OK, this being my first presidential election that I voted in, I had no idea how the whole process "worked". Here's what I think I learned though...at least this is how I feel anyways...it's really actually isn't important whether or not I vote, because I didn't technically get to pick the president anyways - whoever these "Electoral Vote" people are who decided who decided the winner, not me and the MILLIONS of other people who voted. Now don't get me wrong, I totally agree with the choice they made, however, I really don't feel like my vote even matters because they announced that Obama was president before Idaho (and a lot of other states) had even reported all their numbers in. Does my vote only matter when the electoral vote people are tied or something? I do know that for the local and state races my actual vote counts, but still, I was really excited to vote for president and I feel totally let down, even though the candidate I picked won.
Maybe someone can explain it to me because I feel like I waisted my time voting yesterday when originally I was so freaking excited.
1 comment:
This comment was left by Kira - stupid me accidentally hit "reject comment" instead of "publish" SORRY KIRA!! :)
It was my first time voting too and just like you I learned ALOT from this election =)
As far as I can tell, and from what I've been told, yes your vote DOES count...but only when your parties amount of votes become the "mass" vote in your state.
SO, basically here in california there are FAR more Dems than Repub thus the DEMS get ALL the electoral votes for california (55 of them to be exact). Now if all the repubs in cali went out and voted for republicans then the state would turn red and not blue...because red would be the majority.
So in a sense your vote DOES count, but only when it comes down to tiebreaking amount of votes I.E. North Carolina, Idaho etc. When you only have the difference of a few hundred or thousand voters who are on the fence, the state is undeclared until ALL the individual votes are counted and a winning parties majority votes are decided.
A pres. canidate only needs 270 electoral votes to win an election, which is why obama was named the winner before some states were decided. I'm still unsure as to why some states have MASSES of electoral votes an dother states have very few. It may have something to do with the population, but then again I could be 100% wrong on all of this LOL.
Confusing? yes. a stupid way to run an election? yes. I think they need to dump the electoral votes thing, seeing as it was created 150 some odd years ago as an easier way to elect the president during elections when communication across states wasn't easy...but we aren't living 150 years ago, we are living in the days of high-speed internet connections and cell phones. But then again who ever said the government was smart ;)
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