Hillary Clinton received the 3rd largest popular vote in US History and they are still counting.

[Fla Dem]

2016...Hillary Clinton........63,649,978.....Donald Trump........61,943,670 (Dif Clinton +1,706,308 as of 11/20/2016)
http://cookpolitical.com/story/10174

2012...Barack Obama........65,899,660.....Mitt Romney..........60,932,152
2008...Barack Obama........69,456,897.....John McCain..........59,934,814
2004...George W. Bush .....62,040,610.....John Kerry.............59,028,439
2000...Al Gore.................50,999,897.....George W. Bush......50,456,002
1996...Bill Clinton.............45,590,703.....Bob Dole...............37,816,307
1992...Bill Clinton.............44,909,326.....George H.W. Bush...39,103,882
1988...George H.W. Bush...48,886,597.....Michael Dukakis......41,809,476

http://2012election.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=004332

http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/national.php?year=2012&f=0&off=0

Now let's take a look at the impact of the Jill Stein / Gary Johnson vote.
...........................2016...............2012
Gary Johnson......4,360,778.........1,275,923
Dr. Jill Stein........1,356,943............469,015
TOTAL................5,717,721.........1,744,938

Stein and Johnson increase in votes over 2012 = 3,972783

We can assume or not, that a good chunk of the increase in the Stein/Johnson votes were protest votes against Hillary Clinton. The 4 million vote difference in the Stein/Johnson vote 2012/2016 would not have allowed HRC to best Obama's 2008 total, which was a historical election, but it would have far exceeded his 2012 vote and would very possibly given Clinton the electoral victory in several swing states.

State................Clinton (D)......Trump (R)..,,...Others.......Clinton %...Trump %....Others %
Florida*..............4,504,975........4,617,886........297,178.......47.8%.......49.0%.........3.2%
North Carolina.....2,169,496........2,345,235........187,205.......46.1%.......49.9%.........4.0%
Pennsylvania........2,847,008.......2,914,960........212,680.......47.7%.......48.8%.........3.6%
Wisconsin............1,382,210.......1,409,467........152,943.......46.9%.......47.9%.........5.2%

http://cookpolitical.com/story/10174

[Ninga]

1. I am in fear that as more and more news rolls out, my aching heart will

never heal...

[Tom Rinaldo]

2. I get that. She should be President.

It is also worth noting in your chart that our vote totals went down between 2008 and 2012, and again between 2012 and 2016. Republican vote totals went up between 2008 and 2012, and again between 2012 to 2016. Those are not good trend lines. By way of contrast, between 2000 and 2008 Democratic vote totals increased almost 10 million votes each cycle.

While I agree that the Green Party got a good number of votes that would otherwise have gone Democratic, some of those votes never would have gone to virtually any Democrat - certainly not one identified in any way with the establishment. There have always been some voters who believe that neither major party represents them, who would rather not vote than vote for the candidate of either. Likewise with Libertarian voters, but in their case this time around I suspect there were more protest votes against Trump than against Clinton among those who voted for Johnson. And there were also some votes for the independent conservative (who made a run for it in Utah) that normally go Republican.

Though Hillary Clinton rightfully should be President Elect right now, the Democratic Party has to face the fact that enthusiasm for it in general has begun to fall - even more so below the Presidential level.

[JI7]

4. democrats were out of the white house 2000-2008 and republicans were out 2008-2016

[Hekate]

3. Gosh, she's so unlikeable. Some Dems here are still alleging she lost and it's all her fault.

[duffyduff]

5. And that she engaged in "identity politics" and she couldn't do anything right.

The sexism of some is so obvious, but it is just as rampant on the so-called left as it is on the right.

[aikoaiko]

6. I don't get why we keep up with this when it shows...

...that she wasn't as effective a candidate as President Obama.

[R B Garr]

7. LOL!

More evidence of the absolute cluelessness and desperation of her detractors...

[aikoaiko]

8. Carry on then if this makes you feel better.

[R B Garr]

9. Noting desperate attempts to knock her down a few pegs

in totally clueless ways isn't about making *me* feel better.

[aikoaiko]

10. I'm not trying to knock her down.

I just don't get the repetitive OPs on vote tallies that say the same thing -- the most votes except for Obama 2008 and Obama 2012 but not enough votes in key states to win the election.

[R B Garr]

12. The vote totals keep going up, so they are not repetitive.

And it's obvious what you are doing with your comparisons, but it is just desperately trying to put her down.

[Fla Dem]

11. Where did I say she was Pres Obama's equal as a campaigner.

She herself often said she wasn't as good a campaigner as Pres Obama or even her husband. Additionally Obama was a historic candidate. He drew from many sectors that would not generally vote, or vote for a mainstream candidate. My post was simply pointing out the fact that regardless of all the criticism of HRC, she still got the 3rd highest vote count in history, only 2.5 million less than Obama's 2nd campaign (3% less).

As far as being an "effective a candidate", she was one of the most "qualified" candidates to be president in recent history. Not sure what your definition of effective means in this context.

This was not a post dissing Pres Obama, but one to point out how ridiculous our voting system is that when a person receives almost 2 million more votes than their opponent, they still lose the election.

Why does this bother you?

[aikoaiko]

13. I don't think and didn't say that you did.

By my way of thinking effective and qualified are independent concepts that we often think are correlated

My definition of effective is earning 270+ electoral votes.

Why does this bother me? I think I'm puzzled by all the OPs and social media memes on HRC's total vote count when it doesn't take into account past elections with stronger third party candidates (Ross Perot) and overall population growth over the last few decades. And in the end, it doesn't matter. Even if HRC earned 20 million more votes than Obama 2008, it wouldn't matter if they weren't distributed well enough to earn 270+ electoral votes.

[UCmeNdc]

14. The United States must develop an accurate method to recount the votes. Transparency!

Right now you can vote all you want to but who is actually counting? How can you match the vote count to the actual way the voters voted? There is no accurate recount methods in place.