@arakish
I like veering off topic a bit for here and talking political, but if people want to keep the atheist hub clear of political talk I am happy to edit this post and move my response to perhaps debate forum.

First, I agree with you on the overall premise, the US election process is very broken, ripe for abuse, lots and lots of voter suppression, and there is way way too much money involved. Money and politics should never mix or corruption is very likely to follow.

The Electorate, that truly decides ALL voting issues.

Incorrect, the electoral college only decides the presidency. Members of Congress in both houses are elected by direct popular vote. Senators are elected via a statewide vote and representatives by voters in each congressional district. Ballot issues for state and county and city level are all popular vote as well. (Sometimes it requires a "supermajority of anywhere from 55 to 67%, but still remains a popular vote, there is no electoral college systems in place for these votes. A brief google search confirms the only time their is an electoral college vote is for presidency.

However, gerrymandering done by the incumbents is a huge issue, and a big reason why incumbents on average only lose the re-election votes they actually try to campaign for by rates of less than 10% in the last 20 years or so. And gerrymandering is DEVASTATING to the possible rise of a 3rd party.

I fully agree also the power of various religious groups have, they do a great job of motivating their followers to all vote in one concise targeted vote that can easily sway elections. Which brings me back to the point I made that if everyone got out to vote, especially in midterm years, and researched and critically thought about the voting issues at hand themselves, special interest groups like the ones backed by religious organizations would not have near as much success. Various religious groups are very good at "getting out the vote." Where the none's with little to no organization may stay home, discouraged by history and too busy and tired to take the energy to get informed and vote, especially on non presidential vote years.

How can you say that that 20% is actually voting for what ALL the people want? The greater majority of people in America are actually smart enough to know that their vote is as worthless as the brown logs everyone drops in the toilet.

This is a good point, I think we are both sort of arguing the same thing about the 20% that do vote, that 20% in no way is perfect representation of the interest of the whole of America. We absolutely agree there, back to that "special interest group funded by dark money that sneaks in politicians and ballot issues that the majority would never want, but small "special interest" groups will be interested in. Case in point, the absolute majority of americans polled do agree to at least some sensible gun control, but little to no gun control happens at all, because special interest groups (the minority of gun owners that want no additional sensible gun regulation added come out in numbers that supersedes the interest of the majority. Often funded by "dark" money from gun manufacturers.
Everyone's individual vote does not mean much. Your vote only actually matters if a popular vote for something comes down to a "tie" where your vote breaks the "tie" Something that almost never happens, especially on a state level, even a state with super low population, especially population that actually voted, say wyoming that sees less than 200,000 people actually vote at elections, the chances that a vote will "tie" down to 1 person is still extremely unlikely.

So, even if it is a popular vote, what's the point, your vote will never matter right? While yes, technically true, this is dangerous thinking. The average person's reaction to voting or not and why they vote DOES matter. Of the people that decide to vote anyways, even though their personal vote does not matter, it is the trends of THOSE people that end up deciding the vote. If the average none/atheist/agnostic person says "why bother vote, my vote does not matter" but the average theist person, or person working in say the oil and gas industry, gets motivated by their organizations to vote, then we are talking numbers that does matter, especially at a local level. This is how special interest wins the day, convincing the opposition their vote does not matter while the special interest group motivates their minority to vote. Consider your own vote as "my vote may not matter," but if everyone that holds my views does vote instead of does not vote, then my view will actually have representation.

If everyone that said "my vote does not matter" Or "I cant be bothered," actually did decide you know what? I will actually vote, and that became the new average, then all those people opinions will be factored into the vote.

Even Barack Obama lost the popular vote his second time.

I did not check the others, but I did check Obama's 2012 vote, the internet states that Obama did indeed win the popular vote (goes along with how I remember it as well.) Actually I took the time to check to confirm, Only times in modern history that a president won the presidency while losing the popular vote was 2000 (W Bush) and 2016 Trump. Oh also W Bush lost the popular vote in 2000, not 2004 at least according to a fast google search. Bill Clinton never lost the popular vote, (or electoral vote obviously!)

As for the state stuff, there is no electoral college, it is decided by popular vote, however for "districts" (such as US congress house seats) lines can be redrawn to give the incumbent the advantage. This does not change the fact it is a popular vote, but it does change who votes for which candidate. And a person can draw a map that gives him more supporters in close races, consolidating voter blocks to their respective areas. A huge and unfair problem to be sure, but it does not mean someone running for office outside of the US presidency that someone can "lose" the popular vote but still get voted in.

You may have seen stuff circulating the net today about "democrats overwhelmingly won the popular vote in senate but lost seats!!) This is a gross mischaracterization. Conflating national vote numbers to state elections (US congress seats are obviously NOT voted on at a national level but instead a local level.)

Now let me reillustrate, while I just spent a lot of words writing how everything (outside of the US presidency) is actually decided by popular vote, please do not think for a second that: I do not agree with you that the overall system is VERY broken. However, I argue strongly that EVERY citizen over the age of 18 should vote, every single election. Yes I say this even to people that vote VERY differently then I do. The less people vote the less democratic our system is, and more corruption can seep in where the votes are decided by the few instead of the many. Your individual vote does not matter much, but the public opinion on voting or not matters a great deal. The goal here should be every single citizen of US over the age of 18 should take the times to inform themselves of the issues and have the ability to vote. I am strongly for a national holiday once a year where everyone votes. I feel a lot of the "disease" that grips the US and corruption of its politicians would go away if ever citizen voted.

George Carlin summed it up perfectly:

I love George Carlin comedy and points, and strongly agree with everything he said in your quoted text until the part of "I don't vote."
I do however agree with his 2 reasons. The 2nd one just being funny while sort of true, and the first one I agree there is a very real possibility that democrat or republican the country is running for a few political elite that do not really care which party is in power, they will get their way regardless, and the 2 party system helps give illusion to people that their actually fair competition happening. (I find the fact that the 2 parties have mostly been within a few percentage points of each other and actually competitive with each other decade after decade to be HIGHLY suspicious, what are the odds of so many years where it is always close instead of a clear domination of one party in popular vote numbers. With only Richard Nixon's (2nd term) winning the popular vote with greater than 20% margin in the last 50 years! (20% margin is 60/40, still small, there has never been a presidency where a president nominee won by popular vote numbers even approaching two (or greater) to one, (requires 33% margin for 2 to 1 popularity)
I do think we unfortunately have the responsibility to vote in the lesser of 2 evils. I know I held my nose and voted for Clinton in 2016 even though I strongly disliked her, and I have plenty of gripes with the democratic party (especially how they handled themselves in 2016!!) And I was aware this time around, that the national popular vote doesn't matter, this is the one case where it is electoral vote, unless you live in a battle ground state for the US presidential vote, you are correct, your vote doesn't matter for US presidency (unless, of course, the state you are in suddenly becomes a battleground state due to low voter turnout!) If you are republican in D.C. yeah, that ballot paper would have more use as TP then it would to register your vote that actually matters for the national presidential election.

In short, get out and vote. Only time your vote doesn't matter at all is if you are voting in a state/district that is historically very strongly red or blue, (Like washington DC voting over 3 to 1 or much higher, for democratic presidents for the last 50+ years.) For the presidential election or for more local elections that also have a similar history of going for 1 party within the area of popular votes that decide.

 
 

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