[timb07]

In a properly-operating democracy, politicians require votes to be elected; money helps, but isn't sufficient.

The 1% may have 50% (or more) of the money, but they only have 1% of the votes. The 99% (or rather, those members of the 99% who vote as if they're in the 1%) need to exert their power at the polling booth.

[51lver]

The 1% own the media companies which are happy to tell you what a winner looks like, and there is a general belief that voting with your heart is inferior to voting for a probable winner.

[simplify]

The latter problem would be solved with approval voting at least https://ncase.me/ballot/

[cronix]

> The 1% may have 50% (or more) of the money, but they only have 1% of the votes.

Yes, but that money also buys political votes via contributions, political influence, and affects legislation favorably towards themselves. Look at how much money Google alone spent in 2017 on lobbying ($18M). If that wasn't gaining them tremendous influence, I highly doubt they'd be doing it. Not to single Google out (they just spent more than anyone else last year)... they all do it... because they have the money to do it... and it pays off.

The 1% have a lot more influence than just their "1 vote each."

http://fortune.com/2018/01/24/google-facebook-amazon-apple-l...

[baroffoos]

Money can pay for marketing and shills to flood online forums to trick peoples voting.

[kamarg]

You're doing a disservice to those 99% or at least those of us that do vote by assuming this is the only issue that people vote on. There's a wide range of priorities between the 0% and 99.9% on the economic scale and what goes into most peoples' decision to vote for someone is almost always nuanced even if the newspapers and tv interviews try to make it look like everyone that voted for the "wrong" candidate only voted for them because of X issue.