Why does it matter if people vote? I thought popular vote doesnt count

the illusion of democracy

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naïve question, but isn't the electoral college vote made up from the popular vote?

yer an idiot

popular vote does count, it's how the electoral college bases it's votes.

If you live in this country and dont understand why the electoral college exists you should hang your head in shame at your ignorance and then go forth and educate yourself.

The electoral college is not bound to vote on who their district voted for. They can vote for whoever they want. Although no one has ever actually done that.

then why did Al Gore lose in 2000 when more people voted for him?

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The popular vote means nothing country wide. Please wikipedia "electoral college"

one more vote in every district and nixon would of beat kennedy.

Knowing why it exists and it's purpose is very different from understanding why it's still in use today.
Much like many laws and structures, it's quite old and no longer used the way it was intended upon it's inception.

Kind of like the whole "by the people for the people" thing. Nothing could be further from the truth today.

If you live in the US, there is no excuse for not knowing this. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt though.

He lost because the states he won, did not have as many electoral college members as the states Bush won. If I recall correctly, this was either the second or third time in history this has happened.

The college was created to keep the less-populous states, from being overrun by a few populous states. You can make an argument in modern times whether or not this should exist any longer, but it was sound when it was created in my opinion.

Most states (many?) now have laws forcing their college members into voting based on the popular vote (some are winner take all, some are relative distribution, etc.). However, even without these laws *no* election has ever been influenced by a college member voting against the popular vote for their state. I do agree that this is a major problem for those states who do not have this written into law properly.

Should presidents really be elected by only getting 90% of the vote in say the top 10 metro areas, while ignoring the rest of the country? That's a lot of people who no longer count in any meaningful way.

Then again, an argument could be made that due to the distribution of the current votes only a few states really matter these days - but that is largely more due to the citizens in the other states then those ones (e.g. only a few states have an even distribution of demographics that could vote either way, while the other states are solidly 'red' or 'blue' year after year).

Either way though, if you live in the US you really have no excuse for not knowing how it works - regardless of if you agree with the process or not.

it's a vague system but i dont know much about it to comment on.
Anyway, i think a system based solely on the peoples votes is the definition of a democracy.

According to wiki it's happened 158 times.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_elector

what's what I said

Checks and balences

I have always said the electoral college is outdated and needs to go. The presidential election should be just like any other election we have. Whoever gets the most votes wins.

Holy crap... I didn't know that. I've been told it has never happened. Thanks for finding this!

Even if they eliminated the electoral college, one's vote doesn't count for much anyways, since the two main candidates are both scummy, and share practically (ok, they differ somewhat on emotional wedge issues like abortion, gay marrage, etc) the same views on most all of the major issues, such as staying in Iraq for the timebeing, have similar tax policies, both supported the bailouts, cater to corporate interests, etc.

Voting for the President is akin to choosing between Coke or Pepsi, Boxers or Briefs (an actual question asked to then running President Clinton back in 1992), Paper or Plastic, etc...

Getting back to the electoral college issue ... the idea behind it makes a lot of sense, and is the main reason the major candidates even bother visiting many places, such as far-flung rural areas. Eliminate the electoral college and the candidates would simply stick mostly to the large population centers concentrated on the coasts and ignore most everywhere else.

The founding fathers didn't trust the masses, and with good reason; tyranny of the majority.

Ron

It would take too much for it to be removed.

Even if an amendment was proposed to change it; we would need something like 38 or 39 states to pass it. The electoral college works in favor of most small states, so there is no way 39 would vote to remove it.