August 28, 2012 • 41 mins
When you vote in an American presidential election, you're not voting for your candidate - you're voting for a group of people you hope will in turn vote for your candidate. Listen in to learn more about the strange process for electing the president.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff You Should Know?
From House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey you, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
and you put us together, a couple of microphones, some cameras.
(00:25):
You get something called Stuff you Should Know cameras. Yeah
you're talking about Oh yeah, there's nothing here. Everything's very normal.
Just proceed, Chuck. Yes, I'm great. How are you? What's
your time is? NI? I'm getting over my cold? Yeah
you sound good? Do I Yeah? Well you sound better
than last week. Yeah, I'll give you that, but I
(00:46):
still I don't feel like I found a percent. But
compared to the swimming and snot phase, I will take
this and it got really bad, pretty snotty. I'm not
going to go into it here, but wow. Yeah, um okay, yes,
election time is not I tried to get right to it,
yeah and I blocked you. Um so uh yeah, That's
(01:09):
why I wanted to do this one, because people perennially
perennially ask for the electoral college and other people say,
I don't know what that is but I want to
hear about that too, And then people in other countries
just say, you guys do what? Yeah, it's kind of depressing. Yeah.
Actually I meant to look up to see what other
countries did with their elections. It's like kings and birthrights
(01:34):
and stuff, but no one else votes. No, that's just
the USA that does that. Um yeah, chuck um. I
don't really have much of an intro here, all right,
it's more of a can you believe this kind of thing?
How long have you thought that you went to the
(01:55):
polls and cast a vote and the vote you were
casting was for the candidate that you were casting that
vote for. That that's who that vote went to every
time up until yesterday. So like you didn't have much
of an idea about the electoral call. Now I did,
but and I knew sort of how it worked, But
until you really get down to it, you don't realize that, Wow,
(02:17):
I'm voting for a person that's going to vote for
a person. Yeah exactly, you know, yeah, because in some cases,
like it's not even on the ballot, like the person
who you're actually voting for. Okay, So we did what
I like to do. We confused everybody, and now we're
gonna go back and explain what we're talking about. Okay, Yeah,
I was confused. Actually, uh, I'm gonna be a shamed
shame myself right out of the gate. When it said
(02:39):
every four years on the Tuesday following the first Monday
of November, I was like, why don't they just call
it the first Tuesday in November? But then I realized that,
I guess if November one is a Tuesday, then it
won't the election won't be to the following Tuesday because
they gotta get the Monday in there. It gets even
crazier than that with the electoral College. They go the
(02:59):
first Monday day following the second Wednesday in December. Yeah,
and everybody had like gout or something like that. Back. Yeah,
that's what it was. So that is when the actual
presidency is decided in December. Although everyone knows, well you
(03:20):
would think, yeah, so okay, so let's talk about this.
So the electoral college the whole thing, like, why don't
we just stick to the popular vote, which is what
everybody thinks they're doing. Anyway, where did this come from?
I have an answer. Uh, back in the day when
our founding forefathers and mothers were doing their thing here.
(03:41):
They decided, you know, I think I don't trust a
regular popular vote. Uh it's reckless as described in this article.
And then um, another camp said, you know what, we
sure as heck ain't gonna let Congress decide the president.
So why don't we come up with a really confusing,
wacky system all the electoral college, Because it's like, compromise,
(04:02):
do you want to have a bunch of uninformed gravel
rousers who just revolted against the King of England a
few years before voting, or do you want a group
of elites voting. It's like citizens United. You don't want
either of them. So, yeah, they just went and got confusing.
Uh yeah, I imagine it was more confusing back then
(04:23):
than it is today. Or maybe not, maybe it made
more sensepect I think it probably did. So Okay, So
when they come up with it was a compromise. Well,
the compromises when it comes election time. Um, there are
these people called electors who actually decide the presidency and
they represent Um that's equal to to two U. S.
(04:43):
Senators that every state has, plus the number of representatives
that each state has, So that comes to five thirty
eight total. Yes, Um, and three of those are part
of the twenty three amendment from nineteen sixty one that
gave three electors to d C. Yeah, they figured, since
everything is based here, we might as well talk with
your votes. Seem like the right. Um, And did you
(05:04):
say that was amendment? So? Um, they actually cast the
vote when when we when we vote for the president,
we are voting for the electors, And like you said,
they're not always even on the ballot. Sometimes they are,
sometimes they're not. And like I bet you anything, the
people who vote have no idea who their electors are
(05:27):
or like how they got to be in that position, right,
They were like, Um, I'm going to vote for Barack Obama,
but who is this Todd Winemaker in parentheses thanks to him?
I have no idea who that is or if in
some ballots they'll you'll go to the end and it's
like county commissioner, dog catcher and then electors and then
(05:47):
there's a list of people's names by party or like
you said, it's just not on there at all. Yeah.
And one thing I was surprised to learn was my
our own electors here in Georgia. I looked them up
just because I thought, you know, I might as well
know who they are and their addresses are in there,
Like I can go knock on the dude's door indicator
(06:07):
like eight blocks from me and say, you, sir, have
a great responsibility at your hands. Are you going to
do that? But I could? You could? I think maybe
you should reconsider. I'm just surprised. I don't know. I guess, well,
we know where the president lives, so that's not a
big deal. But I guess I was surprised at all
that stuff is common knowledge. I thought they would be
like secret. Yeah, I think they want that to go
(06:30):
the opposite way. Well, no, it makes sense now that
I figured it out, Like they do want everything out
in the open so everyone knows. But it just seemed
a little weird that the guy voting for the president
is actually like half a mile from my house or
one of the guys. I'm with you, all right. UM,
so you've got like this group of people who are
actually voted in, and um they meet after the popular
(06:53):
election to certify. The secretary of each state certifies the vote.
The governor, Uh, what's the for certificates saying here are
all the votes that age candidate got, and then um,
based on this, the electors go and cast their vote
the first Monday following the second Wednesday in December. That's right.
(07:13):
I couldn't find why. Oh, I don't know. I guess
it just falls somewhere in between the election and jan
And that's when everybody it's like, wait, wait, wait, Christmas, Christmas.
We've got to make sure we're done in plenty of time.
And then um, they cast the vote and then it's unsealed,
right and read that's right. Even though, barring any surprises,
(07:35):
you pretty much know election night from either exit polls
or whatever you know, Dan rather tells you, or whoever
does it these days, you would hope because that guy
who lives a few miles away from you, blocks or miles, Um,
I think I charted him out. I'm stalking him. It
was less than a mile. That's uh. So that guy, um,
(07:56):
you want his name? Yeah, John White? That his name,
So John White, the elector, right, one of them. Yeah,
it's it's perfectly legal for him to say, you know what,
Supposedly I am supposed to be voting for Barack Obama.
But I really like the kind of this. Mitt Rodney's Jim. Yeah,
that doesn't really happen, though it has, but not quite
(08:18):
like that. But in the modern time, I think one
of the reasons why they published their addresses is so
you know, a good it's throwing you out there like,
hey man, you can vote however you want, but everybody
knows where you live. And if you think they get
mad about, you know, referees making bad calls, faithless elector
that's what they're called, which is a great band name.
(08:40):
Do you think faithless selector or the faithless Electors? I
don't think so. It's too um maybe for like a
DC law school band. Faithless Electors. I can see that
almost girls, they have no future whatsoever unless they turn
it into something like school opians or something like that. Right,
(09:01):
And actually, faithless electors have no future as electors because
one thing you can probably be sure of if you
change your vote, then you're not going to be asked
back to be an elector in the future, and you
could possibly be fined depending on what states you're in,
and you're probably going to be kicked out of your party.
You're putting a lot on the line. Yeah, and see,
(09:22):
this is the thing that made it all clear to me.
Each party has its own electors, so that's why no
one's gonna turn. Like the people that are put in
the place as electors are like staunch party line people.
You know, they're not going to turn and vote. Like.
The reason they're there is because they know that they're
going to vote for either the Republican or the Democrat.
(09:43):
Then know where their bread is buttered exactly. Um. Okay,
so let's talk about these people. How are these people elected?
What do they have to qualify for? Obviously everyone has
to have at least a juris doctor if not a
PhD in law of some sort, like a juris doctorate um,
some sort of political science degree um. And probably um
(10:03):
they have to have like several hundred hours of community
service under their belt. Yes, that is not true. Are
you sure? A nice set up though, thank you being coy. Uh.
