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Comment by ohwello | Hacker News Reader

>The globalisation project has been rejected by a majority of the population.

A majority of something, but probably not the population: http://www.nytimes.com/elections/forecast/president?action=c...

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The fact that the electoral college exists probably distorts the popular vote. People in non-swing states may not vote in the same proportions if the president were decided by popular vote. Of course, this trend could go either way.

I mean Trump currently does have the majority of votes.

The discrepancy between the EV and the popular vote is dangerous politically, in my opinion. Its significance is really underestimated, because you have the outcome unhinged from the actual vote result or sentiment; the popular vote has to overcome some structural feature that favors a different outcome. What we have now is, again, the prospect of a president who was not elected by a majority of the population. All these discussions interpreting popular opinion based on a Trump presidency are a bit moot to me because they equate the two when they're not the same. I don't disagree with a lot of the points being made here, because clearly something about voting for Trump resonated with a lot of Americans. However, if it turns out that Trump didn't win the popular vote, it is technically true that the president elect was disfavored by a majority of the voters. It's a dangerous, unfair trend and only exacerbates disillusionment with the political process.

Well, the majority of the population didn't even vote.

But there is a valid reason for it. The US is a union of States, and they hold real power. I am not sure they should give up their power because it is too complicated for some people to understand. At the same time, I would prefer States to allot their electoral votes proportionally so that they could properly represent their population. Nevertheless, there would still be rounding errors.

No, Clinton does. Just in the wrong places.

Right now, Trump actually have the majority popular vote as well, with 700.000 more votes.

Many votes are still left to be counted in the very blue states of CA, OR, and WA. Models such as the NYT upshot model give a high degree of confidence that those states will tip the popular vote balance to Clinton.

Majority means > 50%, neither candidate is going to have a majority.

Maybe time for the US to finally consider Universal suffrage... The scenario look like G.W.Bush first election over again...

The US does have universal suffrage, it's just that the President isn't elected by the popular vote. There are ways to achieve that though:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta...

Sorry I was lost in translation. I'm French and I shamefully forgot the most importa part of the expression. I meant direct universal suffrage.

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