NY & California.......This surprises me

[ALPHAGRIZ1]

New York has 19.8 million

California 38.8 million people

Yet in this years presidential election only 6.5 million voted in New York and just under 9 million voted in California.

For whatever reason I would have thought both of those numbers would have been a lot higher since they are so much smarter than the rest of the country. Doesnt it seem like those two states with roughly 60 million people (Yes I know roughly only half of that number is able to vote) would turn out more than 15 million between them?

They sure run their mouths a lot.

[CAA Flagship]

STICKY NOTES IN NY SUBWAY

http://www.nytimes.com/video/nyregion/1 ... erapy.html

New Yorkers are finding catharsis for their post-election emotions in an unexpected place: a subway station. The street artist Matthew Chavez took sticky notes and a pen into the Sixth Avenue station at 14th Street and told passers-by to write messages to stick on the wall.

So what would YOUR sticky note say?

[ALPHAGRIZ1]

Whatever that guy has...I got none of, I do not understand how people can be like this, cannot comprehend how other people care that much for people they do not know. I guess it just boils down to the fact he is simply a better person than I will ever be.

[CitadelGrad]

New York has 19.8 million

California 38.8 million people

Yet in this years presidential election only 6.5 million voted in New York and just under 9 million voted in California.

For whatever reason I would have thought both of those numbers would have been a lot higher since they are so much smarter than the rest of the country. Doesnt it seem like those two states with roughly 60 million people (Yes I know roughly only half of that number is able to vote) would turn out more than 15 million between them?

They sure run their mouths a lot.

I imagine some of them were so assured of a Hillary victory, they didn't bother to vote. Or maybe they were just not enthusiastic for her.

[Grizalltheway]

New York has 19.8 million

California 38.8 million people

Yet in this years presidential election only 6.5 million voted in New York and just under 9 million voted in California.

For whatever reason I would have thought both of those numbers would have been a lot higher since they are so much smarter than the rest of the country. Doesnt it seem like those two states with roughly 60 million people (Yes I know roughly only half of that number is able to vote) would turn out more than 15 million between them?

They sure run their mouths a lot.

I imagine some of them were so assured of a Hillary victory, they didn't bother to vote. Or maybe they were just not enthusiastic for her.

Well she did win both of those states comfortably.

[93henfan]

STICKY NOTES IN NY SUBWAY

http://www.nytimes.com/video/nyregion/1 ... erapy.html

New Yorkers are finding catharsis for their post-election emotions in an unexpected place: a subway station. The street artist Matthew Chavez took sticky notes and a pen into the Sixth Avenue station at 14th Street and told passers-by to write messages to stick on the wall.

So what would YOUR sticky note say?

Life under Trump is not worth living. Just do it. (and I'd draw a little Nike swoosh under the second sentence)

[GannonFan]

I imagine some of them were so assured of a Hillary victory, they didn't bother to vote. Or maybe they were just not enthusiastic for her.

Well she did win both of those states comfortably.

Agreed - what were these people really voting for anyway? Were any of the races they would vote on competitive? If your state is guaranteed to go for a particular Presidential candidate (and clearly both CA and NY were) and if the down ballot candidates are also assured (Schumer wasn't losing in NY for instance), and if there were no ballot questions, other than fulfilling a rote civic duty (which I'm fine with) what would be the point of voting? I would still vote, but I can see the lack of a need to vote by others in those situations.

[CAA Flagship]

Well she did win both of those states comfortably.

Agreed - what were these people really voting for anyway? Were any of the races they would vote on competitive? If your state is guaranteed to go for a particular Presidential candidate (and clearly both CA and NY were) and if the down ballot candidates are also assured (Schumer wasn't losing in NY for instance), and if there were no ballot questions, other than fulfilling a rote civic duty (which I'm fine with) what would be the point of voting? I would still vote, but I can see the lack of a need to vote by others in those situations.

And thus the problem with the Electoral College system.
I'm OK with the state by state, weighted voting system. But I don't think it should be all or nothing. And I don't think the way Maine and Nebraska does it goes far enough either. I'm not sure exactly how it should be done, but as a starting point, each state should get a weighted, odd number of votes. And the votes should be divided based on the overall popular vote. That is the only way everyone's vote can truly matter.

