SkyHookFTW wrote:xdrta+ wrote:asdfgh wrote:
Sure, more people voted for Clinton, but many of them abstained from the primary, where they could have voted for Bernie who stands for issues like universal healthcare or free public education, which are issues most Democratic voters agree with. Many of them also abstain from local elections, gubernatorial elections etc., which play a big role in why we have such a dysfunctional system. Maybe if more people participated in elections, referenda etc., we wouldn't have a system where the person with fewer votes wins, or a system with only 2 options. The first-past-the-post system we have in the U.S. isn't that much different than what they have in the UK or Canada, countries that have a functioning multiparty system. American voters treat politics like sports unfortunately. Anyway, enough about that. I just had to get it out of my system.
Plenty of people voted in the primary, just more of them voted for Clinton. If anything, Sanders' voters were more fervent, there just weren't enough of them. And the only reason a candidate with fewer votes can win in America, is the insane Electoral College, a holdover from 200 years ago. No other country is so foolish as to have such a system.
There is a very good reason for having that system, but I have neither the time or energy to explain why.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/electoral-college-racist-origins/601918/
There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to fewest objections.
