US election is not a “Rule of people, by people”

in us •  7 years ago 

US-election.jpgUS elections, if you ask someone what does “democracy” mean? His answer will be “government by the people”

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?

Authors get paid when people like you upvote their post.
If you enjoyed what you read here, create your account today and start earning FREE STEEM!
Sort Order:  

Congratulations @medophilia! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :

You made your First Vote

Click on any badge to view your own Board of Honor on SteemitBoard.
For more information about SteemitBoard, click here

If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word STOP

By upvoting this notification, you can help all Steemit users. Learn how here!

Congratulations @medophilia! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :

You got a First Vote

Click on any badge to view your own Board of Honor on SteemitBoard.
For more information about SteemitBoard, click here

If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word STOP

By upvoting this notification, you can help all Steemit users. Learn how here!