US Politics

[KAL-EL]

Jill Stein has raised an incredible amount of money in a relatively short amount of time. I wonder where most of it is really all going to go in the end?

Or to be more specific, whose pockets it will line?

 

[cloud4000]

Jill Stein has raised an incredible amount of money in a relatively short amount of time. I wonder where most of it is really all going to go in the end?

Or to be more specific, whose pockets it will line?

Obviously her pocket -- or, more specifically, her party's pockets. No doubt in my mind Clinton folks are behind this. They want the air of deniability by using Stein as their cat's paw. Green Party people are insane anyway. Nothing will happen if the recount is a failure.

 

[ultron]

heavy.com says Hillary won Florida, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina exit poll numbers. My calculations confirm Trump won Florida, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina exit poll numbers.

http://heavy.com/news/2016/11/2016-...lection-voter-fraud-donald-trump-lose-rigged/

Florida

Donald 0.47 * 0.52 + 0.53 * 0.46 = 48.82%

Hillary 0.47 * 0.43 + 0.53 * 0.50 = 46.71%

http://www.cnn.com/election/results/states/florida#president

Wisconsin

Donald 0.49 * 0.54 + 0.51 * 0.43 = 48.39%

Hillary 0.49 * 0.40 + 0.51 * 0.53 = 46.63%

http://www.cnn.com/election/results/states/wisconsin#president

Pennsylvania

Donald 0.47 * 0.57 + 0.53 * 0.42 = 49.05%

Hillary 0.47 * 0.40 + 0.53 * 0.55 = 47.95%

http://www.cnn.com/election/results/states/pennsylvania#president

North Carolina

Donald 0.46 * 0.56 + 0.54 * 0.45 = 50.06%

Hillary 0.46 * 0.38 + 0.54 * 0.52 = 45.56%

http://www.cnn.com/election/results/states/north-carolina#president

 

[ultron]

@500 @C130

 

[Nilgiri]

Jill Stein has raised an incredible amount of money in a relatively short amount of time. I wonder where most of it is really all going to go in the end?

Or to be more specific, whose pockets it will line?

She raised more money for this recount compared to her WHOLE campaign.

If that doesn't say something, I don't know what will.

 

[T-72]

Donald Trump's opponents are having something of a field day with news that Hillary Clinton's lead in the popular vote currently tops 1 million.

As US News put it, "Trump's legitimacy has been called into question by his adversaries because he didn't win the popular vote, adding to the desire among his critics to defy him from the start of his administration."

The Nation alerted its readers that "Republican nominee will become president with less popular support than a number of major-party candidates who lost races for the presidency." (The Nation conveniently ignores the fact that Bill Clinton won his first race with just 43% of the popular vote.)

California Sen. Barbara Boxer introduced a bill to eliminate the Electoral College, calling it an "undemocratic system that does not reflect our modern society that."

The feelings among those who supported Hillary Clinton is understandable. After all, as it stands, Trump currently has 46.78% of the vote, compared with Clinton's 47.69%. And as votes continue to be counted, her margin has increased, according to data from US Election Atlas.

But a closer look at the election returns show that Hillary's lead in the popular vote is entirely due to her oversized margin of victory in uber-liberal California.

First, let's look at the country as a whole.

So far, Trump has won the popular vote in 29 states, to Clinton's 20 states. (As of this writing, Michigan is still up in the air, although Trump currently leads in the vote count.) In other words, Trump carried 45% more states than Clinton.

Since winning state elections is what counts in the United States when running for president, Trump clearly outperformed Clinton. (Trump has 25% more electoral votes than Clinton.)

What's more, Trump's margin of victory in the states he won was, on average, higher than Clinton's.

Of the state's Trump won, he got 56.2% of the vote, on average. Of the states Clinton won, she got only 53.5% of the vote.

The only reason that Clinton is beating Trump in the overall popular vote is that California gave Clinton a huge margin of victory — which currently stands at 61% to 33%.

The thing is, California is a very populous and very liberal state — so far, it has counted more than 10.7 million ballots. As a result, California alone is dumping vast numbers of votes into the Clinton column — where she currently has 3 million more than Trump.

But what if California's vote was in line with all the other Democratic states, where Clinton beat Trump 53.5% to 40.2%?

