No point vote in USA!

[Kleinstein]

In the banks, if they are counting wrong, the banks will at the end of the day / month or year will see that there balance does not work out right. So chances are that someone will complain hard and in the end the bank will be to blame. So they have a high interest to have a secure system.  However banks also may not have in interest in making smaller scale fraud public, as it would be seen as there fault. So some fraud is likely no seen by the public.

For voting it is usually the government at some level that organizes things. That many be the same people that have in interest in a certain outcome. For that reason an many countries they have independent observers form the general public, e.g. selected randomly, or just allow interested observers. AFAIK in the US it's even that way that the governor to decide if the voting for some reason did not show a valid result (at least that was told in Florida, when time was to short for a good manual counting of all votes).

The problem with some of the shown electronic voting machines is, that they don't leave a reliable paper trail. So with these pure electronic voting systems there is little chance to detect a possible larger scale fraud.  Criticizing this is very legit - especially with the security flaws found so far.  There likely was no such larger scale fraud so far, but we don't know for sure and that is the problem. It's enough to cause doubt, and that can be enough of a problem in a close and controversial outcome. This especially bad with the short deadlines to get the result.

It's a little odd that some politicians are still a favor of such electronic systems. For me this makes me think if they have some special (e.g. personal financial) interests or maybe intention to make use of the security flaws if needed. So not taking those doubts on the voting machines serious is not a good sign.

I have little problem with those simple scanners to count paper ballots. They could run the same software over decades from a mask rom chip if needed.  Bringing the results together is the easier part if there is a paper trail - as it's not that many places, there should be enough time to follow up from there.

[MT]

Mostly that video is a pile of crap.  I didn't get very far in to the conspiracy nonsense but right off the bat they talked about 'that kid'.

The kid hacked a web site but that is NOT the official results.  The results are tabulated from the paper ballots.  Even when  votes are counted electronically, there is a paper trail.

Unless results are close, votes aren't recounted.  But they can be and often are.  Bush vs Florida comes to mind.  One can argue with the 'chad' thing but there was a paper trail.  Hint:  Our main-in ballots require a signature which is manually compared with an exemplar every time I vote.  Furthermore, I have the legal right to ask if my vote was counted (it might not be if I made extraneous marks on the ballot, for example).

The real problem isn't the machines or the technology, the problem is the candidates.  How does somebody come up with enough money to spend tens of millions of dollars running for state office that pays $100k/year?  Well, they sold out to somebody and it isn't the poor people - they can't contribute the kind of money it takes to win an election.

Most voting machines aren't networked.  The votes are stored inside the machine and downloaded back at the Registrar's office.  There are variations, of course, but mostly the votes are secure.

Every once in awhile, the votes from an entire district are 'lost' or 'suddenly found'.  This doesn't do much for creating a warm fuzzy feeling.  This crap doesn't happen in the large states where politics is serious.  There are too many special interests watching every step in the process.  But for the smaller states, their impact on national elections is so small that their votes are meaningless.  Unless they gang up to support a candidate.  Then they matter.  Hillary's strategy to skip over smaller states cost her 'bigly'.

Russia hacking the voting process itself?  I kind of doubt it.  But, Russia producing propaganda on social media?  Definitely.  Nobody has come up with even 1 vote electronically changed by Russia but there are many examples of propaganda on Twitter and Facebook.  This is life in the age of the Internet.  Get used to it!

Then there are the conspiracy nuts that have a "Show".  Like the video.  The Internet provides these nuts with an outsized presence and audience.  Any fool can start a YouTube channel.  "Conspiracies R' Us!"  Indeed, the Internet provides an 'echo chamber' so like minded folks can reinforce each other and never encounter a contradicting idea.

There is no such thing as 'Voter Suppression'.  There may be a requirement for ID, why wouldn't there be?  I need ID to get on an airplane, why not to vote?  Remember the signature requirement above?  That tracks back to my California Driver License and to the property records.  They know exactly who I am and where I live (assuming I kept DMV updated which I am legally required to do).  DMVs also issue non-driver ID cards.

Yes, there are examples of intimidation - like the Black Panthers suppressing white voters in the '08 election. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Black_Panther_Party_voter_intimidation_case

Perhaps it is raining and hard to get to a polling place.  Maybe it is a bit out of the way.  Maybe there are long lines (mail-in ballots are the way to go!).  Maybe a lot of things...  But when only 58% of eligible voters even bother to vote, I don't think folks should be yelling about suppression.  In Singapore, voting is mandatory!

