October 3, 2020 • 40 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, in this classic episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi there, It's Josh Clark, one half of Stuff you
Should Know, and I'm here to present our episode on
the Electoral College, a convoluted, flawed system, one that's shown
its inherent problems in the last couple of decades. In fact,
the electoral college is frequently cited as the most undemocratic
aspect of our democracy. I hope our episode on it
(00:22):
gives you a good picture of it and hopefully charges
you up to vote, because our ability to vote is
not only a right, it's an imperative. So please vote
this November and anytime you have a chance to vote,
because that's how America moves forward. Welcome to Stuff You
(00:45):
Should Know, a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W.
Chuck Bryant, and you've put us together a couple of microphones,
some cameras. You get something called Stuff you Should Know cameras.
(01:07):
Yeah you're talking about. Oh yeah, there's nothing here. Everything's
very normal. Just proceed, Chuck. Yes, how you doing. I'm great.
How are you? Election time is nigh. I'm getting over
my cold. Yeah you sound good? Do I yeah, well
you sound better than he did that. Yeah, I'll give
you that, but I still I don't feel like I
found a hundred percent. But compared to the swimming and
(01:30):
snot phase, I will take this and it got really bad.
It's pretty snotty. I'm not going to go into it here,
but wow. Yeah, um okay, yes, election time is nigh.
I try to get right to it. Yeah, and I
blocked you, um so uh yeah, that's why I wanted
to do this one. Because people perennially perennially ask for
(01:54):
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 It's kind of depressing. Yeah. Actually, I'm meant
to look up to see what other countries did with
their elections. It's like kings and birthrights and stuff, but
it is no one else votes. Okay, that's that's just
(02:17):
the USA that does that. Um yeah, chuck, yes, 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
polls and cast a vote and the vote you were
casting was for the candidate that you were casting that
(02:40):
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,
I'm voting for a person that's going to vote for
a person. Yeah exactly, you know, yeah, because in some cases,
(03:01):
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
shame shame myself. Right out of the gate when it
said every four years on the Tuesday following the first
Monday of November, I was like, why don't they just
(03:22):
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 got to get the Monday in there.
It gets even crazier than that with the electoral college.
They go the first Monday following the second Wednesday in December. Yeah,
(03:44):
and everybody had like gout or something like that. Back
it's just passed out. Yeah, that's what it was. So
that is when the actual presidency is decided in December.
Although everyone knows well you would think, yeah, so okay,
so let's talk about this. So the electoral college the
(04:04):
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, they decided, you know, I
think I don't trust a regular popular vote. Uh, it's
(04:26):
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 called the
electoral college because it's like compromise. Do you want to
have a bunch of uninformed rabble rousers who just revolted
against the King of England a few years before voting,
(04:48):
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, imagine it
was more confusing back then than it is today. Or
maybe not, maybe it made more senspect I think it
probably did. So Okay, So when they come up with
it was the compromise. Well, the compromise is when it
(05:11):
comes election time. Um, there are these people called electors
who actually decide the presidency and they represent. Um, it's
equal to to two U. S. Senators that every state has,
plus the number of representatives that each state has. Yeah,
so that comes to five thirty eight total. Yes, um,
and three of those are part of the twenty three
(05:32):
Amendment from nineteen sixty one that gave three electors to
d C. Yeah, they figured since everything is based here,
we might as well toss him a few votes. Seemed
like the right thing. Um. And did you say that
was the amendment? Okay? 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,
(05:54):
they're not always even on the ballot. Sometimes they are,
sometimes they're not. And like, I bet you anything. Nine
people who vote have no idea who their electors are
or like how they got to be in that position, right,
They're like, um, I'm going to vote for Barack Obama,
but who's this Todd Winemaker in parentheses thanks to him?
(06:16):
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, you dog catcher, and then electors and
then 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
(06:38):
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
like eight blocks from me and say, you, sir, have
a great responsibility at your hands. Are you going to
do that? Okay? But I could you could? I think
maybe you should reconsider. I'm just surprised. I don't know.
(06:59):
I guess, well, we know where the president lives, so
that's not a big deal. But I guess I'll surprised
that all that stuff is common knowledge. I thought they
would be like secret. Yeah, I think they want that
to go 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
(07:20):
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
election to certify. The secretary of each state certifies the vote.
The governor uh whips up a certificate saying here are
all the votes that age candidate got. And then um,
(07:43):
based on this, the electors go and cast their vote
the first Monday following the second Wednesday in December. That's right.
I couldn't find why. Oh I don't know. I guess
it just falls somewhere in between the election and January.
And that's what everybody. It's like, wait, wait, wait, Christmas, Christmas.
We've got to make sure we're done in plenty of time.
(08:05):
And then um, they cast the vote and then it's unsealed,
right and read that's right. Even though, barring any surprises,
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 or blocks
(08:25):
or miles, Um, I think I charted him out. I'm
stalking him. It was less than a mile, that's that's yeah.