There actually are no real um strict outlines per the
constitution as to who these people are. Um. They are
usually nominated by a state party committee. Um. It says
(10:26):
in here, usually as a or sometimes to reward many
years of service to the party. So they could be
like big on the campaign trail for you or activists
maybe for your party or like a robo dialer. Yeah yeah,
I guess so like the all time robot dialing. UM.
But they cannot be UM senators or representatives. And I
(10:48):
would imagine former too, although I didn't see that. I
don't know. I think active is what it is. UM.
You can't be a high ranking official in a position
of trust or profit. Makes sense. And this one I
love that they actually had to specify this. UM, he
or she cannot be someone who has engaged in insurrection
or rebellion. Well this is this obviously was put in
(11:10):
by the people who are like, we can't just to
a popular vote. These people are crazy, Like I saw,
I must get in that guy's hands last week, aimed
at my office and now he's an elector, right, he
can't vote. That is still in there though. UM. Yeah,
that insurrection rebellion thing definitely helped form this country. Okay,
So UM, you've got people who are active in their
(11:34):
in their party, who are who have been rewarded UM.
Maybe they're activists. UM. Sometimes they know the president or
at president elect, like they met him on the campaign trail. UM.
And that's really about it. Each state has I think
probably a different UM nominating process. But overall, when you
(11:56):
are when you have a candidate who's running from Green
Party dumb Republican, you take your as your party, as
your Green Party, you all go down together and you
pile into like the the camper and go down and
exactly and you're all very depressed because you don't have
a shot at winning. You know, Roseanne's running for president
for the Green Party. Really yeah, and she's being roasted
(12:19):
right now. I don't think that that's not a media play, right. Um,
So they all go down to the Secretary of State's
office and say, hey, these are our candidates. There are
electors for candidates for electors. So when you vote for Roseanne, um,
it should have all those people's names next to hers
(12:41):
or on on like by party. It might say like
Green Party electors, here's all the people, or it might
not say anything. But um, when you cast that vote
for Roseanne, you are voting those electors. That's who you're
voting for. That's who the vote goes to, Not Roseanne,
it goes to John Goodman. I would be That's who
(13:03):
I would have as my elector if I was Roseanne.
What about Tom Arnold? Now, Tom Arnold, that a messy divorce.
He'd be the party press though. Well John Goodman was
never married to there's just TV TV marriage though. That's
like sacer sanct That's just my opinion. All right, Um,
(13:25):
all right, so where are we? We're talking about how
the vote goes towards not Roseanne where you wanted it
to go, not Tom Tom Arnold or John Goodman, but
to uh Todd Winemaker and all the other electors. Right,
So what's what's going on here? What's this process? Well,
I mean they they literally just make their vote, um,
(13:46):
supposedly in accordance with the people's popular vote, and I
think what do they give it to? The secretary secretary
of state? Right, that's that's who's like, it's registered before
election day, like your names on the list, it's yes,
So at the at least if it's not printed on
the ballot, the secretary of state knows who the electors are.
And there's two ways to do it. Forty eight states
(14:06):
have a winner take all system, and then Maine in
Nebraska have a district system. I'm just confused by that one. Okay,
So the district system actually more closely follows the electoral
college system than the winner take all. Now is this
to to vote for the elector only? No, that's what
confused me. I think. So let's say you have let's
(14:29):
do the winner take all system, which is so easy,
but think about it. So let's say you are in Arizona,
all right, right, and you're you decided to stay, you're
not moving. Um, that wouldn't happen. You've got like you
have ten ten there's ten well in two thousand eight
and I believe it's the same in two thousand and twelve.
There's ten electoral votes, right, Um, so the Green Party
(14:54):
candidate Roseanne should have ten electors associated with her, right, Um,
the Barack Obama should have ten electors? Uh mitt, Ronnie
should have ten electors. So when when that person wins
the popular vote and that's certified, then those electors are
the ones, those ten associated with that candidate are the
one that should go down to the state capital on
(15:15):
the first Monday after the second Wednesday of December and
cast their vote. Okay, I get that. And also we
should point out that in this system, that is the
reason why sometimes the name isn't even on the ballot
because there's something something somewhere in their state constitution that
says a vote for Barack Obama is a vote for
these ten people. You don't need to know who they are,
(15:36):
just trust us exactly. Okay, that's the that's the winner
take all system. Right. The other system in Maine in
Nebraska is a district system. So the winner take all
system that's a lot like a popular vote. Um. In
the district system, you get two votes, the the guy
who won, the guy or the lady or the gender
(15:59):
gender neutral president, depending on when you listen to this episode.
Um uh. They whoever got the most popular votes in
the state gets two electoral votes, the two associated with
the Senate Right. Then um, the other electoral votes that
are divvied up by congressional district. Whoever one that congressional
(16:20):
district gets that vote. Yeah, I get that, and I looked.
I looked it up a little further and saw that
there are scenarios in Maine in Nebraska where you could
have three different UM votes cast for three different candidates.
But they said it's never happened. It's just theoretically possible,
mathematically statistically possible, all three. I don't know. It just
(16:44):
seems like everyone should just be all in the same system.
But but it makes sense if you're but think about it, Like,
the whole reason you have the electoral college, or one
of the big reasons, is to prevent um one region
or one one part of this state from wielding enough
power to vote for everybody else. And I think that's
(17:06):
what the district system is is set up to prevent
to It's kind of like, hey man, you had let
let you. You voted for this, this, this person, UM,
and we want you to have your say in the
electoral college. I think it's smarter. Oh yeah, I think
so well than I do too. You swayed me. Good.
(17:28):
John White. I've got his number. You know, he could
use this as evidence one day for what I don't want.
What's gonna happen? What are you gonna do? I'm but
if something happened, then everyone would point their fingers at me. Yeah.
It's like we heard him say it so on his podcast.
All right, I won't testify against you, though I appreciate it. Um.
(17:51):
Should we talk about some of the hinky results over
the years when things don't go quite as planned or
go exactly as planned. Very true, that's a teaser. Um.
There have been four presidents, Um, potus what they call
him four potuses podai that have one um there their
(18:16):
post with without the popular vote. Yeah, I mean that's
happened four times in this country, and all the ones
up until two thousand, we probably weren't his concern with
because you're like, who cares. They're all old timing, They're
all old time, they were wearing, they were just working
it out. Back in eighty four when John adams Son
John Quincy the Q, the Q he received thirty eight
(18:40):
thousand fewer votes than Andrew Jackson. Um, this one was
was definitely hinky because neither one of them won electoral college.
So if that happens, you defer to what the twelfth Amendment,
and that's when the House of Representatives decides who the
president is, which would be really weird these days. Yeah,
don't you think. I think there'd be a lot of
that just be bad news. But at the same time,
(19:02):
this is four and there were still a lot of
insurrecting rebellious people, so I'm sure it was a little
nervous back then. Um so who won j Q Q Yeah,
Um eighteen seventy six, brother Ford B. Hayes. Um, this
is the first time and I think the only time
(19:23):
that small states actually swung the election. Hayes carried a
bunch of small states um and basically combined there with
their combined electoral votes, gave him the electoral vote um,
although he lost the popular vote by a lot, by
like a hundred and nine thousand, no, two hundred sixty
(19:45):
four thousand votes. He lost the popular vote. Yeah, we
almost had a president Samuel Tilden, Sammy Tilden, the Haymaker,
it was his nickname. Really, I feel bad for the
hay Maker all of a sudden, Yeah, yeah, well, I
mean everybody liked him a lot more. But Hayes cobbled
together a win from small states, and Colorado had just
(20:06):
been let in this is the Hinky part um and
they didn't have any popular vote, there was no vote whatsoever.
They just did some electoral voting and it went all
to hay So he put it together with Colorado so
with very little popular vote, and then in one state
no popular vote, and he won, and he went on
to be the greatest president of this country's ever seen.
I mean, Colorado, I guess they were just like, we
(20:29):
don't even have pens and pencils. Can you give us, like,
just get bufflers. We're just like, we're all boxes over here.