And, anyway, what's it to you?  You don't live here (according to your location flag).

Reading through your various replies here its actually you who sounds like one of those echo chambers you mention and George Carlin talks about! A person that combines ignorance with arrogance and always end up buthurt whining like in this and other threads while to incompetent to produce a positive solution to a technical social problem. Easier to just ridicule , but please continue to make fool of your self all by your self.

But the world is not just your personal narrow left v.s right echo chamber there are other sensible folks in this thread who do find it a problem when bad EE are allowed to swirl around and troll representatives to buy into their crap designs for which you voted them in for and to do and now whine and bitch about!

Here's the other thing:  If you don't vote you can't bitch!

Yet bitch is all you do in this thread. Again, you have no right to complain as George Carlin points out. In other words you get what you paid for.

[xrunner]

Again like others you ignore the count being done in the view of the public, and auditors from all parties concerned.
There is much less chance of rigging when...
Voter ID is instituted..
And when the handling of ballots conforms to rules that maintain a solid chain of evidence.
Finally counting in the eye of the public with auditors from all concerned parties present.
Ballots are saved until the election is validated, and nobody is contesting the outcome.

You know what you're right. You've convinced me - paper is much better. I'm going to contact my banker and make the suggestion to go back to paper checks and statements, and please show me proof of people counting my money on a table (with a human auditor standing by) and a window in the room so the public can witness it all - so I can rest easy again. If paper is best for voting it's gotta be best for banking too for the same reasons.

All I ask them to do if they are going to go with it is to have plenty of fire extinguishers handy in case my records and money are in danger of catching on fire.

That reminds me, since they'll be mailing back all my checks like back in the day, and I will go ahead and keeps my own records on a tabulating sheet, I better check my fire extinguishers too. Now where did I leave those things ...

[Cubdriver]

Banking ≠ voting.

-Pat

[xrunner]

Banking ≠ voting.

-Pat

Counting = counting.

[vk6zgo]

This is a prime example where electronics should not be used, too easy to hack.

He is quite right, those machines have been that way since Day One.
Paper ballots counted by hand in the view of everyone is the only safe way.

Did you forget the paper ballot fiasco on Florida. The results detirmined a Presidential election. Does the term " hanging chad ring a bell"? After the election, a local Florida newspaper did a careful recount of the paper ballots and many were inconclusive.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

That wasn't what is normally meant by a "paper ballot".
The punched hole idea is very early 1960s  "high tech".

With a paper ballot, the voter manually marks their vote on the paper with a pencil.

[alexanderbrevig]

Gerrymandering.
The most insane concept used in a democracy that I know of. A small committee decides the borders of voting district boundaries!

Pair that with data and you can decide the outcome before voting starts.

I really hope I've misunderstood this whole thing.
Popular vote should be the vote that matters.

[vk6zgo]

Really? So you can demand an image of your secret ballot? Kind of blows the whole point of secret ballots if: 1) somewhere in the system is a way to record who voted how, 2) a way of coercing someone's ballot as you can get them to demand and present a copy of their ballot to prove that they voted the way that you demanded that they did.

If you want a secret ballot in California, you certainly can't use the mail-in approach.  The envelope requires you to print your name and address as well as sign on the line.  It's pretty easy to see who voted for what when the envelope is opened.

In Australia, a Postal vote consists of two envelopes,
A plain one & one with your identity.

You vote, put the voting paper inside the plain envelope, seal it, & put the whole lot in the other envelope.
When it is received by the Electoral Commission, they read your details on the outer envelope, mark you off as having voted, then pass the plain envelope on to another section to be counted.

Virtually all postal voting is done this way, including for union members & for the WIA ( the Oz Ham's association).
Simples!

The reason I can get a copy or otherwise determine that my mail-in ballot was counted is pretty obvious.  The mail clerk can just dump the entire basket.  More realistically, votes have been delayed by the US Mail service.  The votes have to be at the Registrar's office before the close of voting (with some exceptions for those stationed overseas).  It has happened that the mail service did not deliver the ballots in a timely manner.