Uh so that guy, um, you want his name, Yeah,
John White, that's 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
(08:49):
be voting for Barack Obama. But I really like the
cut of this. Mitt Rodney's Jim. Yeah, that doesn't really happen,
though it has, but not quite like that. But in
the modern times, I think one of the reasons why
they published their addresses is so, you know, a good lynching.
It's throwing you out there like, hey, man, you can
vote however you want, but everybody knows where you live.
(09:10):
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. Do you think faithfles
selector or the faithless electors? No, I don't think so.
It's too um maybe for like a DC law school band.
(09:30):
Faithless electors I can see that saying almost girls, they
have no future whatsoever unless they turn it into something
like scorpions or something like that. Right, 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
(09:53):
fined depending on what states you're in. Yeah, and you're
probably going to be kicked out of your party. You're
putting a lot on the line. Yeah. And see 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.
(10:13):
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.
They know where their bread is buttered exactly. Um. Okay,
so let's talk about these people. How are these people,
like to what do they have to qualify for it?
Obviously everyone has to have at least a juris doctor,
if not a PhD in law of some sort, like
(10:34):
a Juris doctorate UM, some sort of political science degree UM.
And probably UM they have to have like several hundred
hours of community service under their belt. Yes, that is
not true? Are you sure? And I set up? Though?
Thank you're being coy. Uh. There actually are no real
UM strict outlines per the constitution as to who these
(10:59):
people are. UM. They are usually nominated by a state
party committee UM, it says 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
(11:20):
all time robo dialer. UM. But they cannot be UM
senators or representatives, and I 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,
(11:40):
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 by the people who are like, we can't just
leave it to a popular vote. These people are crazy. Yeah,
Like I saw a musket in that guy's hands last week,
aimed at my office, and now he's an elector he
(12:01):
can't vote that It 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
in their party, who are who have been rewarded. Um,
maybe they're activists, um manytimes, they know the president or
a president elect right like they met him on the
(12:23):
campaign trail. Um. And that's really about it. Each state
has i think probably a different um nominating process. But overall,
when you are when you have a candidate who's running
from Green Party, Democrat, Republican, you take your as your party,
as your Green Party, you all go down together and
(12:44):
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 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
(13:07):
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 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,
(13:27):
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, right, it goes to John Goodman.
I would be That's who I would have as my
elector if I was Roseanne. What about Tom Arnold? Now
(13:49):
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 It's just my opinion.
All right. Well, now we're on the road, driving in
your truck. Want to learn a thing or two from
Josh can chuck stuff you should know? All right? All right,
(14:28):
so where are we We're talking about how the vote
goes towards not rose An 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, supposedly in
(14:49):
accordance with the people's popular vote. And I think, what
do they give it to? The secret secretary of state? Right?
That's that's who's like, it's registered before election day? Right,
your names on the list? It's yes, So at the
very 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 have a
winner take all system and then Maine in Nebraska have
(15:13):
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
do the winner take all system, which is so easy,
(15:34):
but think about it. So let's say you are in Arizona.
All right, Oh, it's hot, right, and you're you decided
to stay, you're not moving. Um, that wouldn't happen. You've
got like you have 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
(15:56):
the Green Party candidate Roseanne should have ten electors associated
with her, right, Um, the Barack Obama should have ten electors.
Uh Mitt Romney 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
(16:17):
state capitol on 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
(16:38):
know who they are, just trust us, right 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
h two votes the the guy who won, the guy
(17:00):
or the lady or the gender 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 district gets that vote. Yeah,
(17:25):
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
(17:46):
don't know. It just seems like everyone should just be
all on 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 the state from wielding enough power to vote for
(18:06):
everybody else. And I think that's what the district system
is is set up to prevent too. It's kind of like,
hey man, you had let's 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 swaye
(18:28):
me good? John White. I've got his number. You know,
he could use this his 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
(18:50):
against you, though I appreciate it. Um. Should we talk
about some of the hinky results over the years when
things don't go quite as planned or exactly as planned?
Very true, that's a teaser. Um. There have been four
presidents um potass what they call him, four potuses podai
(19:16):
that have one UM there their 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
just working it out. Back in four when John adams
(19:36):
Son John Quincy the Q the Q he received thirty
eight 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
(19:58):
these days. Yeah, don't think. I think there'd be a
lot of that just be bad news. But at the
same time, 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 for b. Hayes. Um.
(20:22):
He apparently this is the first time, and I think
the only time that small states actually swung the election.
Hayes carried a bunch of small states UM and basically
combined their with their combined electoral votes gave him the
electoral vote. UM. Although he lost the popular vote by
(20:42):
a lot, by like a hundred and nine thousand, No,
two hundred sixty 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 of Sudden Yeah. Yeah, well, I mean everybody
(21:02):
liked him a lot more. But he's cobbled together a
win from small states, and Colorado had just 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
(21:24):
vote isn't 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 don't
even have pens and pencils. Can you give us, like,
just can get the 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.
