Soon we were confronted with a numbers game that evidently these insider Democrats couldn't count. I challenge these party officials to re-evaluate the logic of voting in these primaries when one includes this Super-delegate nonsense with the Electoral College influence. Here is the truth: Any "win" in a traditionally red state will not count in a general election! So why bother? How many red states have you won in the last 20 or 30 years? If we remove the red state primary wins for Hillary, we will see that Bernie Sanders should have been the candidate.
Back to the illusion of voting. Due to the Electoral College, millions of Democrats who vote in red states will be ignored, and the same goes for Republican voters in blue states -- you might as well stay home, depending on where you live, for your vote doesn't count.
It is no dark secret that the 2016 election, like in 2000, presented to the world that the president-elect lost the popular vote. Plurality voting or the "one person one vote" is not recognized in the USA.
Thus it is not surprising that voter turn-out is low. The USA has one of the lowest voter participation in the world, and we are seeing why. Shall we look at the latest numbers (from early December) of the 2016 presidential election?
Popular vote Percentage
Trump 62,914,474 45.99%
Clinton 65,762,564 48.07%
Thus, the person losing this election got more than 2.8 million more votes than the "winner." This is like telling Chicago, with roughly the same number of inhabitants, that their votes would be tossed. Or tell the people of one state, choose one! - Utah, Mississippi, Arkansas, Kansas or Nevada to stay at
home. Don't bother. Millions of votes are tossed out this way.
And we hear it again ...
Vote. Your vote counts.
This falsehood goes all the way to the Electoral College. The electors are actual people, but they might as well be numbers, or digits on a calculator. Their individual votes, their personal choices, don't count.
How? Since the electoral votes morphed into "winner takes all" blocks - which is not written in the Constitution -- it is already determined who they will vote for. Evidently they are cardboard cut-outs, and the people with this important title will vote as they are told.
It is difficult to explain this to my wife, let alone to young voters who are encouraged to vote, contrary to the make your voice heard rallying cry. Not here.
The irony now is that the Electoral College could save us from The Donald and his corporate buddies that would turn this country into USA, Inc. The electors will officially do their duty on December 19th, coming up. If they can break out of their pre-fabricated direction, they can actually vote, perhaps in a
fair manner such as representative of the voters within their states. Some brave souls have publicly declared that they will not vote like they are supposed to. If enough of these individuals choose to vote, they can stop the madness.
If this means that Hillary Clinton will be the President-elect, then this is better... or should I say, still the lessor of two evils. Yes, it will be better than what we are seeing unfold with Trump's dangerous cabinet -- oligarchs backed by generals. If the electors are indeed brave and vote for the less dangerous option,
then I hope and pray that Hillary will humbly do the right thing and embrace the ideals of Bernie Sanders.
In the meantime, there is a mess. Something must be done.
Voting reform.
I hope that it is fairly clear that the unfair delegate system by the Democratic Party, as well as caucuses, should be scrapped. Undemocratic, the devise of cons and disappearing votes. And then we have the anachronistic Electoral College -- how many potential voters see this injustice and don't bother to go to
the polls?
The USA is a republic, which means that there are representatives chosen to make specific decisions.
This is not a democracy. This makes sense in a huge country.
Plurality voting essentially means that the one with the most votes will win the election. What a concept. Evidently the down side to this is that only major parties, and positions, will take to the podium. Sizable voting blocks, millions of people with specific concerns, are not represented.
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