But here's the thing:  None of this crap matters!  A Republican vote in California is a waste of a perfectly good postage stamp.  We have no realistic representation in State government and certainly play no part in national elections.  California is a 'winner takes all' state in terms of the Electoral College.  The Democrats have had control of Sacramento for so long that the districts are now drawn such that there will never be a Republican legislature.

Here's the other thing:  If you don't vote you can't bitch!

In Oz, it is compulsory to vote in State & Federal Elections.

Voting in person, you turn up at the Polling Booth, get your name crossed off the list, are handed your voting papers, go to a (cardboard) booth, & with a provided pencil, mark your vote, fold the papers so nobody can see them, go to a box with a slot on top & drop your vote in.

If you are really bloody minded & don't want to vote for anyone, just fold the papers as soon as you get them & put them in the box.----this still legally counts as voting, & is termed an "informal vote".

If you don't try to vote at all, you will be fined, but it's only about $20.

Even so, most people do turn up & make a proper vote.
Some folks whinge about "compulsion", but with the options available it isn't a great imposition.

If we had this in America we know which party would consistently be the minority

How do you know?

so we won't have that. Also instead of 2 hours to vote which isn't enough time, they need to make voting on a Wednesday and everyone gets it off except necessary services like police hospital etc and you get the chance for early and mail in votes. Make it a Wednesday that way people don't turn it into a long weekend and go on, vacation. You can work on that weds if you can prove you voted and there won't need to be laws that insure companies force people to vote early because big companies know their least paid employees are the ones who are disenfranchised so companies will want you to take the day off and not vote vs vote early and work losing corporate influence. Same reason why DC will never become a state or puertorico

In Australia, Elections are always on a Saturday, Polling Places open at 8am & close at 6pm.
Many people have the weekend off, but others can usually find the time to vote.
If they really have trouble making it on the day, there are postal & early voting options.
As I said earlier, it is illegal to prevent people from voting.

[vk6zgo]

More on topic; I am not seeing an electronic means of counting votes that is as fool proof as a room full of human counters with auditors overseeing the process.

You didn't directly reply to my last response to this sort of statement -

It blows me away the mass ignorance regarding how insecure electronic methods of counting are.

How does the entire banking system, accounting systems, and stock market systems of the country function so well then? 

so here it comes a second time -

Do banks use a "room full of human counters" to run the entire banking system of this country? It sounds like you've been reading too many Dune novels and want Mentats to oversee simple counting.

Do banks use human counters to make sure you have enough money to pay your water bill? Come on - counting votes is simple integer counting - it don't get much easier than that - I think computers have developed far enough to handle the job. I honestly don't fathom how you can make statements like this -

I am not seeing an electronic means of counting votes that is as fool proof as a room full of human counters.

I'm sorry but I'd have to disagree - human counters and human auditors would make vastly more mistakes counting hundreds of thousands of votes than computers would. That's why banks don't use human counters (human computers) anymore - because, well, they are very unreliable compared to electronic computers (unless we do develop mentats  ).

Compared to the vast number of calculations done every day (hell, every minute) in the banking system, counting votes is pretty small fry.
It only happens every few years, districts can count their own votes, & the lot will be aggregated at the electoral authority's headquarters.

Computers are used for banking, not because they don't make mistakes, but because they are fast & cheap compared to people

In Oz, we have Preferential voting, which is hard to explain to foreigners, because it freaks them out.
This means you don't just have to count simple totals.

[xrunner]

Computers are used for banking, not because they don't make mistakes, but because they are fast & cheap compared to people.

Allow me -

Computers are used for banking because they don't make mistakes, they are fast, and they are cheap compared to people.

Ah that's much better. 

[Eka]

In Australia,
As I said earlier, it is illegal to prevent people from voting.

Same here in the USA. Good luck proving it and getting somebody charged.

[IanMacdonald]

Whether there is a problem or not with the voting machines, the BIGGEST ISSUE is the fact that the companies who make them do so in PROPRIETARY ways that limit the security expert field from properly scrutinizing the machines. I understand they don't want any patents or trade secrets to fall into the wrong hands, but still, the best way to ensure the security is good is to PENETRATION TEST it with a bunch of hackers, offer a prize and make it available to be hacked.

Ideally, you would want an OPEN SOURCE approach if possible and not go after "hackers" who buy up the used machines to try to find the vulnerabilities in them. There were DEFCON competitions I believe a few years ago devoted to this kind of stuff, complete with lawsuits by the various manufacturers prohibiting people from buying them and trying to "Reverse engineer" the machines.