(21:45):
Yeah good, Yeah, who you got next? Benjie Harrison lost
the popular vote by more than ninety five thousand votes
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
(22:09):
someone in one region and and get the presidency. That's
what happened. And so in six states in the South,
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
(22:29):
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
states he lost by four twenty five thousand votes. No, no no, no,
he lost by three hundred thousand. He had so thirty
two states were against him combined, six states were four him,
(22:50):
and the electoral college steps in and prevents the South
from picking the president for the rest of the country. Right,
flawless and then not flawless. Let's go to the year
two thousand. Yeah, yeah, I was um driving across country
moving to Los Angeles during this election, and I made
(23:11):
a self made video of my journey, which most of
which was me singing along to 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.
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 I'm sleepy,
and you don't remember going to sleep. I remember going
(23:34):
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
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
(23:56):
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
then they woke up and they're like wait a second.
And then a huge, huge mess cluster ensued afterward, which
(24:17):
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
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,
(24:39):
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
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 right, and
(25:00):
they're just like dozens and dozens of um factors that
many people never even saw in the nightly news, you know,
like military votes, are disenfranchised voters in poor counties. And
then I think Gore asked for a recount and only
four counties when people are saying no, he should have
asked for a hand recount in all the counties and
(25:20):
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?
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
(25:41):
I've seen one. I've seen one um that said it
was less than a hundred votes, it was the deciding factor.
So okay, so it came down to a hundred votes,
but Florida's winner take all. Yeah, so that means that
those hundred votes since Bush got those hundred votes, he
got all twenty five votes in the electoral college for Florida,
(26:02):
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 uh people have since then.
It like the 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
(26:24):
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 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. Well,
(26:47):
now we're on the road, driving in your truck. Want
to learn a thing or two from Josh can Chuck's stuff?
You should know? All right, m um? So uh, there
(27:13):
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, they're unsealed
by the President of the Senate. President of the Senate
is the vice president. So in two thousand, the two
thousand election, remember Al Gore was vice president. He was
(27:35):
president of the Senate, so he had to read his
own defeated electoral college votes. Yeah. Yeah, And there was
like something of an insurrection and a rebellion among black
congressional members who were protesting the vote and protesting, including
Florida's vote in the count and uh, he had to
(27:55):
basically be like it's over, it's done. For good of
the country, let's move on. But he he there was
like no emotion, even the emotion you just had. It
wasn't that there was less than that for the good
of the country. Let's move on. You know, Gore 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
(28:19):
campaign video that I think would have won him the election.
He had like his tie lusened no man. He he
was like way funnier and cooler than you 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 led him inside his
(28:40):
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, 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
(29:01):
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 out. He
turns on the record player and puts on uh cool,
and the gang celebrate and it's like celebrate good times,
(29:23):
come on, and he goes, I will it's perfect. They
nailed him. Oh poor guy. Yeah, so that's Gore. Yeah,
that's Gore. So I guess on both sides of the
coin here, Um, 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
(29:45):
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,
calm down, let's all just calm down. Well, one of
the knocks against it is some say it discourages voter turnout. Um,
because unless you're in a swing state or a battleground state,
(30:06):
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 red. Um, we like,
we could 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, no, this
(30:28):
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 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 you. It's people.
(30:52):
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, I like that side.
So I don't know, it's just some random guy have
posted on the Facebook page. Everyone thought it was me though,
I guess because the facial here. Yeah, it's like there's
(31:13):
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 most
proposals for any constitutional amendment. I could see that. Yeah,
I can see that, and I think it's probably because um,
(31:35):
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
sum in favor of abolishing it, whereas political scientists have
generally supported it. And then there I could find three
(31:56):
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?
I don't want it? And then that UM in nineteen
eight one that declined to But by and large the
(32:18):
people are saying, or at least up until night one,
like we don't like this process. Don't make us insurrect.
Whoever has the most most votes should win, is what
many 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,
(32:41):
which we mentioned the other. Oh yeah, yeah, but Burr
and Um Adams or Jefferson one, right, yeah, Um, there
was a tie in the electoral college and it took
thirty one votes in the House of Representatives to decide
who was the president and it turn know to be
Thomas Jefferson. And then Aaron Burr was shot. That's right.
(33:04):
That's the sad end of that story. Aaron Burr shot
Alexander Hamilton's that's right, And that's the sad end too.
Electoral college. Yeah, get out and vote people, That's all
we have to say. Even if you if you live
in California and you're in a Democrat and you think, hey,
we're gonna lock up this fifty votes, even if I
(33:25):
sleep in and go see my medical marijuana doctor, get
out and vote anyway. Yeah. Or if you're in a
state like Georgia and you're a Republican and you think, hey,
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?
(33:46):
I guess the hair is the person who visits their
medical marijuana doctor and oversleeps rather than um voting that day.
