![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
OK, a little political education.
Daily now, we're being bombarded by the results of various polls conducted nationwide about the election.
Ignore them. Because, as most of you Americans should remember, we don't elect the President, the Electoral College does. We vote for the electors. In all but Maine and Nebraska these votes (one for each member of Congress [both houses]) are winner take all. Say Obama takes California by the slimmest of margins, 51/49. He still gets all 55 votes in the college. So the important thing is how the states are feeling.
Which is where electoral-vote.com comes in. Daily updates on how the states are leaning.
270 are needed to win.
Ignore them. Because, as most of you Americans should remember, we don't elect the President, the Electoral College does. We vote for the electors. In all but Maine and Nebraska these votes (one for each member of Congress [both houses]) are winner take all. Say Obama takes California by the slimmest of margins, 51/49. He still gets all 55 votes in the college. So the important thing is how the states are feeling.
Which is where electoral-vote.com comes in. Daily updates on how the states are leaning.
270 are needed to win.
no subject
As I heard it when I was a kid in history class, the reason for creating the Electoral College was that 97% of the voters were illiterate, and the elite intellectuals in charge of the government designed it as a safeguard in case the people made a terrible mistake. Unfortunately, 97% of voters are still (to a degree) illiterate, in that few of them read books, study issues or have any tangible reasons for voting the way they do, and the Electoral College clearly has not acted as the safeguard it was meant to be, as proven by the fact that in recent years the people have definitely made a few terrible mistakes.