Ok, so you want to give someone a "black box", don't tell them about anything inside, keep everything proprietary and obfuscated as to how it works. OK.... But at least don't stop well-meaning hackers or threaten to sue them.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/07/29/us_voting_machines_hacking/

You would also mandate the use of an aerospace-quality programming language such as Ada. C in particular creates far too many opportunities for security bloopers. As does SQL.

[rstofer]

Gerrymandering.
The most insane concept used in a democracy that I know of. A small committee decides the borders of voting district boundaries!

Pair that with data and you can decide the outcome before voting starts.

I really hope I've misunderstood this whole thing.
Popular vote should be the vote that matters.

There's a lot to be said for gerrymandering, none of it good!  But the idea of a popular vote is dangerous.  That's why we have the electoral college (EC) system.  If it weren't for the EC, only votes in California, New York and Florida would matter.  Toss in a few other large blue states and the election is over.  The population centers would dominate political debate and smaller states would be totally disenfranchised.  There's a reason we have that system and it's a good one.  At least Wyoming gets 3 votes (vs 55 for California).  FWIW, Wyoming has a population of somewhat over 560,000 while California is north of 37 million (about 66 times larger) but has only 18 times more clout.  Tyranny of the minority is often suggested.

There are those that say the EC gives small states an oversized influence.  That's true.  The alternative would be to have no influence at all and then what's the point of being a state?

http://www.ipl.org/div/stateknow/popchart.html
https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/allocation.html

Either way, it is an imperfect system.  It is not unusual for a president to be elected by the electoral college system while not prevailing in the overall votes.  Like the last election and the Bush 2000 election.  It has happened 5 times.

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

[CatalinaWOW]

Gerrymandering is widely and rightly reviled when it is purely party engineering, but suddenly becomes pure good when it is used to guarantee a safe seat for an ethnic minority, or an economic zone, or.....

Like everything political, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

[rstofer]

Gerrymandering is widely and rightly reviled when it is purely party engineering, but suddenly becomes pure good when it is used to guarantee a safe seat for an ethnic minority, or an economic zone, or.....

Like everything political, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Imagine trying to explain the system to an alien.  They would be laughing all the way back to Rylos.

[xrunner]

Imagine trying to explain the system to an alien.  They would be laughing all the way back to Rylos.

Or even someone in the far future -

Here let me show you. Let's time-travel 1000 years into the future ...


xrunner: "Hi THX1138 - I just got here from the year 2018! Wow you look familiar!"

THX1138: "Hello xrunner. What do you think of humanity now in the year 3018?"

xrunner: "It's wonderful! Did we ever finally stop cutting down trees and using paper?"

THX1138: "No xrunner. Sadly we still use paper for two things - wiping our behinds and voting."

xrunner: "Well that's shitty - sorry about the pun! I would have thought by now they would have gotten the paper out of the bathroom ..."

THX1138: "Not yet, and the paper voting issue became like a religion - totally irrational, so we couldn't get rid of that paper either, even with our highly developed super-quantum impenetrable encryption systems. The devotees even have entire forests specially grown just to make voting paper."

xrunner: "That's crazy. Maybe I can talk some sense into these people LOL."

THX1138: "Well, we do still have the old EEVBlog forum with that voting thread, maybe you can join in that old thread it's still going strong. It's not on the internet anymore but the Galacticnet - I'll show you how to use it"

xrunner: "That thread has been going for 1000 years? Gah ... on second thought no thank you. But weren't you in an old movie once? Wait how can that be?"

Folks - we're not going backwards to counting more votes than we already are using paper and human tabulators, unless it's a temporary laspe until the digital systems are improved here and there. Not happening.

No, we will move forward with more secure digital voting computer systems, not systems consisting of dead tree matter and human unreliability and bias. To think otherwise is ... I'm holding my tongue. But it ain't going to happen. Anyway's I'm going back to test equipment because the discussion is far more rational there.

Have fun dreaming about it though! 

[boffin]

That wasn't what is normally meant by a "paper ballot".
The punched hole idea is very early 1960s  "high tech".

With a paper ballot, the voter manually marks their vote on the paper with a pencil.

