And when you ask for an example, he’ll say “America”!
But in fact, story is totally different, and that child is making fool of you
As reality shows that US elections is not a “Rule of people, by people” all the time
And no guarantees that candidate who gets chosen by the majority of people will eventually win presidency!
Means, it’s possible for a candidate to win majority of votes but the other one becomes president
US witnessed 4 similar cases, the least was in 2000
Reality also states that US electoral system considers US citizens “not fully eligible”,
so they need delegates to vote for them. That’s why there’s no direct public voting
So people do not really choose their rulers directly
instead, they engage in a complicated system which many of the Americans can’t really understand
We’ll try together in this episode to make it clear
First, let's clarify the fact that US elections is not completely “popular/public”
This means, being a competent candidate doesn’t necessarily mean you can win elections
In brief, real competition is always between two parties. Democratic party and Republican party
No independent candidate managed to win presidency all along American history, except for George Washington; the first American president
Other than that, best result for independent candidates was the runner up. That was more than 100 years ago and never happened again
Second best was in 1992 when they ranked third
Second best was in 1992 when they ranked third
among which 219 millions have the right to vote
Those 219 millions are divided over 50 states
Theoretically, 538 delegates will be chosen among the 219 millions to choose the president and vice president
As we stated before, president and vice president always belong to one of the two major parties
This 538 delegates group is dubbed as “Electoral College”.
Those 538 delegates choose the ruler of world’s most powerful country
In most cases, those delegates are unknown to majority of people
But those “unknown” delegates always pledge to choose candidates of the party that voters vote for
Thus, president and vice president are elected in an indirect process
Those 538 delegates can be sorted as follows: 435 elected delegates + 100 members of the Senate + 3 delegates from the capital, Washington D.C
Before the delegates get together to elect the president and vice resident
each party needs first to nominate a candidate. And for that to happen,
a party must hold internal party elections called “primary elections”.
And even these primary elections are not done by direct public voting
but done through delegates
So in summary, naïve American citizens elect delegates to choose a candidate. Then, elect other delegates to choose a president and a vice president among the 4 candidates elected by the previous delegates.
In few words, those delegates have the authority to choose the person who controls launch codes of nuclear weapons capable of tearing the whole galaxy apart my dear!
That’s why process of electing those candidates is a critically important one
Everything looks fine then, maybe it’s not a direct electing process, but at the end citizens will elect delegates who will elect a president conforming to their choice, no problems!
The shocking reality lies in the way upon which those delegates are chosen.
Something like a sci-fi movie that’s hard to be believed
Something that you can’t believe to be applicable in a country claims being the role model of liberty and democracy that other countries should follow!
This is happening in a country that invaded our homeland and put a siege over our people to promote its weird and fishy approach of democracy
Let’s now see how they choose delegates for primary elections, upon which a party elects its delegates
First of all, states are not even in their shares of delegates, as it depends on its relative weight (population).
means, the more population a state has, the more delegates are assigned to it. Consequently, its voting power increases
California alone has 55 delegates of the total 538
Texas has 38
Florida has 29,
Illinois has 20, and Pensilvania has 20
This combination of 6 states of 50 states in total own 35% of total voting bloc in electoral college. 6 states = 35%.
So if a candidate managed to snatch a win in few other tiny states, then mission accomplished.
He can relax at home and stick his tongue out at millions of voters against him
This “quota” approach will be used in both primary elections inside the party to choose its candidate, and in general presidency elections
but in different numbers
Pay attention please as that the subject needs a high concentration.
First, choosing party's candidate- A mass hysteria!!!
Each party has the right to amend its rules for primary elections as they like.
It’s deemed as internal affair, so the party has the right to regulate it its own way
In fact, it’s not completely “internal”
as in some states, like Wisconsin, primary elections process is open to anyone, even members of the rival party!
for example, as republican member you can vote in Democratic party primary elections.
So you simply make a mess by electing the weakest democratic candidate that won’t be able to compete against your republican candidate! Oh how smart!
How the electing process itself goes on
There are 2 ways for electing. Direct elections (Primaries) or caucus
Direct elections is to choose delegates
In which, naïve American voters will check the names of group of delegates who are supposed to elect their favorite candidate
The ironic thing is voters, in some states, have no idea to whom delegates are loyal and whom they’ll elect
In some states and cities, ballot displays the candidate every delegate is going to vote for in primary elections
But in other states and cities, this is not the case
Ex, a village in Tennessee called Hamilton where ballot is well illustrated, so voter can vote for his favorite candidate, then chooses delegates committed to him
But in other states, like Pensilvania; one of the major 5 states presumably the most powerful in elections, no illustration at all
Just a list of unknown names that nobody knows to whom they’re committed
People choose randomly, and those are called “unbound delegates”, or delegates that are not committed to a candidate
Upon this approach unbound delegates can cause a candidate to lose even though he’s got a higher portion of votes
This already happened to Bernie Sanders in the current elections in Wyoming,
and to trump in Louisiana
Both won majority of popular votes, but unbound delegates simply ignored them, and ignored people’s choice
The other way beside direct election is to hold caucus
in which each candidate’s delegate gives a speech promoting him
followed by voting either through ballots
or by gathering in the side of their favorite candidate’s delegate.
Then delegates are based on votes or gathered blocs
So let's take a state that’s assigned 10 delegates- voting results were 60% for Hillary and 40% for Bernie
Hillary will have 6 delegates while Bernie takes 4.
