Quote:
Originally posted by Alchemy
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
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"it's not like the average American has any idea what he's voting for" this is exactly, if you are to exaggerate, what many Europeans think about americans, you seems abit careless some times. Though, I myself get very angry over other people's views, I always respect them. But what can be both fun and very annoying is when you watch american movies and the swedish or scandinavian person are super blonde and speak german with an danish accent or when comedians say that we have the highest succide rate in the world. Which is very far from the truth, I don't remember the exact numbers, but we have a very "normal" succide rate. I don't ask every hollywood filmmaker to know everything about all the countries in the world. But sometimes you start to question yourself if they been on dope when writing the script. When you see a american character in a swedish movie, they are often played by a real american and they don't speak english with canadian accent. Anyway, that was just a thought I wanted to share.