• LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    Popular vote isn’t meaningless, just distorted. There’s a limit to how much you can lose by and still manage to get enough electoral votes.

      • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        Good question. It would be difficult to calculate. I would start by examining electoral districts to find the ones where voters from the popular majority party in a state have been concentrated by gerrymandered so they will heavily win those districts but lose in most others, enabling the minority party to win that state. Then determine how many votes the gerrymandered party would need to overcome this by winning some of those other districts. Then do this for the whole country and add up the total.

        • TempermentalAnomaly@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          What does gerrymandering have to do with winning a state’s electoral college delegates outside of Maine and Nebraska? States award all their delegates to the winner of the states popular vote.

              • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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                4 days ago

                Popular vote doesn’t have a meaningful role in determining the presidency, but all states except Maine and Nebraska allocate their electoral votes according to it. Well alrighty then, you have yourself a good day!

                • TempermentalAnomaly@lemmy.world
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                  4 days ago

                  81 million Democrats voted in 2020, but only 71 million this year. Trump won by 3.5 million.

                  This is the national popular vote.

                  When states allocate their electoral votes, it’s based upon the state’s popular vote. So if a candidate gets the most votes in California. If only one person votes for that candidate in California, the candidate gets all the electoral votes in California. If everyone votes in Alaska, the winning candidate only gets Alaska’s electoral votes.

                  The national popular vote isn’t meaningful in determining the president. The only determinant is the electoral college.

                  • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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                    4 days ago

                    Sure, the national popular vote total doesn’t determine the presidency, but it’s also not “meaningless”. The popular vote winner has won the presidency all but 5x in US history.