I'm sitting here still awake trying to stay up to find out about Coleman vs. Franken...
But, with this whole presidential thing... I wish I understood why popular vote and electoral votes don't correspond with each other what so ever...
Why does 52% vs. 49% become 338 vs 159 electoral votes?
Seems to me it should be somewhat closer to 258 votes vs 239 votes with those percentages... which would mean neither one would be the winner yet. I just don't get it.
I'm probably more frustrated about it because I'm tired.
AFTER SOME RESEARCH...
Ok, so today I'm working on figuring this whole thing out...
For those of you who are curious, this is how it works...
*The number of electoral votes a state gets equals the number of of the states Congressional delegation. This means: the number of US Senators (which is always 2) PLUS the number of US Representatives.
*Ok, so the current number of US Representatives is 435 - assigned to states proportionate to the population. BUT each state is entitled to at least one representative.
*This means that even sparsely populated states get 3 electoral votes... and California has the most electoral votes at 53 because they have the high test population.
*The District of Columbia gets 3 according to the 23rd Amendment.
So, this seems somewhat fair to me... but I still don't understand why the popular vote percentage and the electoral votes seem off if the number of electoral votes is actually based on the population of the state... oh well, I guess I don't' have to understand.
Ok, so that's my basic understanding 18 hours after the original post.
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3 comments:
And did it bother you in 2004 when Bush had 51% of votes and Kerry had 48% (62,040,606 vs. 59,028,109) and worse yet in 2000 when Bush had the electoral college 271 vs. 266 and NOT the popular vote!! (Bush 50,456,002 and Gore 50,999,897)
Yes anonymous person... in 2004 it bothered/confused me too. In 2000 I think I really had no idea what was going on.
I agree. Does our vote even matter? Sometimes I wonder...
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