And how do you oversleep? You mean like sleep until Wednesday,
like not get up on Tuesday. That's happened. Have you
heard about Ohio, Well, well that's a swing state. Yeah,
but have you heard what's going on there? Uh no, dude.
(34:07):
The Secretary of State, a Republican, has decreed that there
that counties that are typically blue generally blue blue counties
are not going to have weekend voting, and their early
voting hours are going to be short compared to read
counties that are going to have weekend voting and longer
(34:30):
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, 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
(34:52):
here you've scribble it in with the number two pencil.
And here you just say it quietly into a booth
and there's someone on the other side. Are you blow
out a candle? One of two candles? Yeah, that's another sentence.
It's pretty messed up, though. I think at the very
least we should be allowed to tar and feather elected
officials who decides stuff like that. Anybody who's responsible for
(35:13):
voter disenfranchisement, tard and feathered. I guess that's it. Uh,
and that makes you an insurrectionist. Yeah, all right, I
always knew what it was. Uh. Okay, Well, if you
want to know more about this weird process we have
in the United States called the electoral College, you can
(35:33):
type those words into the search bar how stuff Works
dot Com. It'll 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 eight
was four years ago? Yeah, but 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.
(35:55):
Electoral College handy search bar how stuff Works dot Com.
And now it's time for listening. I'm gonna call this
um an Englishman, the Englishman who went up a hill
and came down to mole, came down a mole. Dear Chuck,
(36:15):
Josh and Jerry and then print zs he actually he
says a small high. The guest producer Matt oh Nice,
A small high nothing, not a full. Hello. My name
is Jack Mead and I'm an avid fan from England.
Just started listening in October, just started in and tonight
I've just finished the four d and fifty second podcast.
(36:36):
I wish we had the the sound maker um the
hey Maker from Grassoline with Josh and Chris Palette print Disease,
Terrible preach up 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 listened to
the first one to see the difference, and not only
(36:56):
is it missing the sweet dulphip tones of Charles W. Bryant,
but Josh's voice sounds very weird. Yeah, and it's kind
of like we're recording in a can. And I was
really aggressive, Oh yeah, yeah, like, hey, what do you think?
Huh uh? I can't even listen to him. Yeah, you
poked me once. Once yea. Um, anyway, I just want
you guys to know your podcast has become a huge
(37:18):
part of my life. Catching up with him has left
me both the sense of achievement but also great sadness. See.
I listened to the podcast pretty 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, what
a lovely guy, but he's engaged. Yeah, like, dude, you
(37:39):
should prioritize here. That's pause. Going from that amount of
awesomeness to just two episodes a week is making me
feel confused and frightened. It's okay, Jack, you know it's strange.
It's like this is a pretty frequent report we hear. Yeah,
it's like a condition. Well, I like, bulk up, you
bulk listen. Then all of a sudden you have to
wait like every buddy else. Like I just did the
(38:01):
Firefly marathon. Yeah, that's goodn't think how I feel. You
watch fourteen episodes of that than the movie, and then
you're cut off after four days. There's not another one
coming every week, so I'm just like looking at the
walls now wondering where Captain type pants is that. Yeah,
I'm like sad, I've been trying to figure it out.
(38:22):
Everyone else I've talked to me be 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.
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. Enjoy Chuck's terrible attempt
at an English accent and your attempts at pronouncing our
(38:43):
place names. Um. I've been wanting to email you guys
since I got into the podcast, but I want to
catch up first. I think what you do is truly amazing,
and genuinely enjoy life more with your podcast as a
soundtrack a crazy I know you guys must get hundreds
of emails a day. Uh that's not true, so don't
expect to reply, But I'm just glad to know that
you will read this. I look forward to day that
(39:04):
I can contribute information and maybe given even get on
listener mail. So if I may make a quick suggestion
I would love the special podcast hosted by Emily and
you me. I have no idea how to spell your
wives names? But he actually nailed it? Did he really? Yeah? Wow?
And um really yeah? Look at that? Wow? And then uh,
(39:25):
he wants to hear a podcast how Chuck and Josh
work from our wives? He said, it's a long shot,
but you never know, and it's a pretty long We
call that the longest of shots, but a 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,
(39:45):
who is that? Probably good? Jack Mead? Thanks Jack ned Wow,
it's a pretty awesome British name, isn't it? Agreed, Jack
Mead to make me want to put on boxing gloves
and drink mead? Um. Yeah. So if you are a
fan who is going through why should we all this condition?
I don't know. I had withdrawal withdrawal? Yeah, I guess that.
(40:07):
Let me know what it is. Yeah, if you're going
through stuff, you should know addiction withdrawal and you need help.
We will look into forming some sort of support group
for you. Let's do that, agreed. Uh. Any ideas on
how to create such a support group, especially one that
would have to be international and global and instantaneous. We're
(40:27):
open to that, so we need to hear from you
via Twitter at s y s K podcasts, Facebook dot com,
slash Stuff you Should Know, or you can send us
an email to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com.
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radios.
How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio
is at the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
(40:48):
you listen to your favorite shows.
