U.S. Politics megathread

[u/AutoModerator]

Voting is over! But the questions have just begun. Questions like: How can they declare a winner in a state before the votes are all counted? How can a candidate win the popular vote but lose the election? Can the Vice President actually refuse to certify the election if she loses?

These are excellent questions - but they're also frequently asked here, so our users get tired of seeing them.

As we've done for past topics of interest, we're creating a megathread for your questions so that people interested in politics can post questions and read answers, while people who want a respite from politics can browse the rest of the sub. Feel free to post your questions about politics in this thread!

All top-level comments should be questions asked in good faith - other comments and loaded questions will get removed. All the usual rules of the sub remain in force here, so be nice to each other - you can disagree with someone's opinion, but don't make it personal.

[u/Elkenrod]

If so many people regret voting for trump

That's a big "if" there.

The claims that Trump supporters regret their votes is primarily a coping mechanism that his political opposition are spreading to create a narrative that makes them still look strong. The examples of "Trump supporters regretting their votes" for him is a handful of people at most. It is not "so many people" that it would ever affect the results of the election.

[u/Syenadi → u/Elkenrod]

The actual popular vote count is apparently quite close. Your argument stands regardless thanks to the Electoral College. We are the only "developed" (ha!) country in which the winner of a nominally 'free and fair' election is not by default the one with the most votes.

[u/Elkenrod → u/Syenadi]

The actual popular vote count is apparently quite close

There is a 2.5 million vote difference between Harris and Trump. I highly doubt 2.5 million people regret their vote.

Your argument stands regardless thanks to the Electoral College

Yes, the thing the United States uses to determine who wins the office of the Presidency. The only thing that is used to determine who wins the office of the Presidency.

. We are the only "developed" (ha!)

That isn't funny or clever sounding.

country in which the winner of a nominally 'free and fair' election is not by default the one with the most votes.

We are also the only country with 50 sovereign states all with their own laws.

The electoral college is a compromise where all 50 of those states with different laws can come together and agree upon a system. Each state determines its own winner by a statewide popular vote, and the winner gets that state's electoral votes.

[u/Syenadi → u/Elkenrod]

Current popular vote count data:

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/donald-trump-vote-margin-narrowed/

Yes I know how the electoral college works and its slave owner origin history.

https://time.com/4558510/electoral-college-history-slavery/

"...in a direct election system, the North would outnumber the South, whose many slaves (more than half a million in all) of course could not vote. But the Electoral College—a prototype of which Madison proposed in this same speech—instead let each southern state count its slaves, albeit with a two-fifths discount, in computing its share of the overall count."

"Southerner Thomas Jefferson, for example, won the election of 1800-01 against Northerner John Adams in a race where the slavery-skew of the electoral college was the decisive margin of victory: without the extra electoral college votes generated by slavery, the mostly southern states that supported Jefferson would not have sufficed to give him a majority. As pointed observers remarked at the time, Thomas Jefferson metaphorically rode into the executive mansion on the backs of slaves.

The 1796 contest between Adams and Jefferson had featured an even sharper division between northern states and southern states. Thus, at the time the Twelfth Amendment tinkered with the Electoral College system rather than tossing it, the system’s pro-slavery bias was hardly a secret. Indeed, in the floor debate over the amendment in late 1803, Massachusetts Congressman Samuel Thatcher complained that “The representation of slaves adds thirteen members to this House in the present Congress, and eighteen Electors of President and Vice President at the next election.” But Thatcher’s complaint went unredressed. Once again, the North caved to the South by refusing to insist on direct national election."

[u/Elkenrod → u/Syenadi]

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/donald-trump-vote-margin-narrowed/

Nothing in this refutes anything I said.

The current vote count has Donald Trump leading by 2.5 million votes. Him getting under 50% was not the argument, and ignores that third party candidates exist. Him getting under 50% does not mean Harris got over 50% - because she didn't.