a system that involves some states having 2 representative votes instead of 1 etc.)
In the primaries the parties can nominate whoever they want, and we didn't always get a vote anyway. They only let us think we have a say to try to keep us in line.
Even if we went with a straight popular vote, the crooked bastards in both parties would just find a different way to screw us.
And you say the electoral college doesn't screw the people? What happened in 2000??? Didn't Al Gore win the popular vote? The "people's vote"? I don't seem to remember a President Gore. My memory must be bad too.
Sit down and shut up junior. You're not as smart as your mama said you are.
*Benjamin Harrison and Rutherford Hayes also lost the popular vote but won the presidency.
*John Q Adams lost the popular vote AND the electoral vote but still won the presidency because Congress stepped in.
*For the record I am a Republican and was happy to have Bush over Gore, but that does not mean I don't find faults with the electoral college.
*Also, the people get screwed more (much more) by the parties and their delegates/nomination practices. Both sides but the GOP screw us worse when they can. There is no law saying the parties have to nominate the winner of the most primary votes. In fact they don't even really have to have primaries. The fact that Sanders has won more states than Clinton but has fewer delegates, and the fact that the GOP are openly threatening to nominate someone other than Cruz or Trump is proof of my thesis.