How was the polling data so screwed up on the lead up to yesterday?

Hillary was leading by large margins. Too large for what the vote looked like. What happened?

Country people don't answer phone calls from strange numbers.

The country vote was denied to Clinton from the start. It's so consistent that those numbers are known. The surprises were in more developed areas

Quote from: MyNameIsCharlie on November 09, 2016, 03:51:47 PM

Hillary was leading by large margins.

The bullshit thing is that she got the majority of the votes, she only lost due to the electoral vote.

The electoral college worked as intended. It evened out the representation to the states. The alternative would have NY, CA, and TX ultimately calling the shots for the rest of the nation. Popular vote only works if everyone is spread evenly throughout the nation.

Under-polling of working-class disaffected whites, shy Trump voters and an over-reliance of the Democrats on the Hispanic vote and states like Wisconsin.

She got a fifth of a percentage more last I checked, and she was far below Trump in the popular vote before California came in.

The point of the electoral college is to ensure that densely populated urban centers (read: California) cannot run the country by themselves. It did its job.

The electoral college worked as intended. It evened out the representation to the states. The alternative would have NY, CA, and TX ultimately calling the shots for the rest of the nation. Popular vote only works if everyone is spread evenly throughout the nation.

How on earth is this a valid argument for the electoral college? Popular vote doesn't give a shit about borders, unlike the electoral system, and major urban areas (such as New York, California, and Texas) are only ~15% of the US population.

Really, I think it boils down to the shy conservative/anti establishment phenomenon we've been seeing recently. Radical and bombastic figures secretly striking a chord with people promising drastic change. They may not reflect their opinions out in the open but they certainly show it in their voting behaviour.

So either A) they simply didn't give a fuck about letting the polls know their true beliefs, or B) they were too ashamed to admit it during the divisive atmosphere. It's probably a combination of both.

Federalist paper #68 provides a cogent argument in favor of an electoral college, but another thing to consider is that state by state, neither candidate won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote.

Secondly, under the electoral system, the folks who don't vote with the flow of their state are essentially going unheard. Anyone who voted for Trump in a state like New York effectively wasted their vote.

Kind of a poor argument, since the same could be made about voting against the winning side in a pure democracy (which, it's important to point out, doesn't exist in any Western country).

Quote from: TurkTurkBangBang on November 09, 2016, 07:16:23 PM

Kind of a poor argument, since the same could be made about voting against the winning side in a pure democracy (which, it's important to point out, doesn't exist in any Western country).

Sure, if you're going to boil down democracy to 'canceled out votes' (a cancerous attitude promoted by establishment types to discourage turnout).

...That's exactly what you're saying. I completely disagree that just because one doesn't vote with the winning side, that their vote is unheard or meaningless.

"Secondly, under the electoral system, the folks who don't vote with the flow of their state are essentially going unheard."

You are literally saying that under our system, votes not in line with the majority (which is how electoral votes are allotted except in Maine and Nebraska) are unheard, or cancelled. The electoral college is essentially a statewide popular vote, appointing a head of the federal government. This is essentially how federations work.

I've yet to see a valid argument in favor of that.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed68.asp

The electoral college obviously failed in preventing an unfit person from becoming president.

By whose judgement? There's certainly nothing in the constitution defining Trump as unfit. But, of course, you don't mean he's technically ineligible, you just mean you consider him to be unfit.

The institutions of your republic were not built with your preferences in mind.

Quote from: MyNameIsCharlie on November 09, 2016, 07:08:19 PM

Quote from: Kupo & the Two G-strings on November 09, 2016, 07:02:50 PM

Quote from: Mr Deplorable on November 09, 2016, 05:54:49 PM

She got a fifth of a percentage more last I checked, and she was far below Trump in the popular vote before California came in.

The point of the electoral college is to ensure that densely populated urban centers (read: California) cannot run the country by themselves. It did its job.

Quote from: MyNameIsCharlie on November 09, 2016, 05:52:18 PM

The electoral college worked as intended. It evened out the representation to the states. The alternative would have NY, CA, and TX ultimately calling the shots for the rest of the nation. Popular vote only works if everyone is spread evenly throughout the nation.

How on earth is this a valid argument for the electoral college? Popular vote doesn't give a shit about borders, unlike the electoral system, and major urban areas (such as New York, California, and Texas) are only ~15% of the US population.

Politicians would only pay attention to NYC, Boston, Atlanta, Miami, Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Diego. These cities make up the majority of the US population. If you live outside them, your voice isn't heard.

Firstly, since those are largely in 'established territory,' which is to say most of them are not in swing states, they don't get much attention relative to their populations. Swing states get a disproportionate amount of attention because of this.

Secondly, under the electoral system, the folks who don't vote with the flow of their state are essentially going unheard. Anyone who voted for Trump in a state like New York effectively wasted their vote.

Spoiler

I consider a vote an extension of free speech, so on principle I don't believe a vote can be wasted. However, that doesn't matter as far as the electoral system is concerned.

That's a fair argument against. But the EC keeps this from happening on a larger scale. Without it voting against the afore mentioned cities is wasting your vote. At least less people aren't heard with the EC.

Maybe eliminate the winner take all system and let the delegates vote on how their district voted? There's fors and againsts to that too.

I dunno. The current system isn't perfect. Just better than the more visible alternatives.

Something to think about

Politicians would only pay attention to NYC, Boston, Atlanta, Miami, Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Diego.

How would that be any different than politicians only focusing on the few swing and battleground states? Even if they were only focusing on the heavy populated ares we have this thing called the internet and mass media now. People from all over the country are able to watch and read about the person they want to vote about. In 2000 more people voted for Gore, in 2012 it was Romney and now it was Clinton. So having a popular vote wouldn't make voting a biased thing.

If you live outside them, your voice isn't heard.

Oh bullshit. With the EC your vote isn't heard and it basically makes voting pointless and it destroys it. If you live in a blue state like CA than voting read is pointless and if you live in a red state like Texas than voting blue is pointless. With a popular vote then that would make voting actually have a purpose due to every single vote counting and it would make voting actually seem like a democracy.

If you spend two years demonizing every trump supporter as literally worse than hitler, and trump himself as the end of the world, then of course people aren't going to readily admit to someone else that they're supporting the guy.

of course, there's also the massive oversampling of democracts, and undersampling of everyone else.