Why My Son Won't Vote For President - His Vote Really DOESN'T Count

John McCain said tonight that "The American people have spoken, and they have spoken clearly." 10% difference (roughly) is NOT America speaking clearly.

If you look at the Electoral College votes, yes. As of 10:13PM Pacific Time with only 3/4 of the country reporting, Obama has 338 votes, McCain 156 and 270 are needed to win. That sounds like a major win.

But... the popular vote is 54,055,517 to 49,628,933. A difference of only 4,426,584 which is close to the population of Los Angeles.

The difference between the Electoral College results and the popular vote is why my 28 year old son and many others will not vote for a Presidential candidate. This difference makes a little news every four years, then is totally forgotten until the next time.

I remember when Bill Clinton was "elected". He said it was a clear message from America. Yes... while he won the Electoral votes, 49% of American said that they didn't want him as President. Just as 48% tonight have said they don't want Obama in the White House. In 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote... but lost because the Electoral vote.

The Electoral College system was instituted to be "fair" and to protect the rights of the less populous states. Let's see how that works out.

California has 55 Electoral votes, Nevada 5. (Electors are granted based on the number of Senators and Representatives a state has, which means that the more population a state has, the more Electors.)

Say only California and Nevada are being looked at this election. And say that only 1 million people from each state vote. Say that the one million Californians vote for Obama and the one million Nevadans vote for McCain.

The result would be 1,000,000 vs 1,000,000 or a dead tie. Except for that little Electoral College thing. The REAL results are 55 to 5. The popular winner in a state gets all the electoral votes the state has assigned to it.

Even though the voters were completely split 50-50 in these pretend results, the final vote is skewed 10-1 in favor of the larger state because it has more people (who didn't vote at all.)

This didn't protect the rights of Nevada (the smaller state) at all. If anything, it makes our votes worth less than Californians.

Now, here's the part that no one seems to understand. We did NOT elect Obama President tonight.

We elected "Electors" who will vote on December 15th for the President and the Vice-President.

Currently, Obama has 338 Electors slated to vote for him and McCain has 156. The Electors pledge to vote for whomever won their state, but there is no technical rule that says that they HAVE to vote that way.

The Electors could, in theory, elect ANYONE President, even if they didn't run for the office. The only thing that would matter is that the person they elect is qualified under the constitution.

So... even after the popular vote is pretty much split between McCain and Obama, and they are pledged to actually vote in such a way that Obama will win... the Electors could on December 15, elect say Tom Hanks as President and Rosie O'Donnell as Vice-President. This sort of happened eight years ago when one elector abstained from voting.

This disconnection between the popular vote, the Electoral vote and what COULD happen is why my son and many others refuse to vote for the office of President.

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Elections, Government, Politics