5 million more votes for Democrats than for Republicans

[eridani]

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/11/05/3589157/millions-more-votes-were-cast-for-democrats-in-the-incoming-senate-than-for-republicans/

When the results from all three elections are combined, a total of 5,204,364 more votes were cast for Democrats than Republicans. To put that number in perspective, that’s nearly a quarter of a million more votes than the gap between the number of voters who supported President Obama in 2012 and the number that backed Republican Mitt Romney.

One caveat is in order, because votes are still being counted in the 2014 cycle, it is likely that the final margins between Democrats and Republicans will shift once the final vote tallies are released. Nevertheless, because the gap between Democratic votes cast and Republican votes cast during the three elections is very large — more than 5 million — it is extraordinarily unlikely that the 2014 numbers will shift enough to give Republicans a lead. In 2012, for example, ThinkProgress conducted a similar preliminary review of the total votes cast for U.S. House members, and determined that Democrats received slightly over half-a-million votes than Republicans in our preliminary tally. When all the ballots were cast, the actual gap between Democratic and Republican House candidates was closer to 1.4 million. Given that the shift from our preliminary tally in 2012 to the final tallies was less than one million votes, the chance that Republicans will make up a 5 million vote gap once all the ballots are counted is very small.

There are several possible explanations for how Republicans could enjoy a majority in the Senate when their candidates significantly underperformed their Democratic counterparts. One is the fundamentally anti-democratic nature of the Senate itself. Under the Constitution, each state receives two senators, regardless of population, which means that Wyoming residents effectively have 66 times as much representation in the Senate as Californians. In 2012, for example, 7,864,624 Americans voted to return Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) to the Senate. At the exact same time, Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) received just 185,250 to return him to the Senate. Yet Feinstein and Barrasso both get to cast exactly one vote in the Senate despite the fact that Feinstein represents far more people than Barrasso.

[Travis_0004]

1. Senators are supposed to represent their states

2 per state was intentional and was designed to balance the power between large and small states.

[eridani]

2. Affirmative action for reactionary rural white people n/t

[starroute]

3. But the difference between large and small wasn't as great then

I checked it out a few years back -- not going to do all that running around again. But it was something like 5 to 1 or 7 to 1 between the largest and the smallest in 1789. Not 66 to 1.

[DeSwiss]

10. It's not holy writ.

It was a good idea for it's time.

- Not anymore.

[diane in sf]

4. The Republican and wingnut owned voting machine companies are stealing elections

undetectably with electronic vote counting. This has allowed all the state level shenanigans including gerrymandering and voter disenfranchisement that have led to the loss of the house in the last two elections. This is in spite of a majority of voters voting for Dems. Exit polls have not been reliable in America for the last 12 years due to the 'red shift' in elections caused by systematized vote stealing. Check out the Guns and Butter show aired on KPFA Tuesday. We will not have real elections until voting is verifiable and de-privatized and big money is kicked out of our election process.

[DFW]

8. Not undetectably

The tampering can be detected--IF an expert is allowed to go detect it. The Diebold machines were ruled in court years ago to be private property and therefore not subject to examination without a court order (which never comes in the jurisdiction where the funny stuff happens). Only their reported results are public property, and guess who does the reporting? Stalin is smiling somewhere.

As long as ten years ago, my brother, who does stuff for DARPA, told me, "give me a laptop and a cell phone, park me near a building with one of those Diebold machines in there, and I'll make it give you any result you want.

Don't forget that one precinct in Ohio in 2004 where they forget to collect the machine in time, and it showed Bush to have gotten 3000 votes in a precinct with 600 registered voters.

[Cosmocat]

17. No

I work a poll and we have electronic voting.

Nothing in our returns indicates any kind of electronic vote rigging.

It is:

Gerrymandering
Voter Disenfranchisement
Their super effective way of prettying up their bullshit so people eagerly gobble it up and vote against their own interests
Democrats have become absolutely gut, heart and directionless

[Spitfire of ATJ]

5. Solution? Liberals should retire to these low population "red states".

[Reter]

6. Counting all three elections combined is ridiculous and proves nothing

Only 2014 matters now. It's as absurd as if Hilary beats Jeb in 2016 and Republicans say "But we got more votes in 2014!"

[world wide wally]

7. Does this mean that our "founding fathers" were not perfect or omniscient?

[DeSwiss]

11. Yes.

- And we won't have done any better than they did, if we just keep repeating their mistakes.....

In the Bill of Rights of the United States, there is an attempt to secure certain freedoms and protections by way of mere text on paper. Now while I understand the value of this document and the temporal brilliance of it in the context of the period of its creation, that does not excuse the fact that it is a product of social inefficiency and nothing more.

In other words, declarations of laws and rights are actually an acknowledgment of the failures of the social design. There is no such thing as 'rights' - as the reference can be altered at will. The fourth amendment is an attempt to protect against state power abuse, that is clear. But it avoids the real issue, and that is: Why would the state have an interest to search and seize to begin with? How do you remove the mechanisms that generate such behavior? We need to focus on the real cause.

We have to understand that government as we know it today, is not in place for the well being of the public, but rather for the perpetuation of their establishment and their power. Just like every other institution within a monetary system. Government is a monetary invention for the sake of economic and social control and its methods are based upon self-preservation, first and foremost. All a government can really do is to create laws to compensate for an inherent lack of integrity within the social order.

In society today the public is essentially kept distracted and uninformed. This is the way that governments maintain control. If you review history, power is maintained through ignorance.

~Peter Joseph

[world wide wally]

13. He was a wise man.. I wish we had some around today…. WITHOUT the politics smothering every noble

action in favor of greed and power.

[joshcryer]

12. Congressional apportionment was wise.

But it has been unchanged since 1910. If the founding fathers had their way we'd have 1 rep per 30k people. Or at this point something like 5,000-10,000 reps.

By locking the number down it has caused unfair representation. It needs to at least be double what it is, imo.

A third senator would be good but then I think that'd require a constitutional amendment. Changing apportionment rules could be done by congress.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_apportionment

[world wide wally]

14. But our Congress in this country would never do that because it would compromise their own power.

[joshcryer]

15. Absolutely. It's why they went to a fixed number long ago.

They could see the writing on the wall. So they locked it down to 435.

It's absurd when you look at how some low population states have such sway over higher population states. It really does need to be at least double that, I'd go with 1,000 or even 2,000 reps.

Would also make some districts super dang competitive and get rid of gerrymandering.

[DeSwiss]

9. I keep saying it but nobody seems to want to hear it.

It's the system. It's been hacked. We are no longer represented in this system, only corporations. Things can never get better as long as this is how we try to solve our problems. It's time for it to go. It's usefulness has been fully realized. We're holding onto it like Linus holds his blanket.

- And for the same reasons.....

[blkmusclmachine]

16. GOP beginnig to gerrymand Electoral College to carve up purple states for GOP benefit.

First up, Michigan:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025815713