If that were the case, Clinton would have received 860,000 fewer votes in California. And if Trump had captured the same share he received in those same Democratic states, he'd have gotten 773,000 more California votes.

In other words, if California was more like the average Democratic state, Trump would currently have a 400,000 vote lead in the nationwide popular vote.

It's no wonder Boxer wants to do away with the Electoral College, since it would let her state decide presidential elections, even if — as in this election — the Republican candidate did much better in far more states across the country.

As IBD pointed out in a recent editorial, the Electoral College was specifically designed to prevent candidates from winning the presidency simply by appealing to a few heavily-populated, highly partisan regions of the country. The Electoral College forces candidates to compete nationwide if they want to be president. That's a good thing.

Trump was right to say that, if the election were based on the popular vote, he'd have campaigned differently, particularly in states like California and New York where he had no hope of winning the popular vote but could have cut into Hillary's outsized margins and won more votes than her nationwide.

Yes, the Electoral College occasionally produces the odd outcome where the popular vote winner is the election night loser. But without the Electoral College, abnormally partisan states like California could permanently dominate the nation's politics.

It's unlikely people in "flyover" country would consider that fair, or even democratic.


Merline is deputy editor of Commentary and Opinion at IBD.

Outside California, Clinton Is A Big-Time Popular Vote Loser

 

[XenoEnsi-14]

Trump is the president get over with it
muslims have to leave or assilimate or pay jizya to stay and live there

That won't happen, no jizya over here. They already assimilated prior to Trump, and it was voluntary not forced.

There's only two types of people in America, American Citizens and illegal immigrants. You need to get over your ignorant hatred of America

 

[LA se Karachi]

In California whites are minority so most of the votes there are illegal Mexican votes. There is no law in California. There is no western civilization in California. There is no democracy in California. California is as third world as Mexico.

Essentially all of the votes were from US citizens, you idiot. Just because someone isn't white, it doesn't mean that they are "illegals".

Democracy and the law are well respected here, probably more so than wherever you are. I don't know what universe you live in. And I assure you that California is more economically successful than wherever you are as well. Clearly, we're doing something right.

 

[LA se Karachi]

Donald Trump's opponents are having something of a field day with news that Hillary Clinton's lead in the popular vote currently tops 1 million.

As US News put it, "Trump's legitimacy has been called into question by his adversaries because he didn't win the popular vote, adding to the desire among his critics to defy him from the start of his administration."

The Nation alerted its readers that "Republican nominee will become president with less popular support than a number of major-party candidates who lost races for the presidency." (The Nation conveniently ignores the fact that Bill Clinton won his first race with just 43% of the popular vote.)

California Sen. Barbara Boxer introduced a bill to eliminate the Electoral College, calling it an "undemocratic system that does not reflect our modern society that."

The feelings among those who supported Hillary Clinton is understandable. After all, as it stands, Trump currently has 46.78% of the vote, compared with Clinton's 47.69%. And as votes continue to be counted, her margin has increased, according to data from US Election Atlas.

But a closer look at the election returns show that Hillary's lead in the popular vote is entirely due to her oversized margin of victory in uber-liberal California.

First, let's look at the country as a whole.

So far, Trump has won the popular vote in 29 states, to Clinton's 20 states. (As of this writing, Michigan is still up in the air, although Trump currently leads in the vote count.) In other words, Trump carried 45% more states than Clinton.

Since winning state elections is what counts in the United States when running for president, Trump clearly outperformed Clinton. (Trump has 25% more electoral votes than Clinton.)

What's more, Trump's margin of victory in the states he won was, on average, higher than Clinton's.

Of the state's Trump won, he got 56.2% of the vote, on average. Of the states Clinton won, she got only 53.5% of the vote.

The only reason that Clinton is beating Trump in the overall popular vote is that California gave Clinton a huge margin of victory — which currently stands at 61% to 33%.

The thing is, California is a very populous and very liberal state — so far, it has counted more than 10.7 million ballots. As a result, California alone is dumping vast numbers of votes into the Clinton column — where she currently has 3 million more than Trump.

But what if California's vote was in line with all the other Democratic states, where Clinton beat Trump 53.5% to 40.2%?

If that were the case, Clinton would have received 860,000 fewer votes in California. And if Trump had captured the same share he received in those same Democratic states, he'd have gotten 773,000 more California votes.