Though it looks a more safe way, at least people will know to whom they’re voting, but it’s the least used way in reality
In 2012, only 12 states had chosen its delegates through caucus, while the rest of 50 states followed the usual messed up primary elections
One of the reasons for a party to exclude caucus and go with direct primaries for delegates
that caucus requires all voters to gather in the same place at the same time to be counted
Those who’re absent during voting have their votes invalidated
So, the naïve American voter trying to choose his preferred candidate in the party to which he belongs has two options:
Either to choose randomly among unknown delegates
or to forcibly get stuck among the crowd in public caucus at a timing you haven’t determined to get your voice heard
After electing delegates in either ways, each party gathers all their delegates in a convention to choose their candidate
Bound delegates will choose the candidate to whom they’re committed while unbound delegates won’t follow any certain plan
Wait, we are not done yet! add to those delegates another list of delegates called “Super Delegates”
Those are former presidents who belong to that party and VIPs who have a voice in the election that’s more important than regular delegates
They use their vote when it’s needed
and for people who dropped their ballots or gathered in a caucus they can simply enjoy watching elections!
We’re almost done! Now we have a candidate for each party so we can move on to the last stage… General Elections
Which is divided into 2 stages
the first is to choose delegates for each state. Chosen this time for general election, not primaries
Then it’s followed by the 2nd stage, Electoral College
Electing delegates in this stage is similar to that one in primaries
The only difference is having relatively stable rules, delegates’ commitment is obvious
and also it’s predictable to guess to whom most of states are going to vote
As you can see in this map, there are states called “Red states”, these states are more likely to vote to republicans
and “Blue states” which are more likely to vote to democrats
and violet states on which both candidates will compete
Everything looks fine, except for an evasive rule that’s applicable in all states except in Nebraska and Maine
That rule is “winner takes all”;
the candidate who wins a states gets all its delegates
What does that mean? Let’s assume that a state is assigned 10 delegates
and voting results were 60% for Hillary and 40% for Trump.
Normally, delegates should be divided, so Hillary takes 6 and Trump takes 4. Right? No!!!
The winner takes all delegates, so Hillary in this example will take 10 delegates, not just 4
The good thing in this system is eliminating the problem of fractions. For example, if we have 4 candidates as it’s happening in these elections.
Hillary from Democratic Party, Trump from Republican Party, Stein from Green Party and Johnson from Liberal Party
and votes were 43% for Hillary, 32% for Trump, 17% for Stein and 8% for Johnson.
how can we divide the 10 delegates on them?
Shall Hillary take 4 delegates and a hip? Trump takes 3 delegates and a finger? And Johnson takes the guts of a delegate? This doesn’t make a sense!
The system solved this problem, but in consequence it opened the door to a dreadful possibility
Which is; total voters who choose a candidate may surpass the count of voters for the other one, but the one with higher number of voters gets a lower number of delegates!
Let’s take 2 states as an example then propagate it on the rest
Let’s give an example for vote counting in Texas and Florida
Texas population is 2.5 million voters higher than Florida
Texas has 16.1 million voters while Florida has 13.5 million voters
Thus, Texas has 9 delegates more than Florida. As Texas is assigned 38 delegates while Florida is assigned 29 delegates only
The curious thing is actual voters count in Florida is always 0.5 million voters higher than those of Texas
In 2012, Texas had around 8 million voters while Florida had around 8.5 million voters
So let’s assume, theoretically, candidate X had a landslide victory in Florida, gathering the whole 8.5 million voters. How many delegates will he get? 29
while in Texas, there was a fierce competition, where candidate X got 3,999,999 votes and candidate Y got 4,000,001 votes. Only 2 votes difference, who won this state? Candidate Y
So candidate Y will get all delegates od Texas, He’ll take the 38 delegates of Texas
while candidate X take 0 under the rule of “winner takes all”
so, when we count the number of people voted, candidate X has got 12.5 million votes while candidate Y has got ONLY 4 million votes
Candidate X’s votes are 3 times higher than those of candidate Y, but candidate Y has got 9 more delegates than candidate X
Incident of candidates X and Y happened 4 times before in history of elections, where a candidate gets less votes but runs for president
The last one was in 2000 elections that brought us George W. Bush
George W Bush won the 29 delegates of Florida getting only 537 votes higher than his competitor
While Al Gore got a big win in another state, namely Illinoise, getting 569 THOUSAND votes higher than Bush, but only 20 delegates are assigned to Illinoise
So, Al Gore lost elections to Bush
That’s why elections in the major 6 states are the most important, receiving an extensive coverage and having bigger impact than those of the other tiny states
s makes inhabitants of a major state – even if they are lazy, negative and non caring to have their voice heard – more important and having more influence
than tiny states whose inhabitants could be more positive, active and engaging in society
Candidate needs to get 50% of delegates’ votes + 1 that makes it 270 delegate
What if none of the candidates managed in reaching the required ration? The 3 candidates with the highest ratios will go through a re-election process
but this time at House of Representatives where another voting will be held
Through the entire American history, such accident took place only twice in the 1800s
And here we go, this is the way we get a president and a vice president elected for the world’s most powerful country!! Thanks for democracy..
General elections will commence on Tuesday, 8th of November 2016.
And on 5th of January 2017, the result will be announced in the Electoral College
20th of January, 2017 new big evil will be inaugurated in a ceremonial event
What is the summary of all this? It’s to reaffirm that freedom of choice, right of people to decide their own fate,
the claim that America is a role model of liberty and democracy bla bla bla bla
All these are just fake slogans!
the reality is there are some filters aiming at preventing the naïve American voter from choosing a non- approved candidate
The filters are the 2-party system, huge amount of money required for each candidate promote him/herself among 219 million voters
then delegates with unknown appeal, Senates and paid and controlled media that’s controlling minds of the mass
these critical faults in the system are not newly discovered, and it’s a matter of a wide-range discussion
but the real question is; why there’re no attempts to reform it? Who makes use of keeping the system as is?
Who dominates the game and direct it to achieve their own interest?