Hi there, It's Josh Clark, one half of Stuff you
Should Know, and I'm here to present our episode on
the Electoral College, a convoluted, flawed system, one that's shown
its inherent problems in the last couple of decades. In fact,
the electoral college is frequently cited as the most undemocratic
aspect of our democracy. I hope our episode on it
(00:22):
gives you a good picture of it and hopefully charges
you up to vote, because our ability to vote is
not only a right, it's an imperative. So please vote
this November and anytime you have a chance to vote,
because that's how America moves forward. Welcome to Stuff You
(00:45):
Should Know, a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W.
Chuck Bryant, and you've put us together a couple of microphones,
some cameras. You get something called Stuff you Should Know cameras.
(01:07):
Yeah you're talking about. Oh yeah, there's nothing here. Everything's
very normal. Just proceed, Chuck. Yes, how you doing. I'm great.
How are you? Election time is nigh. I'm getting over
my cold. Yeah you sound good? Do I yeah, well
you sound better than he did that. Yeah, I'll give
you that, but I still I don't feel like I
found a hundred percent. But compared to the swimming and
(01:30):
snot phase, I will take this and it got really bad.
It's pretty snotty. I'm not going to go into it here,
but wow. Yeah, um okay, yes, election time is nigh.
I try to get right to it. Yeah, and I
blocked you, um so uh yeah, that's why I wanted
to do this one. Because people perennially perennially ask for
(01:54):
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 It's kind of depressing. Yeah. Actually, I'm meant
to look up to see what other countries did with
their elections. It's like kings and birthrights and stuff, but
it is no one else votes. Okay, that's that's just
(02:17):
the USA that does that. Um yeah, chuck, yes, 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
polls and cast a vote and the vote you were
casting was for the candidate that you were casting that
(02:40):
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,
I'm voting for a person that's going to vote for
a person. Yeah exactly, you know, yeah, because in some cases,
(03:01):
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
shame shame myself. Right out of the gate when it
said every four years on the Tuesday following the first
Monday of November, I was like, why don't they just
(03:22):
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 got to get the Monday in there.
It gets even crazier than that with the electoral college.
They go the first Monday following the second Wednesday in December. Yeah,
(03:44):
and everybody had like gout or something like that. Back
it's just passed out. Yeah, that's what it was. So
that is when the actual presidency is decided in December.
Although everyone knows well you would think, yeah, so okay,
so let's talk about this. So the electoral college the
(04:04):
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, they decided, you know, I
think I don't trust a regular popular vote. Uh, it's
(04:26):
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 called the
electoral college because it's like compromise. Do you want to
have a bunch of uninformed rabble rousers who just revolted
against the King of England a few years before voting,
(04:48):
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, imagine it
was more confusing back then than it is today. Or
maybe not, maybe it made more senspect I think it
probably did. So Okay, So when they come up with
it was the compromise. Well, the compromise is when it
(05:11):
comes election time. Um, there are these people called electors
who actually decide the presidency and they represent. Um, it's
equal to to two U. S. Senators that every state has,
plus the number of representatives that each state has. Yeah,
so that comes to five thirty eight total. Yes, um,
and three of those are part of the twenty three
(05:32):
Amendment from nineteen sixty one that gave three electors to
d C. Yeah, they figured since everything is based here,
we might as well toss him a few votes. Seemed
like the right thing. Um. And did you say that
was the amendment? Okay? 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,
(05:54):
they're not always even on the ballot. Sometimes they are,
sometimes they're not. And like, I bet you anything. Nine
people who vote have no idea who their electors are
or like how they got to be in that position, right,
They're like, um, I'm going to vote for Barack Obama,
but who's this Todd Winemaker in parentheses thanks to him?
(06:16):
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, you dog catcher, and then electors and
then 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
(06:38):
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
like eight blocks from me and say, you, sir, have
a great responsibility at your hands. Are you going to
do that? Okay? But I could you could? I think
maybe you should reconsider. I'm just surprised. I don't know.
(06:59):
I guess, well, we know where the president lives, so
that's not a big deal. But I guess I'll surprised
that all that stuff is common knowledge. I thought they
would be like secret. Yeah, I think they want that
to go 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
(07:20):
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
election to certify. The secretary of each state certifies the vote.
The governor uh whips up a certificate saying here are
all the votes that age candidate got. And then um,
(07:43):
based on this, the electors go and cast their vote
the first Monday following the second Wednesday in December. That's right.
I couldn't find why. Oh I don't know. I guess
it just falls somewhere in between the election and January.
And that's what everybody. It's like, wait, wait, wait, Christmas, Christmas.
We've got to make sure we're done in plenty of time.
(08:05):
And then um, they cast the vote and then it's unsealed,
right and read that's right. Even though, barring any surprises,
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 or blocks
(08:25):
or miles, Um, I think I charted him out. I'm
stalking him. It was less than a mile, that's that's yeah.
