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Originally posted by PlawsWorth
Well, my class studied the presidental election when Bush got elected. If i'm not mistaking myself USA uses the system that if a state has 2million people and 1,1million votes for President A then president A "wins" that state and if he get most states he becomes the president, right? The somewhat obscene thing about that to me is that a president can win loads of states and still have a majority of people who doesn't support him. I don't know how you guys who live in the USA and who has always lived with the system feels about it. But to me it feels more logical that you would count all the votes in all states and the president who has the largest support from the people wins. If I have mistaken myself in the "who to become a president" system works in the USA, please do feel free to correct me.
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Close. When a candidate "wins" a state, then that state's electoral votes go to the candidate. So basically a candidate wins 4 points if they win in Tennessee and 6 points if they wind in Florida, for example. States with higher population are "worth more."
(I feel sad, for I know next to nothing about Sweden's government except that women in your royal family are rumored to be incredibly attractive.
You are a parliamentary monarchy, right?)
Anyway, this is one of the ways the US government is set up to balance the power of our states with the power of the people in those states. If it was completely based on population, then the states with the highest population would have a very large influence on the government. Thus areas of the country with a huge population and similar ideals - most of New England, California, places like that - would be able to ignore the needs and interests of the rest of the country.
I don't worry too much about statistical analysis in election matters here; it's not like the average American has any idea what he's voting for or is a good judge of political ability, so at best the electoral system is a means of randomly selecting candidates. Those that actually understand the platforms and know the track record of candidates are drowned out by the people who always vote by party or otherwise don't make informed decisions on individual candidates.
I've always thought a republic was the happy medium between a democracy, where minorities have no voice and decisions take forever, and a dictatorship or oligarchy, which operates incredibly efficiently and gives no preference to the majority, but can easily (and almost always does) collapse into fascism.
Alchemy