saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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The fact is that less than 50% of America wanted Bush more than they wanted Gore. That is a fundamental error, in my opinion. The state boundaries should be a important as the America IS the United States of America; county boundaries should be far less important. The simple problem is this, though in theory 25% of VOTING Americans could elect the President.
In order to be elected the President only needs the simple majority of the electoral college votes. Currently there are 538 electoral votes, that means provided there are only 2 people with a chance of being elected that a person with 270 electoral votes could win. Now to get 270 electoral votes a candidate only needs to win the following 12 states California (55), Texas (34), New York (31), Florida (27), Illinois (21), Pennsylvania (21), Ohio (20), Michigan (17), Georgia (15), New Jersey (15), Connecticut (7), Oregon (7). Now I know it is unlikely that those states would all vote together but bear with me, because this is a theoretical situation to point out a flaw in theory.
Okay, so imagine that in those 12 states Bob is the most popular candidate instead of John, but John is more popular in the other 38 states. Now imagine that in those 12 states Bob gets 49% of the vote, John gets 48% and other minor parties get 3%. Now imagine that in the other 38 states John gets 90% of the vote, Bob gets 7% of the vote and other parties get 3%. This situation is unlikely but just look at the maths.
Amongst approximately 50% of people (since electoral votes are distributed based on population), the 50% of states that elected him, Bob was the most popular candidate 49% of the time, so out of the WHOLE population sample Bob got 24.5% of the vote in the winning states. In the states that he lost Bob got 7% of the other 50% of the population or another 3.5% of the total. In other words, Bob got 28% of the total vote and still managed to win the election because John won so strongly in the states he won while losing by such a narrow margin in the other states. A system that allows for such vote wastage is flawed. I hope you understood my explanation.
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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