Uh so that guy, um, you want his name, Yeah,
John White, that's 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
(08:49):
be voting for Barack Obama. But I really like the
cut of this. Mitt Rodney's Jim. Yeah, that doesn't really happen,
though it has, but not quite like that. But in
the modern times, I think one of the reasons why
they published their addresses is so, you know, a good lynching.
It's throwing you out there like, hey, man, you can
vote however you want, but everybody knows where you live.
(09:10):
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. Do you think faithfles
selector or the faithless electors? No, I don't think so.
It's too um maybe for like a DC law school band.
(09:30):
Faithless electors I can see that saying almost girls, they
have no future whatsoever unless they turn it into something
like scorpions or something like that. Right, 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
(09:53):
fined depending on what states you're in. Yeah, and you're
probably going to be kicked out of your party. You're
putting a lot on the line. Yeah. And see 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.
(10:13):
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.
They know where their bread is buttered exactly. Um. Okay,
so let's talk about these people. How are these people,
like to what do they have to qualify for it?
Obviously everyone has to have at least a juris doctor,
if not a PhD in law of some sort, like
(10:34):
a Juris doctorate UM, some sort of political science degree UM.
And probably UM they have to have like several hundred
hours of community service under their belt. Yes, that is
not true? Are you sure? And I set up? Though?
Thank you're being coy. Uh. There actually are no real
UM strict outlines per the constitution as to who these
(10:59):
people are. UM. They are usually nominated by a state
party committee UM, it says 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
(11:20):
all time robo dialer. UM. But they cannot be UM
senators or representatives, and I 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,
(11:40):
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 by the people who are like, we can't just
leave it to a popular vote. These people are crazy. Yeah,
Like I saw a musket in that guy's hands last week,
aimed at my office, and now he's an elector he
(12:01):
can't vote that It 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
in their party, who are who have been rewarded. Um,
maybe they're activists, um manytimes, they know the president or
a president elect right like they met him on the
(12:23):
campaign trail. Um. And that's really about it. Each state
has i think probably a different um nominating process. But overall,
when you are when you have a candidate who's running
from Green Party, Democrat, Republican, you take your as your party,
as your Green Party, you all go down together and
(12:44):
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 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
(13:07):
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 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,
(13:27):
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, right, it goes to John Goodman.
I would be That's who I would have as my
elector if I was Roseanne. What about Tom Arnold? Now
(13:49):
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 It's just my opinion.
All right. Well, now we're on the road, driving in
your truck. Want to learn a thing or two from
Josh can chuck stuff you should know? All right? All right,
(14:28):
so where are we We're talking about how the vote
goes towards not rose An 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, supposedly in
(14:49):
accordance with the people's popular vote. And I think, what
do they give it to? The secret secretary of state? Right?
That's that's who's like, it's registered before election day? Right,
your names on the list? It's yes, So at the
very 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 have a
winner take all system and then Maine in Nebraska have
(15:13):
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
do the winner take all system, which is so easy,
(15:34):
but think about it. So let's say you are in Arizona.
All right, Oh, it's hot, right, and you're you decided
to stay, you're not moving. Um, that wouldn't happen. You've
got like you have 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
(15:56):
the Green Party candidate Roseanne should have ten electors associated
with her, right, Um, the Barack Obama should have ten electors.
Uh Mitt Romney 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
(16:17):
state capitol on 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
(16:38):
know who they are, just trust us, right 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
h two votes the the guy who won, the guy
(17:00):
or the lady or the gender 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 district gets that vote. Yeah,
(17:25):
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
(17:46):
don't know. It just seems like everyone should just be
all on 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 the state from wielding enough power to vote for
(18:06):
everybody else. And I think that's what the district system
is is set up to prevent too. It's kind of like,
hey man, you had let's 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 swaye
(18:28):
me good? John White. I've got his number. You know,
he could use this his 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
(18:50):
against you, though I appreciate it. Um. Should we talk
about some of the hinky results over the years when
things don't go quite as planned or exactly as planned?
Very true, that's a teaser. Um. There have been four
presidents um potass what they call him, four potuses podai
(19:16):
that have one UM there their 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
just working it out. Back in four when John adams
(19:36):
Son John Quincy the Q the Q he received thirty
eight 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
(19:58):
these days. Yeah, don't think. I think there'd be a
lot of that just be bad news. But at the
same time, 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 for b. Hayes. Um.
(20:22):
He apparently this is the first time, and I think
the only time that small states actually swung the election.
Hayes carried a bunch of small states UM and basically
combined their with their combined electoral votes gave him the
electoral vote. UM. Although he lost the popular vote by
(20:42):
a lot, by like a hundred and nine thousand, No,
two hundred sixty 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 of Sudden Yeah. Yeah, well, I mean everybody
(21:02):
liked him a lot more. But he's cobbled together a
win from small states, and Colorado had just 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
(21:24):
vote isn't 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 don't
even have pens and pencils. Can you give us, like,
just can get the 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.