The only issue would be how to divide the votes. I'm sure this can be done mathematically. It's just a matter of how to round the public votes into the EC votes.

[GannonFan]

Agreed - what were these people really voting for anyway? Were any of the races they would vote on competitive? If your state is guaranteed to go for a particular Presidential candidate (and clearly both CA and NY were) and if the down ballot candidates are also assured (Schumer wasn't losing in NY for instance), and if there were no ballot questions, other than fulfilling a rote civic duty (which I'm fine with) what would be the point of voting? I would still vote, but I can see the lack of a need to vote by others in those situations.

And thus the problem with the Electoral College system.
I'm OK with the state by state, weighted voting system. But I don't think it should be all or nothing. And I don't think the way Maine and Nebraska does it goes far enough either. I'm not sure exactly how it should be done, but as a starting point, each state should get a weighted, odd number of votes. And the votes should be divided based on the overall popular vote. That is the only way everyone's vote can truly matter.

The only issue would be how to divide the votes. I'm sure this can be done mathematically. It's just a matter of how to round the public votes into the EC votes.

I'm not sure how what you are saying is really any different than just using the popular vote. With the current electoral college on one end and on the other end just pure popular vote, I'm not sure there's a whole lot in between those two. The only way everyone's vote truly matters, as it pertains to the Presidency, is to go with a popular vote only. Anything other than that puts one person's vote above or below another person's vote. Of course, that's if the most important thing when voting for a President is to have everyone's votes be perfectly equal. There are plenty of things to vote for other than President and the one person one vote standard applies to those other things.

[CAA Flagship]

And thus the problem with the Electoral College system.
I'm OK with the state by state, weighted voting system. But I don't think it should be all or nothing. And I don't think the way Maine and Nebraska does it goes far enough either. I'm not sure exactly how it should be done, but as a starting point, each state should get a weighted, odd number of votes. And the votes should be divided based on the overall popular vote. That is the only way everyone's vote can truly matter.

The only issue would be how to divide the votes. I'm sure this can be done mathematically. It's just a matter of how to round the public votes into the EC votes.

I'm not sure how what you are saying is really any different than just using the popular vote. With the current electoral college on one end and on the other end just pure popular vote, I'm not sure there's a whole lot in between those two. The only way everyone's vote truly matters, as it pertains to the Presidency, is to go with a popular vote only. Anything other than that puts one person's vote above or below another person's vote. Of course, that's if the most important thing when voting for a President is to have everyone's votes be perfectly equal. There are plenty of things to vote for other than President and the one person one vote standard applies to those other things.

Agree. I admittedly don't know how we got to this point to begin with. I'm assuming there was some good reason to separate out each state. From what I'm suggesting, each state would still have "power" of at least 1 vote each. But I really don't know why that is necessary. Maybe someone can explain that to me.

I'm just thinking that it has to be frustrating to be in the minority in a heavy blue or heavy red state.

[GannonFan]

I'm not sure how what you are saying is really any different than just using the popular vote. With the current electoral college on one end and on the other end just pure popular vote, I'm not sure there's a whole lot in between those two. The only way everyone's vote truly matters, as it pertains to the Presidency, is to go with a popular vote only. Anything other than that puts one person's vote above or below another person's vote. Of course, that's if the most important thing when voting for a President is to have everyone's votes be perfectly equal. There are plenty of things to vote for other than President and the one person one vote standard applies to those other things.

Agree. I admittedly don't know how we got to this point to begin with. I'm assuming there was some good reason to separate out each state. From what I'm suggesting, each state would still have "power" of at least 1 vote each. But I really don't know why that is necessary. Maybe someone can explain that to me.

I'm just thinking that it has to be frustrating to be in the minority in a heavy blue or heavy red state.

We got to this point because it's where we started - the Constitution was drawn up with this, and primarily so that the bigger states wouldn't dominate the smaller ones. The same compromise that gave us the structural of the bicameral legislature also gave us the method to elect the President. And it's the same reason why it hasn't gone away - enough smaller states are not going to give up their larger impact on the election.