We haven't even started unpacking. So they said, oh well,
let's just give it to let's just give it to Haze. Yeah,
good on, Yeah, who you got next? Benjie Harrison lost
the popular vote by more than ninety five thousand votes
(20:51):
to Grover Cleveland. Won the electoral vote by sixty five
And this is one of the cases where they say
it worked exactly like the plan. Uh, like we planned
it to with electoral college, because you can't just overwhelm
someone in one region and and get the presidency. That's
what happened. And so in six states in the South,
(21:14):
so they the whole campaign pretty much was based on
we want the tariff, we don't want the tariff. Well,
the North that everybody else wanted the tariff, South didn't
want the tariff. Um, so Grover Cleveland was like, no
tariff whatsoever, and the South voted as a block. They
had a bunch of people. He won the popular vote
by like huge number, but in the other thirty two
(21:37):
states he lost by four twenty five thousand votes. No, no, no,
he lost by three hundred thousand. He had so thirty
two states were against him. Combined, six states were four him,
and the Electoral College steps in and prevents the South
from picking the president for the rest of the country
flawless and then not flawless. Let's go to the year
(22:00):
two thousand. Yeah. Yeah, I was um driving across country
moving to Los Angeles during this election, and I made
a self made video of my journey, which most of
which was me singing along the songs on the radio
in my U haul. And I've still got this. I
should like get it digitized and posted at some point.
(22:21):
It's pretty funny. But um, I remember very specifically one
part in the in the thing, I woke up in
New Mexico and I'm you can tell him all sleepy
and you don't remember going to sleep. I remember going
to sleep, but I woke up and I said, yeah,
you know here I am in New Mexico. It's weird.
I woke up this morning and they don't know who
the president is. And it's like captured in time this
(22:41):
moment where I realized was sleep in my eyes, Like,
that's weird. I went to bed expecting because you know
that night everybody was going towards Gore. Well, every I
think it was called a couple of different ways, a
couple of different times. It went back and forth, but
when everybody went to bed, it was like Gore all
the way, like he'd won the popular vote. They knew
it was close, but everybody had called Gore and and
(23:04):
then they woke up and they're like wait a second.
And then a huge, huge mess cluster ensued afterward, which
involved the court system. It involved um hanging Chad's well
not only that, you remember like there was this one
county where like their votes just got lost for a
(23:25):
little while on the way to be counted. They were
just vanished, um and then reappeared later on, like that
kind of stuff. You should just basically be like, no,
the whole state, everybody has to wait, the whole state
has to start over and vote again. Yeah, that might
have been a good mood. They were like accusations of
disenfranchisement among black voters, black in black areas. Yeah, there
(23:49):
were also, I mean both sides had a lot of
arguments like when you really start peeling back the layers
and researching this, like it will make you cry. And
they were just like dozens and dozens of um factors
that many people never even saw in the nightly news,
you know, like military votes or disenfranchised voters in poor counties.
And then I think Gore asked for a recount and
(24:11):
only four counties when people are saying he should have
asked for a hand recount in all the counties. And
in the end, Potas was decided for the country by
less than, like, less than four hundred votes. Is that
when it came down to well, I mean it depends
because all the different factors, like do we count these votes?
(24:32):
What about these these people meant to vote for Gore
or Bush and it was cloudy, and what about these
hanging chads? So there's all different kinds of numbers. But
I've seen one. I've seen one um that said it
was less than a hundred votes. It was the deciding factor.
So it came down to a hundred votes. But Florida's
winner take all. Yeah, so that means that those hundred votes,
(24:53):
since Bush got those hundred votes, he got all twenty
five votes in the electoral college for Florida, which just
so happened to put him at exactly the amount of
electoral votes he needed to win the presidency, which was
to seventy one it's crazy. I mean I've seen I've
looked as many people have since then. It like the
(25:13):
independent studies they did afterward, and it just depends on
which ones you want to read. Like I saw today,
I saw like ten independent studies, and six of them
showed that Gore was the definite winner. Four of them
showed that Bush was. So it's just confusing and disheartening.
But what it did was shed light on ah a
(25:34):
pretty flawed system, um, and how we cast our votes,
how they're counted, um. And it gave us the hanging
Chad I guess the hanging Chad joke. Um. So uh.
There was also a bit of awkwardness that came out
of that, um, just a bit. Well in in one instance,
there was a kind of an overlooked bit of awkwardness.
The when the votes are the electoral votes are unsealed,
(25:58):
they're unsealed by the president of the city. It president
of the Senate is the vice president. So in two thousand,
the two thousand election, remember Al Gore was vice president,
he was president Senate, so he had to read his
own defeated electoral college votes did yeah, and there was
like something of an insurrection and a rebellion among black
(26:20):
congressional members who were protesting the vote and protesting including
Florida's vote in the count and uh, he had to
basically be like it's over, it's done. For the good
of the country, let's move on. But he he there
was like no emotion, even the emotion you just had,
there wasn't that. There was less than that. For the
good of the country. Let's move on. You know, Gore
(26:41):
always got tagged as the robot, the robotron, But there
was a video I might have talked about it before
that Spike Jones made of Gore that never was released,
a campaign video that I think would have won him
the election. He had like his tie Lesen now man,
he he was like way funnier and cooler than you
(27:02):
would think he was on thirty Rock. He did a
good job on Yeah, but that was later. But this
was before when he had the like the bad rap
is like a robot. But this like he let him
inside his home and it was just very casual, very
laid back, and you're like you saw him as a
dude for the first time, like cracking jokes and hanging
out with his family, and it was like very endearing
and he and he was like, do not release this. Yeah,
(27:23):
I'm sure, and he lost the election. Did you ever
see that Simpsons where Lisa buys al Gore's one of
his books and like the information is transmitted and somebody
runs into the to the I don't know what The
vice president's office is called the Trapezoid office, and it's like,
Mr Vice President, someone just bought your book. And he goes, well,
this calls for a celebration, and he turns so he
(27:46):
turns on the record player and puts on h cool
in the game celebrate and it's like celebreak good times.
Come on. He goes, I will, It's perfect. They nailed them.
Oh poor guy. So that's Gore. Yeah, that's Gore. So
I guess on both sides of the coin here, Um,
(28:10):
we have people thinking this is a great thing still
and people saying this is not a great. Yeah. For
each instance, even the one we were saying like the
electoral college worked perfectly, there are people who are like, no,
it's all messed up, like he clearly won the popular vote,
however you want to put it, yeah, like uh, and
and other people to say like, calmed down, that's all
just calmed down. Well, one of the knocks against it
(28:31):
is some say it discourages voter turnout. Um, because unless
you're in a swing state or a battleground state, it's
quote unquote predecided. Yeah, but then again, so does like
the two party system. We were in like a very
very red state. So we can say if we you know,
word of not vote read um, we like, we could
(28:51):
make a case that our votes would be thrown away, um,
and that could dissuade voters from turning out too. And
the people for it say, now, this is exactly what
we need, because it's a wade system. Um. The states
that have the most, the states that should have the
most influences are the states that are the most populated.
Well that's how it's how it's divided up. Like Alas
(29:13):
is great. We love all that land, but land shouldn't
be deciding who the president is, you know, yeah right, yeah, okay, No,
I'm with it. It's people. It's people that counts, not mountains.
People not mountains, People not mountains. What do we want
time travel? When do we want it? It's irrelevant? Alright,
(29:36):
I like that side, So I don't know, it's just
some random guy I posted on the Facebook page. Everyone
thought it was me, though, I guess because facial here,
it's like there's more than me. I see mustaches out there, Yeah,
I mean they're all over the place. Um So, over
the past two hundred years, over seven hundred proposals have
been introduced to reform or eliminate this process. Yep, the
(29:59):
most proposed les for any constitutional amendment. I could see that. Yeah,
I can see that. I think it's probably because um,
executive executive orders aren't in the Constitution and therefore can't
be repealed. Maybe. UM, I know that attorneys by and
large are against it. The American Bar Association polled at
(30:19):
SEM in favor of abolishing it, whereas political scientists have
generally supported it. And then there I could find three
popular polls opinion polls over the years. UM in nineteen
sixty seven percent of Americans said they don't like it.
In ninety late sixties, theaters just like, what is it? Government?
(30:42):
I don't want it? And then that UM in nineteen
eight one that declined to But by and large the
people are saying, or at least up until nine, like,
we don't like this process. Don't make us insurrect. Whoever
has the most most votes should win is what many
(31:02):
Americans believe. Did we talk about the two elections that
were decided by the House of Representatives because there were
ties in the electoral Well, we talked about the one,
I which think we mentioned the other? Oh yeah, yeah,
but Burr and um Adam or Jefferson, right, Um, there
was a tie in the electoral college, and it took
(31:24):
thirty one votes in the House of Representatives to decide
who was the president, and it turned out to be
Thomas Jefferson. And then Aaron Burr was shot. That's right.