(21:45):
Yeah good, Yeah, who you got next? Benjie Harrison lost
the popular vote by more than ninety five thousand votes
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
(22:09):
someone in one region and and get the presidency. That's
what happened. And so in six states in the South,
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
(22:29):
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
states he lost by four twenty five thousand votes. No, no no, no,
he lost by three hundred thousand. He had so thirty
two states were against him combined, six states were four him,
(22:50):
and the electoral college steps in and prevents the South
from picking the president for the rest of the country. Right,
flawless and then not flawless. Let's go to the year
two thousand. Yeah, yeah, I was um driving across country
moving to Los Angeles during this election, and I made
(23:11):
a self made video of my journey, which most of
which was me singing along to 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.
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 I'm sleepy,
and you don't remember going to sleep. I remember going
(23:34):
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
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
(23:56):
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
then they woke up and they're like wait a second.
And then a huge, huge mess cluster ensued afterward, which
(24:17):
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
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,
(24:39):
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
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 right, and
(25:00):
they're just like dozens and dozens of um factors that
many people never even saw in the nightly news, you know,
like military votes, are disenfranchised voters in poor counties. And
then I think Gore asked for a recount and only
four counties when people are saying no, he should have
asked for a hand recount in all the counties and
(25:20):
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?
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
(25:41):
I've seen one. I've seen one um that said it
was less than a hundred votes, it was the deciding factor.
So okay, so it came down to a hundred votes,
but Florida's winner take all. Yeah, so that means that
those hundred votes since Bush got those hundred votes, he
got all twenty five votes in the electoral college for Florida,
(26:02):
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 uh people have since then.
It like the 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
(26:24):
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 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. Well,
(26:47):
now we're on the road, driving in your truck. Want
to learn a thing or two from Josh can Chuck's stuff?
You should know? All right, m um? So uh, there
(27:13):
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, they're unsealed
by the President of the Senate. President of the Senate
is the vice president. So in two thousand, the two
thousand election, remember Al Gore was vice president. He was
(27:35):
president of the Senate, so he had to read his
own defeated electoral college votes. Yeah. Yeah, And there was
like something of an insurrection and a rebellion among black
congressional members who were protesting the vote and protesting, including
Florida's vote in the count and uh, he had to
(27:55):
basically be like it's over, it's done. For good of
the country, let's move on. But he he there was
like no emotion, even the emotion you just had. It
wasn't that there was less than that for the good
of the country. Let's move on. You know, Gore 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
(28:19):
campaign video that I think would have won him the election.
He had like his tie lusened no man. He he
was like way funnier and cooler than you 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 led him inside his
(28:40):
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, 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
(29:01):
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 out. He
turns on the record player and puts on uh cool,
and the gang celebrate and it's like celebrate good times,
(29:23):
come on, and he goes, I will it's perfect. They
nailed him. Oh poor guy. Yeah, so that's Gore. Yeah,
that's Gore. So I guess on both sides of the
coin here, Um, 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
(29:45):
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,
calm down, let's all just calm down. Well, one of
the knocks against it is some say it discourages voter turnout. Um,
because unless you're in a swing state or a battleground state,
(30:06):
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 red. Um, we like,
we could 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, no, this
(30:28):
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 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 you. It's people.
(30:52):
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, I like that side.
So I don't know, it's just some random guy have
posted on the Facebook page. Everyone thought it was me though,
I guess because the facial here. Yeah, it's like there's
(31:13):
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 most
proposals for any constitutional amendment. I could see that. Yeah,
I can see that, and I think it's probably because um,
(31:35):
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
sum in favor of abolishing it, whereas political scientists have
generally supported it. And then there I could find three
(31:56):
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?
I don't want it? And then that UM in nineteen
eight one that declined to But by and large the
(32:18):
people are saying, or at least up until night one,
like we don't like this process. Don't make us insurrect.
Whoever has the most most votes should win, is what
many 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,
(32:41):
which we mentioned the other. Oh yeah, yeah, but Burr
and Um Adams or Jefferson one, right, yeah, Um, there
was a tie in the electoral college and it took
thirty one votes in the House of Representatives to decide
who was the president and it turn know to be
Thomas Jefferson. And then Aaron Burr was shot. That's right.
(33:04):
That's the sad end of that story. Aaron Burr shot
Alexander Hamilton's that's right, And that's the sad end too.
Electoral college. Yeah, get out and vote people, That's all
we have to say. Even if you if you live
in California and you're in a Democrat and you think, hey,
we're gonna lock up this fifty votes, even if I
(33:25):
sleep in and go see my medical marijuana doctor, get
out and vote anyway. Yeah. Or if you're in a
state like Georgia and you're a Republican and you think, hey,
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?
(33:46):
I guess the hair is the person who visits their
medical marijuana doctor and oversleeps rather than um voting that day.
And how do you oversleep? You mean like sleep until Wednesday,
like not get up on Tuesday. That's happened. Have you
heard about Ohio, Well, well that's a swing state. Yeah,
but have you heard what's going on there? Uh no, dude.
