Gore won the popular vote by 500K but still lost -- and we were SHOCKED.

[pnwmom]

In the whole preceding century, that hadn't happened a single time.

Then Hillary won by 2.9 million votes but we blamed her for not winning the Electoral College.

What if she won by 5 million votes? Would we still be blaming her?

What if she won by 10 million votes and still lost?

Half a million -- then almost 3 million -- they keep softening us up. Normalizing the abnormal. So that even many Dems are defending the indefensible and blaming Hillary for not winning -- focusing energy on figuring out what she did "wrong"; why she didn't win enough votes among the "right people" -- because the swing state voters are just more important and she ought to have known it.

When is the point that we stop blaming the Democrat and start blaming an antiquated system that was first set up to uphold the system of slavery?

[lpbk2713]

1. Regrettably we weren't shocked enough.

We let Katherine Harris and the Supremes and the Brooks Bros mob select our next president.

[Cha]

29. I was.. both times.

[Freddie]

2. Thank you!!

It is theoretically possible to win by a lot more than 3M and still "lose" because of the EC. It's gerrymandering on a national scale and now that they know how to do it, it can happen again and again. Yes stop blaming HRC and blame our horrible "system"!

[TheCowsCameHome]

3. Uh-huh.

Now can we just concentrate on the huge problem(s) we have in the White House?

[Flaleftist]

6. 2 out of the last 5 elections went to the candidate that lost the popular vote.

The system that allowed that is also a problem worth discussing. We wouldn't have the problem in the White House if it wasn't for this antiquated system.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

33. Time to eliminate the Electoral College... it's worse than Super Delagates.

[brooklynite]

4. Well, I blamed Al Gore for losing as well...

...and as someone who heavily funded, worked for and voted for Clinton I'm not shy at saying she ran a bad campaign.

[pnwmom]

5. But his popular vote lead was 1/6 of Hillary's. At what point do we stop blaming the Democrat

and throw our efforts into changing the system that makes some votes be worth far more than others? Why should the vote of a New Yorker or a Californian be worth so much less than a voter in Montana?

[maxsolomon]

16. I'd say "changing the system" is a lost cause

The EC isn't going anywhere - it would take BIPARTISANSHIP to change the Constitution. I don't believe I will live to see such a thing again, and I plan to live for 3 more decades, min.

Ending gerrymandering and GOP Voter Roll purging is, however, realistic.

[panader0]

9. Bad campaign or not, she clearly won in my opinion.

The electoral college unfairly weights the small, and usually red, states.
The EC is outdated and we need to eliminate it. The popular vote is
to me the definition of democracy. Thanks for your work and donations.
I gave small amounts to her opponent and then voted straight D ticket
in November, as always.

[lunamagica]

7. Spot on, Pnwmom! Thank you!

[hamsterjill]

8. Some of us still think both Al and Hillary really won, too.

Proof? Don't have it.

Gut feeling? It's been with me since 2000 and it never goes away.

I've never felt either Al or Hillary did anything wrong, but rather, that they were "wronged". I always felt that Gore dropped any further challenges for the good of the country because he saw the division.

With technology as it is even today, not to mention the strides that will be made in the next few years, the electoral college is outdated and should be done away with..

[TheFrenchRazor]

14. EC and computer voting machines must both go, especially the latter. nt

[hamsterjill]

15. You are correct.

Goes without saying as far as I'm concerned. Voting must be sacred and unhackable!!!

[boston bean]

10. DU was created because of that election.

Fast forward to 2016-2017 and we get months of post mortem on why she lost. Instead of being righteously offended at the outcme and Comey and Russia.

To this day even much of that gets overlooked by some and the blame she game continues.

[pnwmom]

17. Yes! I'd forgotten about that. And yet now, people are acting as if a popular vote loss

is commonplace. Even Dems are normalizing it.

[boston bean]

18. I think it has to do with a female candidate.

John Kerry who ran and absolutely uninspiring campain didn't get a thimbleful of the criticism heaped on Hillary.

I love John Kerry but his campaign was lacking. You hear more about how it was stolen in Ohio than you do about his lackluster campaign. Maybe that is the right. But damn look at what all happpened in 2016. And we gotta blame the woman??

[CousinIT]

11. If rep's offices are not SLAMMED with people, letters, emails and calls about TrumpRussia then

It appears we're willing to continue to let the bastards get away with the treasonous bullshit.

[BigmanPigman]

12. And don'the think

it can (oops...I mean WILL) happen again and again...

[TheFrenchRazor]

13. without election hacking and EC, there would have been NO repug prez since 1992, but dems

apparently couldn't care less about these things. anyone who even mentions them is considered to be "fringe" or a "conspiracy theorist." dems better get used to losing... oh wait... they already are.

[H2O Man]

19. Gore won Florida.

The USSC selected Bush. People were upset by his having the state stolen from him, as by the electoral college -- which currently determines who wins and who loses -- he should have been declared the winner. The various court cases focused on that, not the popular vote.

[pnwmom]

22. For all we know, Hillary did, too. The FL cities with the most Democrats also use untraceable

electronic voting machines -- and early voting had put her way ahead.

Florida has an audit system in place -- but it isn't possible to audit electronic machines with no paper trails, so votes in those machines can't be audited.

https://www.wired.com/2016/08/americas-voting-machines-arent-ready-election/

[melman]

31. This

It's unbelievable that the OP doesn't seem to understand the huge difference here.