That's the sad end of that story. Aaron Burr shot
Alexander Hamilton's that's right, And that's the sad end too.
(31:46):
Electoral college. Yeah, and vote people, That's all we have
to say. Even if you if you live in California
and you're in the Democrat and you think, hey, we're
gonna lock up this fifty votes, even if I sleep
in and go see my medical marijuana to doctor, get
out vote anyway. Yeah. Or if you're in a state
like Georgia and you're a Republican and you think, hey,
(32:08):
we're gonna carry this, you get out and vote too.
It's pretty much the uh, the fable of the rabbit
and the hair that you're talking about. Who's the hair?
I guess the hair is the person who visits their
medical marijuana doctor. It oversleeps rather than um voting that day.
And how do you oversleep? You mean like sleep until Wednesday,
(32:28):
not get up on Tuesdays. Have you heard about Ohio,
Well that's a swing state. Yeah, but have you heard
what's going on there? Uh? Now, dude, the Secretary of State,
a Republican, has decreed that there that counties that are
typically blue, generally blue blue counties are not going to
(32:51):
have weekend voting and their early voting hours are going
to be short compared to red counties that are going
to have weekend voting and longer UM early voting hours.
And like there's no explanation for this whatsoever. See, that's
my problem is, like I know, you probably can't do
a nationwide everything is the same, but within the state,
(33:14):
every district should have the exact same procedure, the same machines,
the same Like, all of that should be the same.
I can't believe there's districts that have like here you
do a punch card and here you scribble in with
the number two penciling here. You just say it quietly
into a booth, and there's someone on the other side
out a candle, one of the two candles. Yeah, that's
(33:35):
another sentence. It's pretty messed up, though. I think at
the very least we should be allowed to tarn feather
elected officials who decides stuff like that. Anybody who's responsible
for voter disenfranchisement, tard and feather. I guess that's it. Uh,
and that makes you an insurrectionist. Yeah, all right, I
always knew I was. Uh. Okay, Well, if you want
(33:57):
to know more about this weird process we have in
the United States called the electoral College, you can type
those words into the search bart how stuff works dot com.
It will bring up a handy and out of date
um graph of how the votes were distributed in two
thousand eight. Is it out of date? Two thousand and
(34:18):
eight was four years ago? Yeah? Didn't it still the same?
Well then it's a snapshot of a moment in time.
Know what it is. Anyway, it's still a good article.
Electoral College, handy search bar how stuff works dot Com.
And now it's time for listening man Josh. Before we
go any further, I didn't realize we were doing anyway.
We are coming to New York City. Yeah, we are town,
(34:41):
one of our town, and we are doing another trivia
event there, which we're both really psyched about. Yeah, but
we need some help with a venue. We need to
have the trivia event somewhere that's right, And we are
coming Friday, October twelve, and actually that is when the
event is, that evening that night, and we could use
some help from anyone out there who has connections, good ideas,
(35:04):
um whatever room for a few hundred people. I don't
want it to their own horn, but I would say
that that's probably a pretty good projection if everybody who's coming.
Oh the other way, even if you don't have a venue,
guys were going to be in New York for your
trivia event, So make sure you come out details to
follow up, but on mark your calendar rocks over its wealth.
And yeah, you're right, like your tiny little bar that
(35:25):
you love that does trivia in in uh Park Slope,
probably can't go there. Just to give you an idea,
although it's probably a great bar. Exactly to give you
an idea. We had our last trivia event at the
Bellhouse in Brooklyn, and it was pretty big, and we
packed it out, and imagine we could pack it out
at least that or maybe a little more this time around,
because it's a few years time a lot. Maybe we
(35:47):
can work out a deal. You know what I'm saying. Yeah,
do you so? Hit us up at Facebook or UM
Twitter email to us, Yeah, or you could email UM
stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com and just put like
New York venues in the in the subject line. And
that's a great help for us in October twelve. That's right,
(36:08):
it's gonna be awesome. Jobs is already excited. I'm excited,
all right, back to it. Yes, I'm gonna call this
UM an Englishman, the Englishman who went up in hill
and came down a mole, came down a moll. DearS Chuck,
Josh and Jerry and in print disease. He actually, he says,
(36:30):
a small high, the guest producer, Matt oh Nice, A
small high, nothing on a full Hello. My name is
Jack Mead and I'm an avid fan from England. Just
started listening in October, just started in twenty eleven, and
tonight I've just finished the four dred and fifty second podcast,
I wish we had the the sound maker. Um. They
(36:54):
maker from Grassoline with Josh and Chris Palette print Disease
a terrible pre Chuck Day, uh to the most recent
Shark Attack episodes. It's been a wild and exciting ride.
You guys will come a long way. I just listen
to the first one to see the difference, and not
only is it missing the sweet dulph of tones of
Charles W. Bryant, but Josh's voice sounds very weird. Yeah,
(37:14):
and it's not like we're recording in a can. Yeah,
and I was really aggressive. Oh yeah, yeah, like, hey,
what do you think? Huh huh. I can't even listen
to him. Yeah, you poked me once once. Um. Anyway,
I just want you guys to know your podcast has
become a huge part of my life. Catching up with
him has left me both the sense of achievement but
also great satness. See. I listened to the podcast pretty
(37:37):
much any time when I'm not engaging with other human beings. Um,
I've listened over nine days worth of your voices in
the space to ten months. I probably heard you too,
speaking more than my own fiance's voice. I was thinking,
man a little only guy, but he's engaged, Like, dude,
you should prioritize here, that's pause. Going from that amount
of awesomeness to just two episodes a week is making
(37:58):
me feel confused and frightened. It's okay, Jack, you know
it's strange. It's like this is a pretty frequent report
we here. It's like a condition. Well, I like, bulk up,
you bulk listen. Then all of a sudden you have
to wait like everybody else, like a schmo. I just
did the Firefly marathon. Yeah, it's good. Think how I feel.
You watch fourteen episodes of that than the movie and
(38:20):
then you're cut off after four days, and that's there's
not another one coming every week. So I'm just like
looking at the walls now wondering where captain type pans
is is that? Yeah, like sad, I've been trying to
figure it out. Everyone else I've talked to like, oh, yeah,
I'm more than Firefly years ago like everyone else, but
we know you're paying anyway. I'll be on my bunk.
(38:45):
We don't have a punk. I would like to think
that I'm your biggest fan in England, but I guess
that is statistically improbable very much enjoyed Chuck's terrible attempts
at an English accent and your attempts at pronouncing our
place names. Um. I've been wanting to email you guys
since I got into the podcast, but wanted to catch
up first. I think what you do is truly amazing
and genuinely enjoy life more with the podcast as the
(39:05):
soundtrack crazy. I know you guys must get hundreds of
emails a day. Uh that's not true, so I don't
expect to reply, but I'm just glad to know that
you will read this. I look forward today that I
can contribute information and maybe given even get on the
listener mail. So if I may make a quick suggestion,
I would love the special podcast hosted by Emily and
(39:25):
you me. I have no idea how to spell your
wife's names? But he actually nailed it? Did he really? Yeah?
And um really yeah? Look at that? Wow? And then uh,
he wants to hear a podcast Chuck and Josh work
from my wives. He said it's a long shot, but
you never know, and I would it's a pretty long
I would call that the longest of shots, but a
(39:47):
fun idea. Nevertheless, it is a good idea. Emily be like,
get your beat button ready. Let me tell you a
thing or two? Yeah, exactly? Um, well, who is that?
Probably good? Jack Mead? Thanks, Jack need Will. It's a
pretty awesome British name, isn't it? Agreed? Jack need to mix?
You want to put on boxing gloves? Um? Yeah, So
(40:08):
if you are a fan who is going through why
should we call this commission? I don't know. I had withdrawal. Yeah, withdrawal, Yeah,
I guess that what it is. Yeah. If you're going
through stuff, you should know addiction withdrawal and you need help.
We were look into forming some sort of support group
for you. Let's do that, agreed. Uh. Any ideas on
(40:32):
how to create such a support group, especially one that
would have to be international and global and instantaneous, We're
open to that. So we need to hear from you
via Twitter at s y s K, podcast, Facebook dot com,
slash stuff you Should Know, or you can send us
an email with these details um to stuff podcast at
Discovery dot com. For more on this and thousands of
(40:59):
other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. M hmm.
