It's a landslide

Goran: Now the real work begins for all of us. Stay on top of your district representatives on important votes and stay involved.

Entropy: wooo! no mccain and palin!!

-party-

Wireclub Admin:

monco: The popular vote's at a difference of like 4 million right now. Probably won't get higher than six or seven. That's not a landslide.

Goran: At least you're consistent in your cynicism
Obama's 364 electoral votes to John McCain's 176 is a landslide.

Wireclub Admin: The whole electoral vote things seems seriously flawed. How can a 6% difference on actual votes translate to such a huge difference on the votes that actually elect the president?

Does not compute.

Outbackjack: I would ask anyone to view the open letter that has been posted by Ralph Nader to Barrack Obama.It basically sums up the huge challenge ahead.

Goran: Each state gets certain number of electoral votes, depending on population. So even if candidate wins that state by a single popular vote, he gets all electoral votes.

I don't like this system, but as I understand it, it was put in place to prevent someone dangerous from coming to power (they failed on Bush). Jokes aside, electoral college could alter voters choice only under extreme circumstances. In some states electoral votes have to honor the popular vote winner by law.

Wireclub Admin: Now, what happens if someone wins the popular vote but lose the electoral college vote? Wouldn't that be a sticky situation?

I would be pressed to say the winner of the popular vote should be the president as the majority of the population voted for him.

Goran: This can and does happen in close elections. It happened in 2000 when Gore had the popular vote and Bush won on electoral votes.

Wireclub Admin: Oh no way, was that what happened?

Now, forgive me as I invoke Occam's razor on this matter:

Alternative #1
Sum all the votes for each candidate and then elect the one with most votes. The candidate that most of the population wants will always win.

Alternative #2
Add an electoral college where a bunch of voters 'pledge' to vote for the candidate that wins on that state regardless of proportional representation. Sometimes the candidate that most of the population want might not be elected.

Wireclub Admin: BTW, many of us here in Canada wished we were American just so we could vote for Obama. I think the whole world is celebrating his victory

Goran: Historically, the electoral college gave states credit based on their overall population even while disfranchising some potential voters such as slaves and women. So they invented this intermediary system. Why is it still around beats me.

Goran: Entropy likes Obama only because he's Spock like

Wireclub Admin:

Entropy: You mean Tuvac? Definitely a Tuvac to me. He's even a half breed, just like Obama!

That video makes me happy beyond belief. I can't even express how glad I am that he won at the current moment.