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I never really understood this. Why do an election when the electoral college decides who the winner is?
I'm not a US American.
The electoral college complicates things by having each state be its own separate popular vote.
Two states, Nebraska and Maine, will split their electoral votes based on their popular vote. But the rest of the states just give all their electoral votes to their popular vote winner.
The core issue is that a presidential candidate can win 50.1% of the vote in a state and will receive all electoral votes as if 100% of the state voted for him.
A secondary issue is that one electoral vote in Wyoming isn't equal to one electoral vote in California because of each state having a minimum of three electoral votes. Wyoming has a smaller population than many cities in the United States.
Without proportional electors, in a close election where the swing states--the only states that matter--vote near 50-50, the outcome is essentially random. In the states that vote 50.1% for one candidate, 100% of the votes will go to one candidate, and in the states that vote 50.1% for the other candidate, 100% of the votes will go to that candidate. Random noise in how votes are aggregated, from the district level up, can theoretically lead to wildly unfair results. In the worst case, all voters in 49.9% of states (by elector count) vote for one candidate, and then all voters in 49.9% of the voting districts in the remaining states vote for the same candidate, but 50.1% of voters in the remaining districts vote for the other candidate, that other candidate's ~25% of the popular vote becomes a majority and they win the election. The required popular vote percentage is even lower if you factor in how California voters are less than three fifths people (closer to one fifth than two fifths, even) compared to Wyoming.
The original thinking was the electoral college could stop any truly disastrous votes. But we've seen how that goes! Now we're stuck with it because it helps one party and would require a constitutional amendment to abolish, and too few people in power are interested in doing what's right for the country - they're interested in doing what's right for their party.
(For another example of the "party first" mentality that has taken over: Washington, DC residents have no vote in Congress. This seems like an obvious thing to fix, give them a two members of the House and two Senators....but whoa, we can't do that, it would change the balance of power in Congress! Seriously. That's why DC residents have no real voice in Congress. For clarity, their votes do count for the Presidential election.)
The voters decide what the electoral college chooses, though. I suppose it has been a sort of buffer against the dumbfuck citizens making dumbfuck choices. Donald Trump's presidency of course has shown that if any such buffer ever existed, it sure doesn't now.
The Republicans in general have shown that for a while now. The last times the Republicans won the popular vote was in 2004 (Bush, only during his second term and considered to have only won that because of his leaning on 9/11) and Regan in 1988. If it wasn't for the electoral college, most likely the last 30 years would have only been Democrats as President.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1035521/popular-votes-republican-democratic-parties-since-1828/
And this would have most likely been a great thing for the USA as Democrats ower the deficit and Republicans raise it.
Not to mention that the economy is also typically better when a Democrat is the president.
This might be explained by the latency that large economic decisions have. As a practical example, the leftist government in Finland increased expenditure by quite a lot in Finland during 2019-2023 (mostly due to Covid-19 and Russia, but also beyond that) leading to a much increased governmental deficit. As a result, the economy is doing poorly now, and since the Finns chose a rightist austerity government in 2023, it looks as if the economy was doing well under a leftist government, and poorly under a rightist government -- even though the consequences for the current situation can clearly be derived from the previous government and there's no way the current government has had enough time contribute to the situation.
As most US presidents serve for 8 years (most win both terms), then such a lag would be noticed within their time in office. Your answer only applies to a small time frame, not an 8 year time frame
I'm unfamiliar with the details of economics decisions in the US. How much does the president get to decide those things versus the House and Senate?
It's not an all or nothing with the economy and the president, but they do have some sway in some ways. Easy examples would be Biden's Build Back Better Plan can help change the American economy, and if he does get elected to a second term, it will show results then.
On the other side, Trump pushed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. This has caused the deficit to climb, and didn't help spur any economic growth (in fact:
And many of the issues of this truly Act became an issue starting in 2021, which if Trump was in office, would have been reflected on his presidency. (It's part of the issues Biden has been having with the economy).
Historically, it was implemented because in the 1800's, a lot could happen between an election in, say, Wisconsin, and the time the electoral college member arrives in Washington DC.
The US being the oldest democracy might have a nice ring to it, but realistically it's just means that there's a lot of outdated baggage attached.
That would make sense, but that's not the law. In most states, the electors can vote differently and it still counts, and in only some of those states is it even illegal for the elector to do that.
It all goes back to slavery. The South has lower population and wouldn't sign the constitution unless they had a handicap to ensure they were able to keep owning people. As more states entered the country the slavers got worried about the likelihood of slavery being made illegal. Look up Bleeding Kansas for more info.
In an all-out democracy the popular vote would determine the winner, but because people are too stupid and can't be trusted voting against their own interests. The electoral college exists, and it's why we are a constitutional federal republic.
It's also why Plato hated Democracy because it's breeding ground for populism and idiots.