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff You Should Know?
From House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey you, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
and you put us together, a couple of microphones, some cameras.
(00:25):
You get something called Stuff you Should Know cameras. Yeah
you're talking about Oh yeah, there's nothing here. Everything's very normal.
Just proceed, Chuck. Yes, I'm great. How are you? What's
your time is? NI? I'm getting over my cold? Yeah
you sound good? Do I Yeah? Well you sound better
than last week. Yeah, I'll give you that, but I
(00:46):
still I don't feel like I found a percent. But
compared to the swimming and snot phase, I will take
this and it got really bad, pretty snotty. I'm not
going to go into it here, but wow. Yeah, um okay, yes,
election time is not I tried to get right to it,
yeah and I blocked you. Um so uh yeah, That's
(01:09):
why I wanted to do this one, because people perennially
perennially ask for the electoral college and other people say,
I don't know what that is but I want to
hear about that too, And then people in other countries
just say, you guys do what? Yeah, it's kind of depressing. Yeah.
Actually I meant to look up to see what other
countries did with their elections. It's like kings and birthrights
(01:34):
and stuff, but no one else votes. No, that's just
the USA that does that. Um yeah, chuck um. I
don't really have much of an intro here, all right,
it's more of a can you believe this kind of thing?
How long have you thought that you went to the
(01:55):
polls and cast a vote and the vote you were
casting was for the candidate that you were casting that
vote for. That that's who that vote went to every
time up until yesterday. So like you didn't have much
of an idea about the electoral call. Now I did,
but and I knew sort of how it worked, But
until you really get down to it, you don't realize that, Wow,
(02:17):
I'm voting for a person that's going to vote for
a person. Yeah exactly, you know, yeah, because in some cases,
like it's not even on the ballot, like the person
who you're actually voting for. Okay, So we did what
I like to do. We confused everybody, and now we're
gonna go back and explain what we're talking about. Okay, Yeah,
I was confused. Actually, uh, I'm gonna be a shamed
shame myself right out of the gate. When it said
(02:39):
every four years on the Tuesday following the first Monday
of November, I was like, why don't they just call
it the first Tuesday in November? But then I realized that,
I guess if November one is a Tuesday, then it
won't the election won't be to the following Tuesday because
they gotta get the Monday in there. It gets even
crazier than that with the electoral College. They go the
(02:59):
first Monday day following the second Wednesday in December. Yeah,
and everybody had like gout or something like that. Back. Yeah,
that's what it was. So that is when the actual
presidency is decided in December. Although everyone knows, well you
(03:20):
would think, yeah, so okay, so let's talk about this.
So the electoral college the whole thing, like, why don't
we just stick to the popular vote, which is what
everybody thinks they're doing. Anyway, where did this come from?
I have an answer. Uh, back in the day when
our founding forefathers and mothers were doing their thing here.
(03:41):
They decided, you know, I think I don't trust a
regular popular vote. Uh it's reckless as described in this article.
And then um, another camp said, you know what, we
sure as heck ain't gonna let Congress decide the president.
So why don't we come up with a really confusing,
wacky system all the electoral college, Because it's like, compromise,
(04:02):
do you want to have a bunch of uninformed gravel
rousers who just revolted against the King of England a
few years before voting, or do you want a group
of elites voting. It's like citizens United. You don't want
either of them. So, yeah, they just went and got confusing.
Uh yeah, I imagine it was more confusing back then
(04:23):
than it is today. Or maybe not, maybe it made
more sensepect I think it probably did. So Okay, So
when they come up with it was a compromise. Well,
the compromises when it comes election time. Um, there are
these people called electors who actually decide the presidency and
they represent Um that's equal to to two U. S.
(04:43):
Senators that every state has, plus the number of representatives
that each state has, So that comes to five thirty
eight total. Yes, Um, and three of those are part
of the twenty three amendment from nineteen sixty one that
gave three electors to d C. Yeah, they figured, since
everything is based here, we might as well talk with
your votes. Seem like the right. Um, And did you
(05:04):
say that was amendment? So? Um, they actually cast the
vote when when we when we vote for the president,
we are voting for the electors, And like you said,
they're not always even on the ballot. Sometimes they are,
sometimes they're not. And like I bet you anything, the
people who vote have no idea who their electors are
(05:27):
or like how they got to be in that position, right,
They were like, Um, I'm going to vote for Barack Obama,
but who is this Todd Winemaker in parentheses thanks to him?
I have no idea who that is or if in
some ballots they'll you'll go to the end and it's
like county commissioner, dog catcher and then electors and then
(05:47):
there's a list of people's names by party or like
you said, it's just not on there at all. Yeah.
And one thing I was surprised to learn was my
our own electors here in Georgia. I looked them up
just because I thought, you know, I might as well
know who they are and their addresses are in there,
Like I can go knock on the dude's door indicator
(06:07):
like eight blocks from me and say, you, sir, have
a great responsibility at your hands. Are you going to
do that? But I could? You could? I think maybe
you should reconsider. I'm just surprised. I don't know. I guess, well,
we know where the president lives, so that's not a
big deal. But I guess I was surprised at all
that stuff is common knowledge. I thought they would be
like secret. Yeah, I think they want that to go
(06:30):
the opposite way. Well, no, it makes sense now that
I figured it out, Like they do want everything out
in the open so everyone knows. But it just seemed
a little weird that the guy voting for the president
is actually like half a mile from my house or
one of the guys. I'm with you, all right. UM,
so you've got like this group of people who are
actually voted in, and um they meet after the popular
(06:53):
election to certify. The secretary of each state certifies the vote.
The governor, Uh, what's the for certificates saying here are
all the votes that age candidate got, and then um,
based on this, the electors go and cast their vote
the first Monday following the second Wednesday in December. That's right.
(07:13):
I couldn't find why. Oh, I don't know. I guess
it just falls somewhere in between the election and jan
And that's when everybody it's like, wait, wait, wait, Christmas, Christmas.
We've got to make sure we're done in plenty of time.
And then um, they cast the vote and then it's unsealed,
right and read that's right. Even though, barring any surprises,
(07:35):
you pretty much know election night from either exit polls
or whatever you know, Dan rather tells you, or whoever
does it these days, you would hope because that guy
who lives a few miles away from you, blocks or miles, Um,
I think I charted him out. I'm stalking him. It
was less than a mile. That's uh. So that guy, um,
(07:56):
you want his name? Yeah, John White? That his name,
So John White, the elector, right, one of them. Yeah,
it's it's perfectly legal for him to say, you know what,
Supposedly I am supposed to be voting for Barack Obama.
But I really like the kind of this. Mitt Rodney's Jim. Yeah,
that doesn't really happen, though it has, but not quite
(08:18):
like that. But in the modern time, I think one
of the reasons why they published their addresses is so
you know, a good it's throwing you out there like,
hey man, you can vote however you want, but everybody
knows where you live. And if you think they get
mad about, you know, referees making bad calls, faithless elector
that's what they're called, which is a great band name.
(08:40):
Do you think faithless selector or the faithless Electors? I
don't think so. It's too um maybe for like a
DC law school band. Faithless Electors. I can see that
almost girls, they have no future whatsoever unless they turn
it into something like school opians or something like that. Right,
(09:01):
And actually, faithless electors have no future as electors because
one thing you can probably be sure of if you
change your vote, then you're not going to be asked
back to be an elector in the future, and you
could possibly be fined depending on what states you're in,
and you're probably going to be kicked out of your party.
You're putting a lot on the line. Yeah, and see,
(09:22):
this is the thing that made it all clear to me.
Each party has its own electors, so that's why no
one's gonna turn. Like the people that are put in
the place as electors are like staunch party line people.
You know, they're not going to turn and vote. Like.
The reason they're there is because they know that they're
going to vote for either the Republican or the Democrat.
(09:43):
Then know where their bread is buttered exactly. Um. Okay,
so let's talk about these people. How are these people elected?
What do they have to qualify for? Obviously everyone has
to have at least a juris doctor if not a
PhD in law of some sort, like a juris doctorate um,
some sort of political science degree um. And probably um
(10:03):
they have to have like several hundred hours of community
service under their belt. Yes, that is not true. Are
you sure? A nice set up though, thank you being coy. Uh.
