Seriously.

You're a smart guest, I like you

I may be wrong, but I don't think a joke about how sexy Idris Elba is is an actual condemnation of the electoral system.

Thank you @pripyatplatypus lmao.

I never understand the "top 10 boggest states". It's not like everyone in a state votes for the same person. You're basically dimimishing their vote because they happen to live in a bigger state. It doesn't make sense when you're voting for one person like a president.

I don’t really understand why the American voting system works the way it does. Why not just count all votes from all states and just add them up? Wouldn’t that be the most direct representation of what the whole nation wants?
And while I’m at it, how is gerrymandering not illegal or fraud or whatever

Wait... There are two types of voting system in America?
How does that even work

Electoral is x amount of votes per state per capita for the final vote of who will be president. Popular vote is just plainly who is liked more, depending on the majority of electoral votes per state decides the winner. It may not be and often isn't the same as who wins the popular vote. Its confusing as hell but smh 'Merica.

Smh. Merica.

The electoral college prevents candidates from focusing their policies to get numerical superiority in specific high population areas which would less representative of the whole. Number of electors is not purely per capita, it's equal to the number of representatives in Congress.
That being said, Idris Elba is totally awesome. When he was doing The Wire in Baltimore he had to maintain his character'a accent when he met fans because it was so perfectly done the natives to the area had no idea he was British and it freaked them out to find out he was.

It's still very weird how it is laid out. The parties can basically decide who will win by gerrymandering. It's also really weird how if 51% of one state votes for candidate x then he gets all the votes. It makes no sense. Those 49% basocally don't count in that case and you might as well have voted for the other party. The electoral college also makes it so that a person living in a smaller state has more impact on the election than one living in a smaller one. Even though you are divided in states you are still one country.

One country or not, Texas is going to have very different issues from Maine.

@stream_42 That's kind of the point. As famousone mentions our states are not just different regions they are independently governed entities that are connected under an agreed upon federal cooperative. However federal is not more important than state government and the smaller states deserve equal say in the collective voice. Think of it this way: the USA is set up so that the states vote for the president, not the individuals.

Which unfortunately also has the effect of defrauding city-dwellers of their voice, because a rural resident's vote essentially counts 3x in the electoral college what an urban resident's does.

Where did you get the number 3x? The purpose of the electoral college is to ensure the voices of all Americans are heard. If it was a popular vote, candidates would only go to densely populated urban centers and offer them free stuff. It seems odd to me how the left seems to care a lot about minority rights, but as soon as that minority just so happens to be people living in rural areas it's bs and the majority should have all the power. Issues in different parts of the country are very different, so if candidates only cared about the vote of a very select type of people then it would bend over the rest of the country.

i get that everyone’s voice should be heard, but at the end of the day, isn’t voting about the majority winning? And I refuse to believe that adult people can be swayed simply by giving them free stuff. I really hope you guys are not stupid

No, it isn't about majority winning. That is literally what the founders went so far out of their way to avoid.
And if offers of free stuff doesn't sway voters, Bernie would not be so popular.

If it was a popular vote, why not just go to the biggest cities and ignore everyone else?
And can't people commit massive voter fraud by abusing this system?

@yimmye I'm afraid it isn't about the majority. It's about ensuring the chohesion of the culture as a whole. If 51% of people want something that doesn't intrinsically make it the right choice for the whole country.

Let me put it another way. If two candidate were running for president of the planet and it was a popular vote then why would they campaign in any language beside Mandarin and Hindi? Around 30% of the population speaks those languages and that's enough to swing the election by a large margin. If each country had a vote they would have to take them all into account to some degree.

When I said giving away free stuff, I meant things like free college, higher minimum wage, etc. Things disguised as being free that will in the end cost us more money. So Bernie would be quite popular actually, because he was trying to give everyone stuff but covering up how it would be paid for. He likely would have won the democratic primary had it not been rigged.

I can't believe a year from the election we're arguing over the advantages and disadvantages of Popular Vote VS Electoral Vote.

Well we are also arguing it three years before then next election.

It's an awful mess and now we have a moron for president. Fortunately, because he is a disgusting predator, everyone is coming out about other predators. The US will fall apart and then recover post eradication of these fools. So, good job electing him, we needed a moron to wake us all up. Also, this meme was stolen from Stephen Colbert's show.

Guest you truly are quite close minded. And a bit of an extremist if you think we should eradicate every Trump supporter. Making generalizations about an entire group of people and saying they should be killed for it is what's disgusting. People believed Obama was a moron, and people believe Trump is a moron. It's all beliefs because different people will always have different opinions so how about you take a reality check and realize your opinion isn't fact and you don't speak for the entire U.S.

@scatmandingo that’s a fair point, I’m from a small country, so it’s weird for me to imagine a single country being so different from itself if you get what I’m trying to say. I prefer the way the voting system works in my country, but I understand that it won’t work in such a large country (then again I also don’t really believe extremely large countries and a proper democracy can work well together for a long period of time, I wouldn’t be surprised if the US falls apart in a couple hundred years)

We aren't a democracy, we're a republic. Too many people have forgotten that.

Guys, This post was about the fact that people think Idris Elba is hotter than Blake Shelton. Don't turn this into a rant about democracies and mass genocide.

The people in the electorate don't have to listen to the people if they don't have faith in who the people nominated. On that front, the electorate failed to do it's freaking job.
Also, while with a popular vote candidates would only campaign in big cities, with the electoral college they pretty much only campaign in swing states. When was the last time you saw a republican president campaign in Hawaii? I've never seen it... why? Because it's futile.

@famousone are democracy and republic mutually exclusive? Surely you can be a democratic republic (not a democratic people’s republic though, that’s something else entirely)

In The United States, the republic comes before the democracy. Otherwise we wouldn't have laws and rights that could never be overturned.
It's not about exclusivity, but priority.

Guys really, i appreciate all your opinions and views and the fact that y'all have kept it civil, but this post is just an example of pv/ev but mostly just an opinion that maybe Blake Shelton wasn't the best choice for Sexiest Man Alive, and it was meant to be amusing, not to start trouble.

BUT TANGENTS!

Huh? Who's Blake Shelton?

Gwen Stefanis husband

I just want to add really what even is Idris though? He's like a creamy, chocolatey, very very talented British angel!

He is a demi god. That is what he is
A glorious gift from above

Probably the only Black Greek God