That's right, in the U.S. presidential election your vote doesn't count.
Say you live in Illinois and you're a Republican; your vote doesn't count. Illinois is a reliably "blue" state and will go for Obama this year. That isn't why your vote doesn't count, though. It's because under the electoral system as implemented, Illinois is a winner-take-all state for electors. So as long as one more Democrat votes for Obama than all the Republicans, ALL of Illinois' electors go for Obama. Same thing if you're a Republican in California, New York, or Massachusetts - your vote doesn't count.
Similarly, if you're a Democrat in Oklahoma (there are some, right?) your vote doesn't count. Oklahoma is the reddest state in the nation so it's even better; if you're a Democrat in Oklahoma your vote will NEVER count. At least not as long as Oklahoma continues with its winner-take-all-the-electors system. Same thing in Kansas, Alabama, Utah, and Mississippi, to name a few.
So where would your vote count? Well, hardly anywhere. Only two states - Nebraska and Maine - have systems that allocate electors based on Congressional districts. So in those states, you only have to be in a congressional district that goes Democratic for your vote for Obama to count. Easy, and fair, right? Nope. It turns out that about 80%+ of all congressional seats are "safe" seats and their representatives get re-elected time after time. So if you are a Democrat in a safe Republican district, your vote doesn't count. Of the other 20% about half (10% of total) are really contested elections (that's 44 seats every two years) and the last 10% is seats of retiring members that are really safe anyway. You're screwed.
It doesn't have to be this way. While the electoral system is in the U.S. Constitution, HOW it's implemented and how the electors are selected is left up to the states. So they could change. But the flaw isn't only in the implementation, it's in the electoral system itself. The electoral system was set up because, frankly, the Founding Fathers didn't trust us to elect the President. They wanted a buffer between the masses and those more suited to government, so that the folks in power would choose the President. It's time to change.
The President and the Vice-President are the only two Constitutionally defined officers who are supposed to represent the ENTIRE country. They don't represent districts and they don't represent states, they represent the COUNTRY. So they should be elected by the ENTIRE COUNTRY by having the election for President and Vice-President be a direct election. Everybody votes, every vote is counted. The candidate pair with the plurality of votes are elected. Done. Simple to implement, simple to run, simple to count.
Now those of you in states with small populations will start to shriek that you're being left out. And you're right. But that's because you're populations are small, you should have less say than the larger states. Suck it up. You already have a disproportionate share of power by having two U.S. Senators. You don't get any more power. The Republicans of California want their say and the Democrats in Oklahoma want their say.
Repeal the electoral system and implement direct election of the President - NOW!