There actually are no real um strict outlines per the
constitution as to who these people are. Um. They are
usually nominated by a state party committee. Um. It says
(10:26):
in here, usually as a or sometimes to reward many
years of service to the party. So they could be
like big on the campaign trail for you or activists
maybe for your party or like a robo dialer. Yeah yeah,
I guess so like the all time robot dialing. UM.
But they cannot be UM senators or representatives. And I
(10:48):
would imagine former too, although I didn't see that. I
don't know. I think active is what it is. UM.
You can't be a high ranking official in a position
of trust or profit. Makes sense. And this one I
love that they actually had to specify this. UM, he
or she cannot be someone who has engaged in insurrection
or rebellion. Well this is this obviously was put in
(11:10):
by the people who are like, we can't just to
a popular vote. These people are crazy, Like I saw,
I must get in that guy's hands last week, aimed
at my office and now he's an elector, right, he
can't vote. That is still in there though. UM. Yeah,
that insurrection rebellion thing definitely helped form this country. Okay,
So UM, you've got people who are active in their
(11:34):
in their party, who are who have been rewarded UM.
Maybe they're activists. UM. Sometimes they know the president or
at president elect, like they met him on the campaign trail. UM.
And that's really about it. Each state has I think
probably a different UM nominating process. But overall, when you
(11:56):
are when you have a candidate who's running from Green
Party dumb Republican, you take your as your party, as
your Green Party, you all go down together and you
pile into like the the camper and go down and
exactly and you're all very depressed because you don't have
a shot at winning. You know, Roseanne's running for president
for the Green Party. Really yeah, and she's being roasted
(12:19):
right now. I don't think that that's not a media play, right. Um,
So they all go down to the Secretary of State's
office and say, hey, these are our candidates. There are
electors for candidates for electors. So when you vote for Roseanne, um,
it should have all those people's names next to hers
(12:41):
or on on like by party. It might say like
Green Party electors, here's all the people, or it might
not say anything. But um, when you cast that vote
for Roseanne, you are voting those electors. That's who you're
voting for. That's who the vote goes to, Not Roseanne,
it goes to John Goodman. I would be That's who
(13:03):
I would have as my elector if I was Roseanne.
What about Tom Arnold? Now, Tom Arnold, that a messy divorce.
He'd be the party press though. Well John Goodman was
never married to there's just TV TV marriage though. That's
like sacer sanct That's just my opinion. All right, Um,
(13:25):
all right, so where are we? We're talking about how
the vote goes towards not Roseanne where you wanted it
to go, not Tom Tom Arnold or John Goodman, but
to uh Todd Winemaker and all the other electors. Right,
So what's what's going on here? What's this process? Well,
I mean they they literally just make their vote, um,
(13:46):
supposedly in accordance with the people's popular vote, and I
think what do they give it to? The secretary secretary
of state? Right, that's that's who's like, it's registered before
election day, like your names on the list, it's yes,
So at the at least if it's not printed on
the ballot, the secretary of state knows who the electors are.
And there's two ways to do it. Forty eight states
(14:06):
have a winner take all system, and then Maine in
Nebraska have a district system. I'm just confused by that one. Okay,
So the district system actually more closely follows the electoral
college system than the winner take all. Now is this
to to vote for the elector only? No, that's what
confused me. I think. So let's say you have let's
(14:29):
do the winner take all system, which is so easy,
but think about it. So let's say you are in Arizona,
all right, right, and you're you decided to stay, you're
not moving. Um, that wouldn't happen. You've got like you
have ten ten there's ten well in two thousand eight
and I believe it's the same in two thousand and twelve.
There's ten electoral votes, right, Um, so the Green Party
(14:54):
candidate Roseanne should have ten electors associated with her, right, Um,
the Barack Obama should have ten electors? Uh mitt, Ronnie
should have ten electors. So when when that person wins
the popular vote and that's certified, then those electors are
the ones, those ten associated with that candidate are the
one that should go down to the state capital on
(15:15):
the first Monday after the second Wednesday of December and
cast their vote. Okay, I get that. And also we
should point out that in this system, that is the
reason why sometimes the name isn't even on the ballot
because there's something something somewhere in their state constitution that
says a vote for Barack Obama is a vote for
these ten people. You don't need to know who they are,
(15:36):
just trust us exactly. Okay, that's the that's the winner
take all system. Right. The other system in Maine in
Nebraska is a district system. So the winner take all
system that's a lot like a popular vote. Um. In
the district system, you get two votes, the the guy
who won, the guy or the lady or the gender
(15:59):
gender neutral president, depending on when you listen to this episode.
Um uh. They whoever got the most popular votes in
the state gets two electoral votes, the two associated with
the Senate Right. Then um, the other electoral votes that
are divvied up by congressional district. Whoever one that congressional
(16:20):
district gets that vote. Yeah, I get that, and I looked.
I looked it up a little further and saw that
there are scenarios in Maine in Nebraska where you could
have three different UM votes cast for three different candidates.
But they said it's never happened. It's just theoretically possible,
mathematically statistically possible, all three. I don't know. It just
(16:44):
seems like everyone should just be all in the same system.
But but it makes sense if you're but think about it, Like,
the whole reason you have the electoral college, or one
of the big reasons, is to prevent um one region
or one one part of this state from wielding enough
power to vote for everybody else. And I think that's
(17:06):
what the district system is is set up to prevent
to It's kind of like, hey man, you had let
let you. You voted for this, this, this person, UM,
and we want you to have your say in the
electoral college. I think it's smarter. Oh yeah, I think
so well than I do too. You swayed me. Good.
(17:28):
John White. I've got his number. You know, he could
use this as evidence one day for what I don't want.
What's gonna happen? What are you gonna do? I'm but
if something happened, then everyone would point their fingers at me. Yeah.
It's like we heard him say it so on his podcast.
All right, I won't testify against you, though I appreciate it. Um.
(17:51):
Should we talk about some of the hinky results over
the years when things don't go quite as planned or
go exactly as planned. Very true, that's a teaser. Um.
There have been four presidents, Um, potus what they call
him four potuses podai that have one um there their
(18:16):
post with without the popular vote. Yeah, I mean that's
happened four times in this country, and all the ones
up until two thousand, we probably weren't his concern with
because you're like, who cares. They're all old timing, They're
all old time, they were wearing, they were just working
it out. Back in eighty four when John adams Son
John Quincy the Q, the Q he received thirty eight
(18:40):
thousand fewer votes than Andrew Jackson. Um, this one was
was definitely hinky because neither one of them won electoral college.
So if that happens, you defer to what the twelfth Amendment,
and that's when the House of Representatives decides who the
president is, which would be really weird these days. Yeah,
don't you think. I think there'd be a lot of
that just be bad news. But at the same time,
(19:02):
this is four and there were still a lot of
insurrecting rebellious people, so I'm sure it was a little
nervous back then. Um so who won j Q Q Yeah,
Um eighteen seventy six, brother Ford B. Hayes. Um, this
is the first time and I think the only time
(19:23):
that small states actually swung the election. Hayes carried a
bunch of small states um and basically combined there with
their combined electoral votes, gave him the electoral vote um,
although he lost the popular vote by a lot, by
like a hundred and nine thousand, no, two hundred sixty
(19:45):
four thousand votes. He lost the popular vote. Yeah, we
almost had a president Samuel Tilden, Sammy Tilden, the Haymaker,
it was his nickname. Really, I feel bad for the
hay Maker all of a sudden, Yeah, yeah, well, I
mean everybody liked him a lot more. But Hayes cobbled
together a win from small states, and Colorado had just
(20:06):
been let in this is the Hinky part um and
they didn't have any popular vote, there was no vote whatsoever.
They just did some electoral voting and it went all
to hay So he put it together with Colorado so
with very little popular vote, and then in one state
no popular vote, and he won, and he went on
to be the greatest president of this country's ever seen.
I mean, Colorado, I guess they were just like, we
(20:29):
don't even have pens and pencils. Can you give us, like,
just get bufflers. We're just like, we're all boxes over here.
