What's the point of voting for the presidential election?
The president is decided by the electoral college, and even if they tie, I believe the president is then decided by the House of Representatives. So why should we vote? And why are there so many ads that want us to vote?
Only two times in history has the House broken a tie, James Madison, and I can't remember the other at the moment. At no other time in American history have the electors of the electoral college ever independently chosen the President; each one has, with insignificant minor exceptions, followed the direction of the State rules and the voter's choice.
So, if you want the electors to actually choose the President, don't vote.
The electoral college does ultimately decide the election, but that is a terrible reason for not voting in this or any other election.
The electoral college simply reflects the overall population of each state. This is based on the overall number of Representatives each state has, as well as the two Senators. For example, California has 53 Representatives and two Senators, giving it 55 electoral votes. The same goes for every other state. The electoral college makes it somewhat easier to count millions of votes.
Obviously this system does not always work out very well (although, on the whole, the electoral system is not that bad). Look at Bush vs. Gore as an example. That is all the more reason to vote, for someone, anyone, on election day. Your vote will be counted, and it may help to carry the electoral district you live in.
That is why people should vote, and it is why so many people encourage others to vote.
I can understand voting for other offices, where our votes actually decide who wins. But I'm not getting what voting for the presidential election actually accomplishes, besides having our vote "counted".
Our votes do decide who wins in a Presidential election. If a majority of people vote in one state or district, that state or district is said to have been "carried" by a certain candidate. And you seem to be forgetting the popular vote.
I'm still not getting it. In the 2000 election, Gore won the popular vote, but Bush got more electoral college votes, so he won. So we don't decide the president in the presidential election, the electoral college does. What exactly do our votes do?
Our votes are counted by the electoral college, and the electors vote based on the majority of votes cast in their own state. That is why our votes count. The mathematics don't always add up in each state, which is what happened in 2000.
Ok I'm starting to remember now. So whichever candidate gets the most votes in a particular state will get all of the electoral college votes from that state, since most states follow a winner-take-all system, correct?
Correct. The only exceptions to the electoral system are the states of Nebraska and Maine. Nebraska experienced a split electoral vote for the first time in 2008, when one district was carried by Obama.
It is our patriotic duty. If we give up our right to vote because we don't directly vote for who becomes president, then we only lead ourselves to give up more rights without choice.
It is your duty and a privilege to vote in any and all elections as a citizen. However, you should be an educated voter. Don't just blindly vote along party lines. As for all the rock the vote stuff, I wish I knew why they have so many of them. You should vote only after educating yourself on the candidates.
Voting is a privilege denied to many across the world. If you don't want to vote for the presidential election, that is fine, but just remember that in some countries people don't even get a choice. You should vote to support democracy, unless a dictatorship would be your preference.
by Paul Wingert 7 years ago
FORGET PRAYING that something will prevent Trump from taking office! It’s like signing the stupid Impeach Bush or Obama petitions that does absolutely nothing except giving you the feeling like you did something by doing absolutely noting! If you give a crap, DO SOMETHING like look into this,...
by Readmikenow 3 years ago
If you want to know what Democrats are guilty of...simply see what they are accusing others of doing. THAT is what they're guilty of doing."Will Democrats accept election loss? New report says no.But there is another, equally pressing question: Will Democrats accept the results of the...
by ptosis 7 years ago
Do you believe the Presidential Election is rigged? Is the Electoral college system rigged? ‘More people are discovering that the system is all rigged and voting is just pacification,’ three-time presidential candidate Dr. Ron Paul argued during an interview with RT America. Paul warned that the...
by The Logician 11 years ago
An Electoral College Tie? How do you think that would go down with the left?Nate Silver reports that the possibility of an electoral college tie is a real possibility if President Obama holds the states Sen. John Kerry won in 2004 along with winning New Mexico and Ohio in addition. "The...
by Marcy Goodfleisch 6 years ago
Do we need a recount of the presidential election? What is driving that idea?What do you think it behind the push for a recount on the election?
by ga anderson 5 years ago
Let me channel Jake for a moment...BIG BREAKING NEWS! Bombshell announcement! A CONSTITUTIONAL crisis!Deleware has voted to join eleven other states in awarding their 3 electoral college votes to the national popular vote winner!The votes of state voters in these 12 states no longer matter! YOUR...
Copyright © 2024 The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers on this website. HubPages® is a registered trademark of The Arena Platform, Inc. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners. The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.
Copyright © 2024 Maven Media Brands, LLC and respective owners.
As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.
For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy
Show DetailsNecessary | |
---|---|
HubPages Device ID | This is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons. |
Login | This is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service. |
Google Recaptcha | This is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy) |
Akismet | This is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Google Analytics | This is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Traffic Pixel | This is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized. |
Amazon Web Services | This is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy) |
Cloudflare | This is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Hosted Libraries | Javascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy) |
Features | |
---|---|
Google Custom Search | This is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Maps | Some articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Charts | This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy) |
Google AdSense Host API | This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Google YouTube | Some articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Vimeo | Some articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Paypal | This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Login | You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Maven | This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy) |
Marketing | |
---|---|
Google AdSense | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Google DoubleClick | Google provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Index Exchange | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Sovrn | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Ads | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Unified Ad Marketplace | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
AppNexus | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Openx | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Rubicon Project | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
TripleLift | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Say Media | We partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy) |
Remarketing Pixels | We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites. |
Conversion Tracking Pixels | We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service. |
Statistics | |
---|---|
Author Google Analytics | This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy) |
Comscore | ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Tracking Pixel | Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy) |
Clicksco | This is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy) |