Punched holes in paper were 1st used in an early 20th (late 19th) century census, and started a little company called IBM who made machines to count them.

[Cubdriver]

Imagine trying to explain the system to an alien.  They would be laughing all the way back to Rylos.

Or even someone in the far future -

Here let me show you. Let's time-travel 1000 years into the future ...


xrunner: "Hi THX1138 - I just got here from the year 2018! Wow you look familiar!"

THX1138: "Hello xrunner. What do you think of humanity now in the year 3018?"

xrunner: "It's wonderful! Did we ever finally stop cutting down trees and using paper?"

THX1138: "No xrunner. Sadly we still use paper for two things - wiping our behinds and voting."

xrunner: "Well that's shitty - sorry about the pun! I would have thought by now they would have gotten the paper out of the bathroom ..."

THX1138: "Not yet, and the paper voting issue became like a religion - totally irrational, so we couldn't get rid of that paper either, even with our highly developed super-quantum impenetrable encryption systems. The devotees even have entire forests specially grown just to make voting paper."

xrunner: "That's crazy. Maybe I can talk some sense into these people LOL."

THX1138: "Well, we do still have the old EEVBlog forum with that voting thread, maybe you can join in that old thread it's still going strong. It's not on the internet anymore but the Galacticnet - I'll show you how to use it"

xrunner: "That thread has been going for 1000 years? Gah ... on second thought no thank you. But weren't you in an old movie once? Wait how can that be?"

Folks - we're not going backwards to counting more votes than we already are using paper and human tabulators, unless it's a temporary laspe until the digital systems are improved here and there. Not happening.

No, we will move forward with more secure digital voting computer systems, not systems consisting of dead tree matter and human unreliability and bias. To think otherwise is ... I'm holding my tongue. But it ain't going to happen. Anyway's I'm going back to test equipment because the discussion is far more rational there.

Have fun dreaming about it though! 

IMO, the idea of having paper ballots (that can be read by both machine and human) is to have a hard copy backup independent of the count made by the machine.  A purely touch screen vote disappears into the electronic æther, never to be seen again.  If someone 'accidentally' unplugs the machine or 'oops - I cleared the memory - you HADN'T downloaded the votes from this one yet?  Oh, crap!', there is no independent record.  I'd not put such shenanigans past EITHER party, given how often uncounted boxes of ballots are 'found' in the trunks of cars in close elections.  They should be read by machines (that are air gapped, not networked) on the spot, then saved for possible reference later.  The machines should also keep an independent raw count of the number of ballots passed though them, to help deter the 'found' uncounted boxes as well.

-Pat

[xrunner]

A purely touch screen vote disappears into the electronic æther, never to be seen again.

A purely touch screen bill payment disappears into the electronic æther, never to be seen again.

.. given how often uncounted boxes of ballots are 'found' in the trunks of cars in close elections.

 

Like I said - back to test equipment  where it's more rational (hopefully). 

[AF6LJ]

A purely touch screen vote disappears into the electronic æther, never to be seen again.

A purely touch screen bill payment disappears into the electronic æther, never to be seen again.

.. given how often uncounted boxes of ballots are 'found' in the trunks of cars in close elections.

 

Like I said - back to test equipment  where it's more rational (hopefully). 

There is a chain of custody in the bill payment system and a means of appealing the payment if it is flawed in some way or an outright forgery.
You have none of that with a touch screen voting system.

[rstofer]

its probably good that we got hacked and effected because no one would do shit about cyber security otherwise.

Did we?  Are you sure?  I have yet to see a definitive statement saying that even a single vote was mangled by hackers.  Now, it may have happened, but it hasn't been proven (good hackers?).  Maybe you have a better source than I do.  I just read the top few online news sites (CNN, Washington Post, NYTimes, LATimes, Sacramento Bee) and I haven't seen any such claim.  Lots of teeth gnashing but not a shred of proof.  Those sites would have banner headlines if they could prove it.  Especially since their "anointed one" lost.  They would love to prove fraud.  Instead they call the voters "deplorables" and idiots.

It seems a tremendous waste of time to try to solve a problem that doesn't exist and if it did exist, wouldn't affect the outcome.  Maybe it would if it was massive enough but even the dumbest Registrar will notice if they get back substantially more ballots than they have registered voters.  There have been audits of this in some seemingly problematic districts and, at most, they turned up a few fraudulent ballots.