We haven't even started unpacking. So they said, oh well,
let's just give it to let's just give it to Haze. Yeah,
good on, Yeah, who you got next? Benjie Harrison lost
the popular vote by more than ninety five thousand votes
(20:51):
to Grover Cleveland. Won the electoral vote by sixty five
And this is one of the cases where they say
it worked exactly like the plan. Uh, like we planned
it to with electoral college, because you can't just overwhelm
someone in one region and and get the presidency. That's
what happened. And so in six states in the South,
(21:14):
so they the whole campaign pretty much was based on
we want the tariff, we don't want the tariff. Well,
the North that everybody else wanted the tariff, South didn't
want the tariff. Um, so Grover Cleveland was like, no
tariff whatsoever, and the South voted as a block. They
had a bunch of people. He won the popular vote
by like huge number, but in the other thirty two
(21:37):
states he lost by four twenty five thousand votes. No, no, no,
he lost by three hundred thousand. He had so thirty
two states were against him. Combined, six states were four him,
and the Electoral College steps in and prevents the South
from picking the president for the rest of the country
flawless and then not flawless. Let's go to the year
(22:00):
two thousand. Yeah. Yeah, I was um driving across country
moving to Los Angeles during this election, and I made
a self made video of my journey, which most of
which was me singing along the songs on the radio
in my U haul. And I've still got this. I
should like get it digitized and posted at some point.
(22:21):
It's pretty funny. But um, I remember very specifically one
part in the in the thing, I woke up in
New Mexico and I'm you can tell him all sleepy
and you don't remember going to sleep. I remember going
to sleep, but I woke up and I said, yeah,
you know here I am in New Mexico. It's weird.
I woke up this morning and they don't know who
the president is. And it's like captured in time this
(22:41):
moment where I realized was sleep in my eyes, Like,
that's weird. I went to bed expecting because you know
that night everybody was going towards Gore. Well, every I
think it was called a couple of different ways, a
couple of different times. It went back and forth, but
when everybody went to bed, it was like Gore all
the way, like he'd won the popular vote. They knew
it was close, but everybody had called Gore and and
(23:04):
then they woke up and they're like wait a second.
And then a huge, huge mess cluster ensued afterward, which
involved the court system. It involved um hanging Chad's well
not only that, you remember like there was this one
county where like their votes just got lost for a
(23:25):
little while on the way to be counted. They were
just vanished, um and then reappeared later on, like that
kind of stuff. You should just basically be like, no,
the whole state, everybody has to wait, the whole state
has to start over and vote again. Yeah, that might
have been a good mood. They were like accusations of
disenfranchisement among black voters, black in black areas. Yeah, there
(23:49):
were also, I mean both sides had a lot of
arguments like when you really start peeling back the layers
and researching this, like it will make you cry. And
they were just like dozens and dozens of um factors
that many people never even saw in the nightly news,
you know, like military votes or disenfranchised voters in poor counties.
And then I think Gore asked for a recount and
(24:11):
only four counties when people are saying he should have
asked for a hand recount in all the counties. And
in the end, Potas was decided for the country by
less than, like, less than four hundred votes. Is that
when it came down to well, I mean it depends
because all the different factors, like do we count these votes?
(24:32):
What about these these people meant to vote for Gore
or Bush and it was cloudy, and what about these
hanging chads? So there's all different kinds of numbers. But
I've seen one. I've seen one um that said it
was less than a hundred votes. It was the deciding factor.
So it came down to a hundred votes. But Florida's
winner take all. Yeah, so that means that those hundred votes,
(24:53):
since Bush got those hundred votes, he got all twenty
five votes in the electoral college for Florida, which just
so happened to put him at exactly the amount of
electoral votes he needed to win the presidency, which was
to seventy one it's crazy. I mean I've seen I've
looked as many people have since then. It like the
(25:13):
independent studies they did afterward, and it just depends on
which ones you want to read. Like I saw today,
I saw like ten independent studies, and six of them
showed that Gore was the definite winner. Four of them
showed that Bush was. So it's just confusing and disheartening.
But what it did was shed light on ah a
(25:34):
pretty flawed system, um, and how we cast our votes,
how they're counted, um. And it gave us the hanging
Chad I guess the hanging Chad joke. Um. So uh.
There was also a bit of awkwardness that came out
of that, um, just a bit. Well in in one instance,
there was a kind of an overlooked bit of awkwardness.
The when the votes are the electoral votes are unsealed,
(25:58):
they're unsealed by the president of the city. It president
of the Senate is the vice president. So in two thousand,
the two thousand election, remember Al Gore was vice president,
he was president Senate, so he had to read his
own defeated electoral college votes did yeah, and there was
like something of an insurrection and a rebellion among black
(26:20):
congressional members who were protesting the vote and protesting including
Florida's vote in the count and uh, he had to
basically be like it's over, it's done. For the good
of the country, let's move on. But he he there
was like no emotion, even the emotion you just had,
there wasn't that. There was less than that. For the
good of the country. Let's move on. You know, Gore
(26:41):
always got tagged as the robot, the robotron, But there
was a video I might have talked about it before
that Spike Jones made of Gore that never was released,
a campaign video that I think would have won him
the election. He had like his tie Lesen now man,
he he was like way funnier and cooler than you
(27:02):
would think he was on thirty Rock. He did a
good job on Yeah, but that was later. But this
was before when he had the like the bad rap
is like a robot. But this like he let him
inside his home and it was just very casual, very
laid back, and you're like you saw him as a
dude for the first time, like cracking jokes and hanging
out with his family, and it was like very endearing
and he and he was like, do not release this. Yeah,
(27:23):
I'm sure, and he lost the election. Did you ever
see that Simpsons where Lisa buys al Gore's one of
his books and like the information is transmitted and somebody
runs into the to the I don't know what The
vice president's office is called the Trapezoid office, and it's like,
Mr Vice President, someone just bought your book. And he goes, well,
this calls for a celebration, and he turns so he
(27:46):
turns on the record player and puts on h cool
in the game celebrate and it's like celebreak good times.
Come on. He goes, I will, It's perfect. They nailed them.
Oh poor guy. So that's Gore. Yeah, that's Gore. So
I guess on both sides of the coin here, Um,
(28:10):
we have people thinking this is a great thing still
and people saying this is not a great. Yeah. For
each instance, even the one we were saying like the
electoral college worked perfectly, there are people who are like, no,
it's all messed up, like he clearly won the popular vote,
however you want to put it, yeah, like uh, and
and other people to say like, calmed down, that's all
just calmed down. Well, one of the knocks against it
(28:31):
is some say it discourages voter turnout. Um, because unless
you're in a swing state or a battleground state, it's
quote unquote predecided. Yeah, but then again, so does like
the two party system. We were in like a very
very red state. So we can say if we you know,
word of not vote read um, we like, we could
(28:51):
make a case that our votes would be thrown away, um,
and that could dissuade voters from turning out too. And
the people for it say, now, this is exactly what
we need, because it's a wade system. Um. The states
that have the most, the states that should have the
most influences are the states that are the most populated.
Well that's how it's how it's divided up. Like Alas
(29:13):
is great. We love all that land, but land shouldn't
be deciding who the president is, you know, yeah right, yeah, okay, No,
I'm with it. It's people. It's people that counts, not mountains.
People not mountains, People not mountains. What do we want
time travel? When do we want it? It's irrelevant? Alright,
(29:36):
I like that side, So I don't know, it's just
some random guy I posted on the Facebook page. Everyone
thought it was me, though, I guess because facial here,
it's like there's more than me. I see mustaches out there, Yeah,
I mean they're all over the place. Um So, over
the past two hundred years, over seven hundred proposals have
been introduced to reform or eliminate this process. Yep, the
(29:59):
most proposed les for any constitutional amendment. I could see that. Yeah,
I can see that. I think it's probably because um,
executive executive orders aren't in the Constitution and therefore can't
be repealed. Maybe. UM, I know that attorneys by and
large are against it. The American Bar Association polled at
(30:19):
SEM in favor of abolishing it, whereas political scientists have
generally supported it. And then there I could find three
popular polls opinion polls over the years. UM in nineteen
sixty seven percent of Americans said they don't like it.
In ninety late sixties, theaters just like, what is it? Government?
(30:42):
I don't want it? And then that UM in nineteen
eight one that declined to But by and large the
people are saying, or at least up until nine, like,
we don't like this process. Don't make us insurrect. Whoever
has the most most votes should win is what many
(31:02):
Americans believe. Did we talk about the two elections that
were decided by the House of Representatives because there were
ties in the electoral Well, we talked about the one,
I which think we mentioned the other? Oh yeah, yeah,
but Burr and um Adam or Jefferson, right, Um, there
was a tie in the electoral college, and it took
(31:24):
thirty one votes in the House of Representatives to decide
who was the president, and it turned out to be
Thomas Jefferson. And then Aaron Burr was shot. That's right.
