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Electoral College

Wednesday 8th of May 2024

2016 Presidential election In the “world's greatest democracy,” the candidate with the most votes lost the election, yet again © 2016 Kwiple.com
2020 Presidential election Chance of a Biden Electoral college win if he wins the popular vote by X points: 0-1 points: just 6%! 1-2 points: 22% 2-3 points: 46% 3-4 points: 74% 4-5 points: 89% 5-6 points: 98% 6-7 points: 99% Nate Silver, 12:11 PM - Sep 2, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
2020 Presidential election Now do you see why I feel like I've just been tied up by a German dominatrix who doesn't understand my safe word. Bill Maher, Real Time with Bill Maher, Oct. 9, 2020, after reviewing how the Republicans in states with a Republican-controlled legislature and a Republican governor can and are planning to use their power to select the state's members of the Electoral College to appoint electors committed to voting for Trump even if Biden won the state's popular vote © 2020 Kwiple.com
2020 Presidential election In addition to this plan to create and transmit fake electoral slates, Donald trump as also personally and substantially involved in multiple efforts to pressure State election officias and State legislatures to alter official lawful election results. January 6 Commitee Report - Summary © 2022 Kwiple.com
2020 Presidential election On January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence, as President of the Senate, should call out all the electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all Jim Jordan to Mark Meadows, Trump's chief of staff, suggesting that vice presidents have the authority to simply refuse to count electoral votes from states his party lost © 2021 Kwiple.com
2020 Presidential election Turnout projections are running at around 150 million this year (137 million voted in 2016), which would mean that if [Nate] Silver is right, Biden could win by 3 million to 4.5 million votes and still have less than a 50 percent chance of becoming president.  If Biden won by 4 percent to 5 percent, or 6 million to 7.5 million votes, Trump would still have a one-in-ten shot of prevailing. Paul Waldman, Washington Post, September 2, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
The Constitution of the United States Few Americans are aware that under the Constitution, a candidate could lose the popular vote and the Electoral College and still become president. In fact, it’s already happened [in 1824]. … In other words, assuming Mr. Trump is still a free man, he could be picked by  the House to be the 47th president, even if  Mr. Biden wins millions more popular votes and the most electoral votes. James Wegman, New York Times, October 14, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
COVID-19 coronavirus “The president knows Florida is so important for his reelection so when [his supporter Gov. Ron] DeSantis says that [New Yorkers should be quarantined and prohibited from traveling to Florida], it means a lot,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be frank. “He pays close attention to what Florida wants.” NCRM, March 31, 2020, on how Trump is trying to harvest Electoral College votes in 2020 by sending Florida and other red states everything they request – or more – to fight coronavirus (while sending blue states like New York, where need is greater, less than requested) © 2020 Kwiple.com
Elections I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President. Walden O'Dell, CEO of Diebold, manufacturer of electronic voting machines used in Ohio in 2004, in a fundraising letter supporting re-election of George W. Bush, whose victory there, a swing state, proved decisive © 2015 Kwiple.com
Electoral College The Electoral College is just one example of how an increasingly urban country has inherited the political structures of a rural past. Today, states containing states containing just 17 percent of the American population, a historic low, can theoretically elect a Senate majority. New York Times, November 21, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
Electoral College  The Electroal College is one of the South's few remaining political safeguards. Let's keep it. Senator James Allen of Alabama, 1969 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Electoral College I'll keep raging against the electoral college. Because we could have a different future. To see what it's like, all you have to do is look at how things work in every other democracy in the world. Pay close attention, because it gets pretty complicated: People vote. The votes are counted. The person with the most votes wins. Weird, huh? Paul Waldman,, Washington Post, September 2, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Electoral College I used to like the idea of the Popular Vote, but now realize the Electoral College is far better for the U.S.A. Donald Trump, 7:17 PM – 19 Mar 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Electoral College Since almost all states award their Electoral College votes on a winner-take-all basis, you do just as well if you win a state by one vote as if you win it by one million. Then factor in that the allocation of electoral votes isn't even proportional to the state' sizes: every state gets at least three, creating a bias toward small states. It's not hard to see how this odd system has handed the presidency to the candidate who got fewer votes four [now five] times since the Founding … [or] how [it] encourages presidential candidates to focus on swing states at the expense of [all other states]. Zachary Roth, The Great Suppression © 2016 Kwiple.com
Extremism One reason Republicans keep radicalizing is that, unlike Democrats, they don't need to win over the majority of voters. Michelle Goldberg, New York Times, September 11, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Amend the Constitution to replace the electoral college with direct election of the president by popular vote © 2015 Kwiple.com
Political inequality As of the census of 2010, the five most rural states wielded about 50% more electoral votes, and three times as many senators, per resident as the five most urban ones did. Economist, July 12, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Political inequality Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: — The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 and Amendment XII of the United States Constitution © 2015 Kwiple.com
Political inequality [I]n America's political system winning votes and winning office are not the same thing. Federal elections give more power to rural voters than to urban or suburban ones. When it comes to picking a president, California has one electoral-college vote per 720,000 people. In Wyoming the ratio is one per 190,000. The disparity is much greater in the Sen- ate, since California (population 39.5m) and Wyoming (population 580,000) both elect two senators. The Economist, July 12, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Political inequality Many people find it odd that voters in small, sparsely populated states seem to have more “voting power” than people in large, densely populated states. As an example, about 553,000 eligible voters in North Dakota get three electoral votes, or one elector per 177,666 voters, roughly, while California's much larger electorate of about 23.6 million eligible voters gets fifty-five electoral votes, or about one for every 429,455 votes. Richard M. Valelly, American Politics [copyrighted 2013] [429,455 / 177,666 = 2.42] [2.42 is criminally beyond “1 man 1 vote”] © 2018 Kwiple.com
Political inequality No iron rule in American politics says an electoral majority greatly disadvantaged by the country's political institutions has to operate with effusive respect for them.  A Democratic presidential candidate who  wins the popular vote and loses the Electoral College — like Hillary Clinton and Al Gore — is not bound by law to concede promptly. A popular president constrained by the Senate's rural majority does not have to keep private his view that the institution is obsolete. Alexander Burns, New York Review of Books, January 19, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Sleepers at the wheel say If the Electoral College were abolished, presidential candidates could simply campaign in the nation's largest states and cities – New York, LA, Chicago, Houston – and rack up enough votes to pretty much win any election. That's what the left wants – because in the large urban areas and blue states like New York and California, minorities are substantial. Bill O'Reilly, bloviator who doesn't know bubkes about electoral math  © 2016 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say I'm not going back to yesterday's Republican Party. I'm not going back to losing politely, with Mitt Romney. I'm not going back to the Bushes or the Cheneys. This is Donald Trump's party, and I am a Donald Trump Republican. Matt Gaetz, promising to try to overturn Biden's already-certified Electoral College win © 2020 Kwiple.com
 
Trumpists say These folks [the Wisconsin Republicans who posed as fake electors in the 2020 election] did nothing different than what many Democrats have done in many states. It has happened repeatedly. Ron Johnson, valedictorian of his class at the  Goebbels Schule des öffentlichen Diskurses, in a typically evidence-free claim © 2023 Kwiple.com