Remember all the candidates worrying about the illegal aliens voting?  How'd that work out?  Did they find more than a dozen in the entire country?  I don't think so...

Electronic voting will never be considered correct simply because any fool can claim fraud and hacking - without a shred of proof.   "We lost, there must be fraud!".  Nobody in their right mind would ever trust the machines because, among other things, encryption will be difficult to prove and easy to criticize.  And, no, I don't think they will be 'open source' any time soon.

On the subject of recounts:  I am only aware of a very few and the recount did not change the outcome.  This is a manual count with observers from both candidates.  There are always a few errors but not enough to affect the outcome.  It all kind of balances out.  I think the Registrars do a terrific job.

I just don't see this as a big issue.  BREXIT is a big issue, maybe NAFTA is a big issue, certainly tariffs are something to think about and, of course, Social Security and my private pension are right at the top of my concerns.  That and the stock market of course.  Really, the only things I care about are the last 3 items.  None of the rest really affects me.  Certainly not something like an election.  We might get change but we are unlikely to get improvement.

[mathsquid]

If it weren't for the EC, only votes in California, New York and Florida would matter. Toss in a few other large blue states and the election is over.

That would only be true if all voters in blue states voted blue, and all voters in red states voted red, and that's not how it goes. Look at the 2016 Presidential election. California had 7.3M votes for Clinton and 3.9M for Trump; Texas had 4.7M Trump and 3.9M Clinton; Florida had 4.6M Trump and 4.5M Clinton.

To win the popular vote a candidate would need some sort of widespread support. I'd much rather that every voter have an equal vote in the presidential election.  Currently the millions of red voters in "safe" blue states, and the millions of blue voters in "safe" red states are disenfranchised.

[rstofer]

A purely touch screen bill payment disappears into the electronic æther, never to be seen again.

There is still an audit trail.  Every time I pay my credit card bill online, I get a transaction number that I can use as a reference.  By the next day I can see the payment applied to my balance.  Nothing really disappears.  Customer service has always been able to track things down.

I have never seen or used a touch screen voting machine but I would want a paper copy of what the machine thinks I did.  With a transaction number that I can use when I talk to the Registrar.

[Tepe]

Again like others you ignore the count being done in the view of the public, and auditors from all parties concerned.

This!

The process is transparent, simple and most importantly very easy to understand: The use of a paper ballot to be marked with a government issued pencil attached to a government issued piece of string is very simple. So is the counting process - which by the way doesn't really suffer from scaling problems as the votes are counted at the individual polling stations, so it all happens in parallel. The votes are counted by citizens (a lot like jury duty).

With electronic voting, it is not possible for the electorate to verify that the voting machines are doing only what they are  supposed to and that alone is a very serious trust problem.

[rstofer]

If it weren't for the EC, only votes in California, New York and Florida would matter. Toss in a few other large blue states and the election is over.

That would only be true if all voters in blue states voted blue, and all voters in red states voted red, and that's not how it goes. Look at the 2016 Presidential election. California had 7.3M votes for Clinton and 3.9M for Trump; Texas had 4.7M Trump and 3.9M Clinton; Florida had 4.6M Trump and 4.5M Clinton.

To win the popular vote a candidate would need some sort of widespread support. I'd much rather that every voter have an equal vote in the presidential election.  Currently the millions of red voters in "safe" blue states, and the millions of blue voters in "safe" red states are disenfranchised.

I understand exactly how this 'red voter in blue state' thing works out.  I AM a red voter in a blue state.  Overwhelming blue!  And I see the effects every day.  Letting felons out of prison, pardoning 1186 felons (the most in history), downgrading felonies to misdemeanors and releasing the perpetrators back into society, scrapping the cash bail system, attempting to change 'reasonable' force to 'necessary' force and on and on.  Shielding illegal immigrant criminals seems popular.  Yes, I have an idea how it works.

Hillary won by 3 million in the popular vote but she won by nearly 4 million in California.  One could argue then that California made up her deficit of 1 million votes in the other 49 states and would have handed her the win even though the other 49 states, in aggregate, didn't want her.  I don't think California Rule would be popular in Wyoming.

I think the Electroral College system created in 1787 is pretty reasonable and as a voting scheme, it reflects our Senate and House of Representatives arrangement for representation.  But the system certainly has quirks.