In other words, if California was more like the average Democratic state, Trump would currently have a 400,000 vote lead in the nationwide popular vote.

It's no wonder Boxer wants to do away with the Electoral College, since it would let her state decide presidential elections, even if — as in this election — the Republican candidate did much better in far more states across the country.

As IBD pointed out in a recent editorial, the Electoral College was specifically designed to prevent candidates from winning the presidency simply by appealing to a few heavily-populated, highly partisan regions of the country. The Electoral College forces candidates to compete nationwide if they want to be president. That's a good thing.

Trump was right to say that, if the election were based on the popular vote, he'd have campaigned differently, particularly in states like California and New York where he had no hope of winning the popular vote but could have cut into Hillary's outsized margins and won more votes than her nationwide.

Yes, the Electoral College occasionally produces the odd outcome where the popular vote winner is the election night loser. But without the Electoral College, abnormally partisan states like California could permanently dominate the nation's politics.

It's unlikely people in "flyover" country would consider that fair, or even democratic.


Merline is deputy editor of Commentary and Opinion at IBD.

Outside California, Clinton Is A Big-Time Popular Vote Loser

This is a nonsensical way of looking at the vote totals. I wouldn't mind us taking all the credit for Trump's failure to get the most votes from the American people. But that would be absolutely wrong and unfair. Other votes count too.

States like New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, Washington, and all the others she won contributed to her margin of victory as well. We have the largest population, so naturally, we contributed the most. Not to mention that the votes she received in the states she lost contributed just as much to her total. In the popular vote, every vote counts the same and she received far more of them in states other than California:

http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/president

 

[ultron]

http://time.com/4582868/donald-trump-people-illegally-voted-election/

 

[ultron]

@C130 @500

 

[LA se Karachi]

No they didn't. So-called "illegals" are so scared to death of the government, that they won't even allow themselves to be interviewed by the census. Only a lunatic would think that these people would try to vote and risk being deported.

Especially given that California is a solidly Democratic state, so there would have been no point in voting anyway, since it would not have actually have helped her become President. Not to mention that they wouldn't actually succeed if they tried, and it would become obvious rather quickly if millions of unregistered non-citizens showed up at the polls. A completely nonsensical thing to say. Hillary won the most votes, and there's nothing you or Trump can do about it.


"There is no evidence that millions voted illegally.

Tallies of the popular vote show that Hillary Clinton beat Trump by more than 2 million votes, though Trump won more Electoral College vote and therefor the presidency."

 

[Desertfalcon]

Millions of illegal aliens did not vote, but the popular vote doesn't matter in US presidential elections anyway. The states elect the president through the Electoral College, not the people directly. We are a federal republic.

 

[LA se Karachi]

And only so much of her votes came from California anyway, most of them did not:

 

[gambit]

But a closer look at the election returns show that Hillary's lead in the popular vote is entirely due to her oversized margin of victory in uber-liberal California.

Source: https://defence.pk/threads/us-presi...-news-and-views.374363/page-238#ixzz4RFX96APi

This only further reinforce the impression that the Electoral College is a vital component of the US election process. US, not the rest of the world.

It is said that the further away from California's capital city -- Sacramento -- the less popular the decisions of the legislature and governor. Essentially, Californians often feels Sacramento and city dwellers have a grossly disproportionate influence on how the state is managed.

The same attitude can and have been observed in other states regarding their capital cities.

Now expand this to the country.

Here it is again...

The Electoral College maybe a flawed political device but it was designed to work in an equally flawed democratic process. For the US haters out there, spare US the jab that the US democratic system is 'not perfect'. Ours maybe flawed, but often where you live the politics are even shittier.

Anyway...Population concentration and economic wealth are usually hand-in-glove. The intention is that no state(s) should be able to wield disproportionate popular sentiments on who is to be the next President.

Here is what Donald Trump once said about the Electoral College:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...he-electoral-college-from-disaster-to-genius/

When Trump thought President Obama had won the electoral college while losing the popular vote, Trump thought the electoral college was a “disaster for a democracy.”

Now that he himself won the electoral college with narrow wins in three states, while losing the popular vote, Trump thinks it’s a “genius” system. He’s right that campaign strategies would have been different if the election were determined by the popular-vote margin, but apparently that was not important to him in 2012.

The Electoral College works.