[Chiyo-chichi]

45. Exactly.

If they had counted all the votes...

[NurseJackie]

20. Apparently she didn't do enough to "earn" votes. She was "too demanding"...

... according to a lot of the stupid things I've recently read.

[Act_of_Reparation]

21. Shocked at what?

I was shocked the Supreme Court abandoned all sense of neutrality and handed the election to Bush on a silver platter despite voting irregularities in a state administered by his own fucking brother. If you were shocked someone could win the popular vote and lose the election, then, I'm sorry, but you must not have been paying attention in civics class.

I don't like the EC either, but unless we can muster the political capital to get rid of it (which we can't) our only option is make strategies that win the EC.

[pnwmom]

23. In the entire 20th century not a single popular win got overturned by the EC.

It seemed then like a distant possibility. Now it seems like a probability that will only get worse.

[Act_of_Reparation]

44. It's hard to tell.

George W. Bush's "win" was due more to the Supreme Court than the EC. With that in mind, we've really had one case where a candidate has very clearly won the EC and lost the popular vote.

Yes, it sucks. Yes, I think we should get rid of the EC. We can fight for it, but I think it is important we recognize it isn't going to happen any time soon. In the meantime we're going to have to get realistic and find a way to win within the confines of the system as it currently exists.

[aidbo]

24. In my opinion, too many dems are absolving her completely..

..of any culpability in her loss of the election.

[nkpolitics1212]

25. The thing about Al Gore's 2000 performance is Gore won the national popular vote by 500,000 votes

and received 266 electoral votes without Florida. Had Gore won Florida in 2000- He would have gotten 291 electoral votes and be the 43 President instead of Bush.
Hillary Clinton won the national popular vote by 5,000,000 votes but she ended up with 227 electoral votes. Had Hillary won MI-16,PA-20,and WI-10- She would have gotten 273 electoral votes.
Al Gore's electoral vote loss in 2000 was narrower than Hillary Clinton's electoral vote loss in 2016.

[pnwmom]

27. But his popular vote lead was only one-sixth of Hillary's. That's what SHOULD count,

but doesn't, in our system that is rigged to give more weight to the voters in rural states.

[Omaha Steve]

28. Ads in two of those states compared to Omaha for 1 EC vote

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/clinton-campaign-neglect_us_582cacb0e4b058ce7aa8b861

Clinton’s campaign and outside groups supporting it aired more television ads in Omaha during the closing weeks than in Michigan and Wisconsin combined.

It seems all those Omaha ads were attack Don the Con, and not this is what I'll do ads. Marta and I saw them around the clock on every channel. Well Don the Con had ads too. But not near as many.

OS

[cbreezen]

26. 2 of Our Last 3 Presidents Were Illegitimate.

Easy to remember.

Edited to add: Fits on a bumper sticker.

[aikoaiko]

30. Al Gore was heavily criticized for failing to win the electoral college

I can't believe you don't remember that.

He freaking lost TN. Many blamed his pro-gun control stance for not doing better in the south.

And generally, people didn't think he related to voters well -- too stiff.

And then there were the criticisms of how he handled FL and not asking for a complete state recount immediately.

Does any of this jog your memory?

[Legends303]

32. She lost in the midwest

which really killed her Electoral vote like Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin

[pnwmom]

34. Or so they say. We will never know -- Jill Stein's recounts were a joke.

No recount was conducted in Pennsylvania at all, despite collecting the millions, because a judge ruled against it.

In Michigan no district can be recounted if there is a discrepancy between the number of voters on the sign-up sheets and those recorded by the machines -- in other words, the districts it would be most important to recount. In Detroit, a mostly Democratic city, 37% of districts had those discrepancies and couldn't be recounted.

And Wisconsin used a scanning system that had an option for connectivity -- it could be connected to the internet. No one checked to see how many were connected and could be hacked from a distance.

[arthritisR_US]

37. Sounds like Amurikan exceptionalism has done you people in, this

makes me, your northern friend, very sad, disheartened and disgusted.

[pnwmom]

39. I am jealous of a lot about your country, including how you count your paper ballots --

unless it's changed since i last read about it.

[arthritisR_US]

40. It hasn't changed, still paper ballots and each counted. nt

[pansypoo53219]

35. georgee did not win, he was installed by a rite wing supreme court who wanted to protect their

majority. gore never had a chance. and the obama was cheeted again by the GOP BORG.

[arthritisR_US]

38. 1000+

[arthritisR_US]

36. When Amurika becomes a true democracy, where every vote

is respected and counts and where gerrymandering doesn't rule the day...then we can talk.

[Midwestern Democrat]

41. As others have said, we all knew going in that the electoral college is what elects the president.

By that score, she did much worse than Gore or Kerry - both of those candidates carried all the states they were expected to and came up short in one Republican leaning swing state (FL for Gore; OH for Kerry); Hillary, OTOH, lost almost (save for a narrow 1.5% win in MN) the entire Upper Midwest. Iowa (a state we won six out of the previous seven elections) was a blowout loss - Kerry lost it by a sliver (0.67%); Hillary lost it by 9.4%.

[LaydeeBug]

42. That's how they KEEP getting away with it

people pretend it would NEVER happen.

[Gothmog]

43. I was upset in 2000 and I am upset now