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by underlipton
899 days ago
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President can veto laws. President has the bully pulpit and gets things on and off the agenda. Twice in my lifetime has the candidate who won the popular vote lost the presidency, with massive ramifications for the country I live in. I'm not endorsing GP's point, but the electoral college is massively important to legislation. |
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I see this repeated often, and I need to say it's bullshit.
The rules of presidential elections are known to the general public, which affects voters behavior, i.e. Republican voters in California might not even bother voting, since they stand no chance of affecting the results. Similar thing can be said about Democrats in Florida. There are even names for this: "blue states", "red states", "swing states".
Until you actually hold the elections with different rules the claim of "winning the popular vote" is meaningless.
EDIT: to clarify - the current system means that some votes matter more than others: a single Republican vote in a swing state matters more than a single Republican vote in blue state. People behave accordingly, i.e. voter turnout is higher in swing states.