That's the sad end of that story. Aaron Burr shot
Alexander Hamilton's that's right, And that's the sad end too.
(31:46):
Electoral college. Yeah, and vote people, That's all we have
to say. Even if you if you live in California
and you're in the Democrat and you think, hey, we're
gonna lock up this fifty votes, even if I sleep
in and go see my medical marijuana to doctor, get
out vote anyway. Yeah. Or if you're in a state
like Georgia and you're a Republican and you think, hey,
(32:08):
we're gonna carry this, you get out and vote too.
It's pretty much the uh, the fable of the rabbit
and the hair that you're talking about. Who's the hair?
I guess the hair is the person who visits their
medical marijuana doctor. It oversleeps rather than um voting that day.
And how do you oversleep? You mean like sleep until Wednesday,
(32:28):
not get up on Tuesdays. Have you heard about Ohio,
Well that's a swing state. Yeah, but have you heard
what's going on there? Uh? Now, dude, the Secretary of State,
a Republican, has decreed that there that counties that are
typically blue, generally blue blue counties are not going to
(32:51):
have weekend voting and their early voting hours are going
to be short compared to red counties that are going
to have weekend voting and longer UM early voting hours.
And like there's no explanation for this whatsoever. See, that's
my problem is, like I know, you probably can't do
a nationwide everything is the same, but within the state,
(33:14):
every district should have the exact same procedure, the same machines,
the same Like, all of that should be the same.
I can't believe there's districts that have like here you
do a punch card and here you scribble in with
the number two penciling here. You just say it quietly
into a booth, and there's someone on the other side
out a candle, one of the two candles. Yeah, that's
(33:35):
another sentence. It's pretty messed up, though. I think at
the very least we should be allowed to tarn feather
elected officials who decides stuff like that. Anybody who's responsible
for voter disenfranchisement, tard and feather. I guess that's it. Uh,
and that makes you an insurrectionist. Yeah, all right, I
always knew I was. Uh. Okay, Well, if you want
(33:57):
to know more about this weird process we have in
the United States called the electoral College, you can type
those words into the search bart how stuff works dot com.
It will bring up a handy and out of date
um graph of how the votes were distributed in two
thousand eight. Is it out of date? Two thousand and
(34:18):
eight was four years ago? Yeah? Didn't it still the same?
Well then it's a snapshot of a moment in time.
Know what it is. Anyway, it's still a good article.
Electoral College, handy search bar how stuff works dot Com.
And now it's time for listening man Josh. Before we
go any further, I didn't realize we were doing anyway.
We are coming to New York City. Yeah, we are town,
(34:41):
one of our town, and we are doing another trivia
event there, which we're both really psyched about. Yeah, but
we need some help with a venue. We need to
have the trivia event somewhere that's right, And we are
coming Friday, October twelve, and actually that is when the
event is, that evening that night, and we could use
some help from anyone out there who has connections, good ideas,
(35:04):
um whatever room for a few hundred people. I don't
want it to their own horn, but I would say
that that's probably a pretty good projection if everybody who's coming.
Oh the other way, even if you don't have a venue,
guys were going to be in New York for your
trivia event, So make sure you come out details to
follow up, but on mark your calendar rocks over its wealth.
And yeah, you're right, like your tiny little bar that
(35:25):
you love that does trivia in in uh Park Slope,
probably can't go there. Just to give you an idea,
although it's probably a great bar. Exactly to give you
an idea. We had our last trivia event at the
Bellhouse in Brooklyn, and it was pretty big, and we
packed it out, and imagine we could pack it out
at least that or maybe a little more this time around,
because it's a few years time a lot. Maybe we
(35:47):
can work out a deal. You know what I'm saying. Yeah,
do you so? Hit us up at Facebook or UM
Twitter email to us, Yeah, or you could email UM
stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com and just put like
New York venues in the in the subject line. And
that's a great help for us in October twelve. That's right,
(36:08):
it's gonna be awesome. Jobs is already excited. I'm excited,
all right, back to it. Yes, I'm gonna call this
UM an Englishman, the Englishman who went up in hill
and came down a mole, came down a moll. DearS Chuck,
Josh and Jerry and in print disease. He actually, he says,
(36:30):
a small high, the guest producer, Matt oh Nice, A
small high, nothing on a full Hello. My name is
Jack Mead and I'm an avid fan from England. Just
started listening in October, just started in twenty eleven, and
tonight I've just finished the four dred and fifty second podcast,
I wish we had the the sound maker. Um. They
(36:54):
maker from Grassoline with Josh and Chris Palette print Disease
a terrible pre Chuck Day, uh to the most recent
Shark Attack episodes. It's been a wild and exciting ride.
You guys will come a long way. I just listen
to the first one to see the difference, and not
only is it missing the sweet dulph of tones of
Charles W. Bryant, but Josh's voice sounds very weird. Yeah,
(37:14):
and it's not like we're recording in a can. Yeah,
and I was really aggressive. Oh yeah, yeah, like, hey,
what do you think? Huh huh. I can't even listen
to him. Yeah, you poked me once once. Um. Anyway,
I just want you guys to know your podcast has
become a huge part of my life. Catching up with
him has left me both the sense of achievement but
also great satness. See. I listened to the podcast pretty
(37:37):
much any time when I'm not engaging with other human beings. Um,
I've listened over nine days worth of your voices in
the space to ten months. I probably heard you too,
speaking more than my own fiance's voice. I was thinking,
man a little only guy, but he's engaged, Like, dude,
you should prioritize here, that's pause. Going from that amount
of awesomeness to just two episodes a week is making
(37:58):
me feel confused and frightened. It's okay, Jack, you know
it's strange. It's like this is a pretty frequent report
we here. It's like a condition. Well, I like, bulk up,
you bulk listen. Then all of a sudden you have
to wait like everybody else, like a schmo. I just
did the Firefly marathon. Yeah, it's good. Think how I feel.
You watch fourteen episodes of that than the movie and
(38:20):
then you're cut off after four days, and that's there's
not another one coming every week. So I'm just like
looking at the walls now wondering where captain type pans
is is that? Yeah, like sad, I've been trying to
figure it out. Everyone else I've talked to like, oh, yeah,
I'm more than Firefly years ago like everyone else, but
we know you're paying anyway. I'll be on my bunk.
(38:45):
We don't have a punk. I would like to think
that I'm your biggest fan in England, but I guess
that is statistically improbable very much enjoyed Chuck's terrible attempts
at an English accent and your attempts at pronouncing our
place names. Um. I've been wanting to email you guys
since I got into the podcast, but wanted to catch
up first. I think what you do is truly amazing
and genuinely enjoy life more with the podcast as the
(39:05):
soundtrack crazy. I know you guys must get hundreds of
emails a day. Uh that's not true, so I don't
expect to reply, but I'm just glad to know that
you will read this. I look forward today that I
can contribute information and maybe given even get on the
listener mail. So if I may make a quick suggestion,
I would love the special podcast hosted by Emily and
(39:25):
you me. I have no idea how to spell your
wife's names? But he actually nailed it? Did he really? Yeah?
And um really yeah? Look at that? Wow? And then uh,
he wants to hear a podcast Chuck and Josh work
from my wives. He said it's a long shot, but
you never know, and I would it's a pretty long
I would call that the longest of shots, but a
(39:47):
fun idea. Nevertheless, it is a good idea. Emily be like,
get your beat button ready. Let me tell you a
thing or two? Yeah, exactly? Um, well, who is that?
Probably good? Jack Mead? Thanks, Jack need Will. It's a
pretty awesome British name, isn't it? Agreed? Jack need to mix?
You want to put on boxing gloves? Um? Yeah, So
(40:08):
if you are a fan who is going through why
should we call this commission? I don't know. I had withdrawal. Yeah, withdrawal, Yeah,
I guess that what it is. Yeah. If you're going
through stuff, you should know addiction withdrawal and you need help.
We were look into forming some sort of support group
for you. Let's do that, agreed. Uh. Any ideas on
(40:32):
how to create such a support group, especially one that
would have to be international and global and instantaneous, We're
open to that. So we need to hear from you
via Twitter at s y s K, podcast, Facebook dot com,
slash stuff you Should Know, or you can send us
an email with these details um to stuff podcast at
Discovery dot com. For more on this and thousands of
(40:59):
other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. M hmm.
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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