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Nuvendil on 09 November 2016
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poklane said:

The worst thing is that Clinton won the popular vote. I know that if I say that the electoral system is flawed (something Trump also said in 2012, he called it a disaster for democracy) people will say I'm only saying that because Trump won, but I just don't understand why the current system is better in any way than a system where the candidate with simply the most votes across the entire country wins. Having to reach 270 of 538 electoral votes to win the elections also means that voting on 3rd party is simply throwing your vote away because everyone on Earth knows no 3rd party candidate will ever get 270 or more electoral votes.
I could somewhat understand the current system if you had a federation of multiple former sovereign state (for example a possible European Federation) to make sure that every country is represented properly, but having such a system for a single country? I just don't understand it.
The current system also means that a lot of votes are completely irrelevant and might as well have ended up in the garbage can. Looking at the results now you see that for example in D.C. Clinton won by 248.670 votes. Simply put, that means 248.669 votes in just D.C. alone were completely irrelevant to the elections. You then also have Wyoming where Trump won by 118.299 votes. Again, that means 118.298 votes might as well have been tossed in the garbage can.

Any Americans, regardless of if they're Pro-Hillary, Pro-Tump or Pro-3rd party who feel the same way?

IMO: get rid of the Electoral system so you open the way for parties other that the Republicans and Democrats and to ensure that the most popular candidate across the entire country always win. You win if you get 50%+1 of the vote, if nobody gets 50%+1 of the vote have a 2nd round where the top 2 most popular candidates from Round 1 go head-to-head.

I also saw a map today how an electoral system would work here (The Netherlands), it's absolutely pathetic. Currently 11 Dutch parties share all seats, if we switched to an electoral system it would be just 2.

The United States was designed with a pseudo-federation concept of State and Federal power balance.  As the founding fathers put it, the country was intended as a "sovreign nation of many sovreign states."  The Electoral system is there to make sure the interests of the States are represented in the Presidential elections, not just the interests of the masses.  If the popular vote was all that mattered, the interests of the top 10 states would be hugely disproportionately represented in Presidential elections.  And the size of our country, the diversity of demographics in each State, the variation in economic strength and resources, etc etc. means those interests can be very different.  With a straight popular vote, if a candidate won the top 7 or so states by a land slide, it's entirely possible they could lose in every other state but win regardless.  That means 43 states' interests are completely dumped in the bin. 

Also, not only can 3rd parties and new parties win, in the past it has happened numerous times.  The 20th century was really the time of the rise and fortification of strict bipartisanism.  Before then, there had been 3rd parties and new parties to win.  There is reform that needs doing, but the big issue is not the EC, it's the regulation of funding.  The fact is that as it stands, the two major parties just have so much more money than third parties do.  The spending just needs to be more tightly regulated so that more parties can be competitive.