I feel like Election Day is kinda like a Nerd Super Bowl.
I've never been huge into watching professional sports. I've played sports my whole life. I played baseball growing up, and I played softball well into my 40s. So, I've got a lot of experience playing sports, but I really never could get into watching other people play sports. I just don't understand the obsession with it.
But I have always enjoyed election day. I feel like it's kind of like a nerd Super Bowl that comes around once every four years. I just wish that the votes could be counted faster because I hate going to bed on election night not knowing who the winner is. Can't this stuff all be done online electronically? Oh well, maybe someday.
I always end up staying up later than I want to on election night, hoping that we'll have a definitive winner. And sometimes there's that surprise the next day...
Kevin Robertson
@Reply 2 years ago
I built a simple Excel sheet to track the results.
Kevin Robertson
@Reply 2 years ago
Now that the result is known I'll share part of my sheet.
I Froze the top Panes (first 5 rows) so they were always visible.
Nice. We need to get rid of this stupid Electoral College system.
Kevin Yip
@Reply 2 years ago
I don't mind the electoral college, since it lets every state have its say, and different states often have widely different lives, issues, concerns, etc.
This election is like any other elections: if people aren't happy about how the incumbent party governs, they will vote for the other party. I voted blue this year because I'm doing okay in my life. But many people aren't. The Dems won both the presidency and the Senate in 2020, so they had their shot. And now the GOP has theirs. In 2 and 4 years' time, if things don't improve, they will also suffer at the ballots. That is how things have always worked. Trump lost in 2020 because of the pandemic and social unrest that got out of control. When things are bad, the incumbent party always suffer at the next election.
This is why I dislike the Electoral College: In Wyoming, you have 580,000 people and 3 electors, meaning each electoral vote represents about 193,333 people. Compare this to California, where 39 million people are represented by 54 electors. Each vote there represents roughly 722,222 people. Wyoming voters have significantly more influence per elector than Californians, making the system inherently unfair.
The Electoral College forces politicians to focus their resources, time, and money on a handful of swing states, rather than addressing the needs of the entire country. This leads to a system where only a small portion of voters hold disproportionate sway over national elections, leaving millions across the rest of the country overlooked. It's time to either get rid of the Electoral College entirely or reform it, perhaps by adopting systems like those in Maine and Nebraska, where electoral votes are distributed by congressional district. This would make every vote count more equally and ensure that politicians have to campaign across the whole nation, not just in a few key states.
This disparity is why the Electoral College is broken and desperately needs an overhaul. And let's not forget, the entire concept of state governments dates back to the 18th century, a structure that is no longer be relevant in today's interconnected world... but I digress.
Matt Hall
@Reply 2 years ago
That's sort of true, but I believe only 438 are intended to represent the people. 100 represent the 50 states. Each state gets equal representation as a sovereign entity, regardless of population. The state government of Wyoming gets the same representation as California -- 2 electors. The people of Wyoming only have one elector representing them.
The numbers work out to be closer when this is accounted for.
I suppose if you believe that States should be given the same rights as People. Then again, the Supreme Court agrees that Corporations are People... so maybe they'll get the right to vote soon too. LOL
Matt Hall
@Reply 2 years ago
You would get extra votes for each of your corporations. Think how much fun that would be.
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