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