Social Question

SQUEEKY2's avatar

How is it a true Democracy when the guy with the fewer votes wins?

Asked by SQUEEKY2 (23120points) January 27th, 2017

How can one say every vote counts when the guy with the less votes gets the cake?
Just wondering?

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34 Answers

SQUEEKY2's avatar

Ready set , turn your flame throwers on now!

Sneki95's avatar

Because you have two different voting systems.and only one’s results are aknowledged.

flutherother's avatar

How can it be a true democracy when a guy like Trump gets in. He represents some of the worst of the human species.

kritiper's avatar

Good question!

filmfann's avatar

Because it’s NOT a democracy. It’s a republic.

SQUEEKY2's avatar

Then why do they claim it’s a democracy @filmfann ??

Lightlyseared's avatar

Because people don’t know what a democracy is.
A democracy is where every eligible citizen votes on every decision.

Sneki95's avatar

^ actually, considering that only a selected groups of people are allowed to vote and decide that future of the country, we are not so different from the ancient Greek democracy.

ragingloli's avatar

A republic is a form of democracy.

Lightlyseared's avatar

No. Not that much different. That’s why the form of government is called a democratic republic.
But it is different. It’s important to remember that.

Hypocrisy_Central's avatar

Trump won fair and square by the rules, might see it and stop whining. Let’s say you have five states (remember, we are going super simple), STATE ‘A’ has 3,000 voters and 3 Electoral Votes; STATE ‘B’ had 2,000 voters and 2 Electoral Vote; STATE ‘C’ has 6,000 voters and 5 Electoral Votes; STATE ‘D’ has 1,500 people and 1 Electoral Vote, and STATE ‘E’ has 10,000 voters and 7 Electoral Votes. The electoral votes, goes to who won the majority of votes in that state, for instance if those who voted was 200 more for one candidate than the other, he/she gets ALL of the Electoral Votes that state has to offer. So, say Larry Lunchmeat is campaigning against John Q (the favorite), Larry Lunchmeat got the majority vote in states ’A’, ‘B’, and ’C’, a total of 11,000 counted votes (super simple, we are going with everyone who could vote, voted), and 10 Electoral Vote. John Q took states ’D’ and ’E’ a total of 11,500 counted vote, but only 8 Electoral Votes. By the rules Larry Lunchmeat wins because he received by vote more Electoral Votes than John Q because the populations in those states went for him even if the actual population as a complete whole voted slightly ahead for John Q. It is not about the popular vote everywhere it is about the how many votes from each state was for said candidate. That is an uber simplified example of how it can happen; pass oit on, don’t wait for the movie.

BellaB's avatar

America is not a democracy. It does not play a democracy on t.v.

Is America ready for democracy? I suspect not.

Pachy's avatar

It’s a Trump administration now, election over, period. We anti-Trumsters can rail against this once-inconceivable reality all we want—and trust, me, I’m doing my share of railing—but we’re going to have to get used to it and gird ourselves for the daily havoc this clueless child-president will inflict until he’s gone.

And please dear God, let him be gone sooner rather than later.

Rarebear's avatar

Not going to happen. He will be reelected by another electoral victory.

SecondHandStoke's avatar

The only conclusion I can draw is that the US Constitution is no longer studied in school.

Pachy's avatar

@Rarebear, I don’t think YOU should count on it, but time (and inevitable Trump-fueled national and international disasters) will tell which of us us right.

kritiper's avatar

@Rarebear I’m not so sure. I’ll bet A LOT of people who voted for him are now wondering just what the heck they’ve gotten themselves into.

JLeslie's avatar

America is a democracy, it’s just not a direct democracy. A republic is still a democracy.

Kropotkin's avatar

The USA is an oligarchy anyway. The voting is mostly just theatre and illusion of control.

But what I’m really bothered by is the use of less instead of fewer for “votes”.

Zaku's avatar

I find victory of a low-brow lying evil clown, the oligarchy, the two-party domination, the lame-ass single-vote system, corruption, and the fact that candidates can be elected when they have a low (or in this case, negative) approval rating, to be the main troubling things.

The electoral college bothers me mainly in that it didn’t use its power to object to horrible candidate(s), and the electoral votes per state (the subject of this question) I actually don’t find to be entirely problematic because I understand the reason for it, although I do think it tends to make individual votes feel even more worthless in non-swing states.

Kardamom's avatar

It’s not a true democracy.

LostInParadise's avatar

The more serious problem is gerrymandering, which gives the House more Republican seats even though there is a majority in the country of Democrats. This group ranks countries according to how democratic they are, with several ranking higher than the U.S. I wish they had told exactly how the ranking is determined.

Lightlyseared's avatar

Well I’m guessing it’s because the Republican Party uses the excuse of voter fraud to exclude people form voting (usually poor, working class, ethnic minorities – although let’s face it they’re probably too busy being indiscriminately shot by white policemen to actually vote anyway).

kritiper's avatar

@Lightlyseared Hey! Not EVERYBODY is getting shot!

Lightlyseared's avatar

@kritiper oh sorry, my mistake… its easy to get confused by US gun crime statistics because all the numbers are so big

kritiper's avatar

@Lightlyseared All righty then…

kritiper's avatar

@Hypocrisy_Central We get it. At least, I think most of us get it.
But get this: We don’t have to like it!

Hypocrisy_Central's avatar

^ We get it. At least, I think most of us get it.
But get this: We don’t have to like it!
If one doesn’t like the rules, they have two choices, get enough numbers to change the rules, or just gripe about them when they don’t work for you.

Blondesjon's avatar

When a fraction of half of the folks that could be registered voters don’t register or vote.

kritiper's avatar

@Hypocrisy_Central Hey, some of us like to gripe. And we’re free to do so.

Strauss's avatar

@kritiper And we’re free to do so.

At least we still have the Bill of Rights

…for now!...

LogicHead's avatar

Honestly, I can’t think of even one of our Founding Fathers who wouldn’t think you were dumb to say that. In most instances, they consciously avoided the mere majority. That is why we have a Senate where California has the same number of votes as Rhode Island. It is why the override of a Presidential veto is not just a majority. It is why no majority at all, even 75% can override the Bill of Rights. And most of all it is why Lincoln said that once in the Union you cannot just exit even if almost the whole state wants it. even one citizen left in a State that wants to leave has full government protection.

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