(34:07):
The Secretary of State, a Republican, has decreed that there
that counties that are typically blue generally blue blue counties
are not going to have weekend voting, and their early
voting hours are going to be short compared to read
counties that are going to have weekend voting and longer
(34:30):
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, 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
(34:52):
here you've scribble it in with the number two pencil.
And here you just say it quietly into a booth
and there's someone on the other side. Are you blow
out a candle? One of two candles? Yeah, that's another sentence.
It's pretty messed up, though. I think at the very
least we should be allowed to tar and feather elected
officials who decides stuff like that. Anybody who's responsible for
(35:13):
voter disenfranchisement, tard and feathered. I guess that's it. Uh,
and that makes you an insurrectionist. Yeah, all right, I
always knew what it was. Uh. Okay, Well, if you
want to know more about this weird process we have
in the United States called the electoral College, you can
(35:33):
type those words into the search bar how stuff Works
dot Com. It'll 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 eight
was four years ago? Yeah, but 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.
(35:55):
Electoral College handy search bar how stuff Works dot Com.
And now it's time for listening. I'm gonna call this
um an Englishman, the Englishman who went up a hill
and came down to mole, came down a mole. Dear Chuck,
(36:15):
Josh and Jerry and then print zs he actually he
says a small high. The guest producer Matt oh Nice,
A small high nothing, not a full. Hello. My name
is Jack Mead and I'm an avid fan from England.
Just started listening in October, just started in and tonight
I've just finished the four d and fifty second podcast.
(36:36):
I wish we had the the sound maker um the
hey Maker from Grassoline with Josh and Chris Palette print Disease,
Terrible preach up 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 listened to
the first one to see the difference, and not only
(36:56):
is it missing the sweet dulphip tones of Charles W. Bryant,
but Josh's voice sounds very weird. Yeah, and it's kind
of like we're recording in a can. And I was
really aggressive, Oh yeah, yeah, like, hey, what do you think?
Huh uh? I can't even listen to him. Yeah, you
poked me once. Once yea. Um, anyway, I just want
you guys to know your podcast has become a huge
(37:18):
part of my life. Catching up with him has left
me both the sense of achievement but also great sadness. See.
I listened to the podcast pretty 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, what
a lovely guy, but he's engaged. Yeah, like, dude, you
(37:39):
should prioritize here. That's pause. Going from that amount of
awesomeness to just two episodes a week is making me
feel confused and frightened. It's okay, Jack, you know it's strange.
It's like this is a pretty frequent report we hear. Yeah,
it's like a condition. Well, I like, bulk up, you
bulk listen. Then all of a sudden you have to
wait like every buddy else. Like I just did the
(38:01):
Firefly marathon. Yeah, that's goodn't think how I feel. You
watch fourteen episodes of that than the movie, and then
you're cut off after four days. There's not another one
coming every week, so I'm just like looking at the
walls now wondering where Captain type pants is that. Yeah,
I'm like sad, I've been trying to figure it out.
(38:22):
Everyone else I've talked to me be 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.
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. Enjoy Chuck's terrible attempt
at an English accent and your attempts at pronouncing our
(38:43):
place names. Um. I've been wanting to email you guys
since I got into the podcast, but I want to
catch up first. I think what you do is truly amazing,
and genuinely enjoy life more with your podcast as a
soundtrack a crazy I know you guys must get hundreds
of emails a day. Uh that's not true, so don't
expect to reply, But I'm just glad to know that
you will read this. I look forward to day that
(39:04):
I can contribute information and maybe given even get on
listener mail. So if I may make a quick suggestion
I would love the special podcast hosted by Emily and
you me. I have no idea how to spell your
wives names? But he actually nailed it? Did he really? Yeah? Wow?
And um really yeah? Look at that? Wow? And then uh,
(39:25):
he wants to hear a podcast how Chuck and Josh
work from our wives? He said, it's a long shot,
but you never know, and it's a pretty long We
call that the longest of shots, but a 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,
(39:45):
who is that? Probably good? Jack Mead? Thanks Jack ned Wow,
it's a pretty awesome British name, isn't it? Agreed, Jack
Mead to make me want to put on boxing gloves
and drink mead? Um. Yeah. So if you are a
fan who is going through why should we all this condition?
I don't know. I had withdrawal withdrawal? Yeah, I guess that.
(40:07):
Let me know what it is. Yeah, if you're going
through stuff, you should know addiction withdrawal and you need help.
We will look into forming some sort of support group
for you. Let's do that, agreed. Uh. Any ideas on
how to create such a support group, especially one that
would have to be international and global and instantaneous. We're
(40:27):
open to that, so we need to hear from you
via Twitter at s y s K podcasts, Facebook dot com,
slash Stuff you Should Know, or you can send us
an email to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com.
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radios.
How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio
is at the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
(40:48):
you listen to your favorite shows.
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