Does the US have a legitimate electoral system?

[Angrie]

At this stage the final outcome is not yet definitively known. But it appears quite likely, or at minimum reasonably probable, that Trump will win the electoral college but lose the national popular vote.

If so, that will be the 2nd time in the last 5 presidential elections in which this has happened.

In 2000, this was presumed to just be some weird quirk of an antiquated constitution that would never happen again. It was recognized that this was a profound problem, but was ignored.

So we have a problem here.

American institutions fundamentally failed to do anything to fix the problem after 2000, just as they have fundamentally failed to fix a whole host of other problems both before and after.

I think the only reasonable conclusion that any fair minded person could draw from this is that the US urgently needs serious thoroughgoing constitutional electoral reform.

The problem cannot be ignored once again, or else the US cannot be said to have what is usually regarded as a legitimate democratic form of government.

[muon2]

In many ways the US system borrowed from its experience with Parliament. The PM is not directly elected but is instead elected by a majority of MPs who function as electors. There was debate about direct presidential election, but the decision was to protect against a regional candidate who ran up the vote in only a few states. Hence a system of electors from each state. They aren't the members of Congress since they drafters didn't want the President to be indebted to Congress.

What has happened over the last 20 years is an unprecedented separation of the parties along urban and rural lines. Look at this map from the Chicago Tribune of the last 6 presidential elections in IL.



The drain of Dems from the rural counties into the Chicago metro area and vice verse for the Pubs is obvious. When Dems were spread throughout the rural US a swing in popular vote would swing enough EVs so that the PV and EV tracked each other for over 100 years until 2000. Now that the Dems are so highly concentrated it's much easier to swing a bunch of EVs without swinging the PV as much. That's what happened this year - large concentrations of Dems in CA and NY weren't matched by large numbers of Pubs in TX so those Dem concentrations didn't convert into EVs.

The apparent flaw in the system is an artifact of the particular appeal of the major parties as they exist today. History suggests that those parties will continue to shift their appeal and will again have more diverse geographic support as they did 20 years ago. Once that happens political scientists will no doubt write papers about this unique period for the US parties.

[J. J.]

Lest we forget, we should that the winning candidate in 1992 and 1996 did not have a plurality of the popular vote, along with 2000 and 2016.  There were three presidential elections in a row where the majority of voters did not vote for the person elected. 

[GoTfan]

Instant runoff voting is the system in Oz. Works pretty well.

[Lachi]

Instant runoff voting is the system in Oz. Works pretty well.

[GoTfan]

Instant runoff voting is the system in Oz. Works pretty well.

Could such a system work in America? Guess we have to see how Maine does.

[catscanjumphigh]

Yes and only Democrats who are upset their side lost would suggest otherwise.

[Antonio the Sixth]

No.

Also, I wish Angrie posted more. Her username is one of the best ever.

[Hatman 🍁]

duh.

[MyRescueKittehRocks]

At this stage the final outcome is not yet definitively known. But it appears quite likely, or at minimum reasonably probable, that Trump will win the electoral college but lose the national popular vote.

If so, that will be the 2nd time in the last 5 presidential elections in which this has happened.

In 2000, this was presumed to just be some weird quirk of an antiquated constitution that would never happen again. It was recognized that this was a profound problem, but was ignored.

So we have a problem here.

American institutions fundamentally failed to do anything to fix the problem after 2000, just as they have fundamentally failed to fix a whole host of other problems both before and after.

I think the only reasonable conclusion that any fair minded person could draw from this is that the US urgently needs serious thoroughgoing constitutional electoral reform.

The problem cannot be ignored once again, or else the US cannot be said to have what is usually regarded as a legitimate democratic form of government.

Only because Hillary had "voters whose eligibility" could be questioned had states had voter iD.

[Hammy]

Lest we forget, we should that the winning candidate in 1992 and 1996 did not have a plurality of the popular vote, along with 2000 and 2016.  There were three presidential elections in a row where the majority of voters did not vote for the person elected. 

The winners did have a plurality--a plurality is simply coming in first but not obtaining a bare majority. But it has been more common recently to have winners failing to obtain a majority.