Speaker 1: Hi there, It's Josh Clark, one half of Stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know, and I'm here to present our episode on
Speaker 1: the Electoral College, a convoluted, flawed system, one that's shown
Speaker 1: its inherent problems in the last couple of decades. In fact,
Speaker 1: the electoral college is frequently cited as the most undemocratic
Speaker 1: aspect of our democracy. I hope our episode on it
Speaker 1: gives you a good picture of it and hopefully charges
Speaker 1: you up to vote, because our ability to vote is
Speaker 1: not only a right, it's an imperative. So please vote
Speaker 1: this November and anytime you have a chance to vote,
Speaker 1: because that's how America moves forward. Welcome to Stuff You
Speaker 1: Should Know, a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W.
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant, and you've put us together a couple of microphones,
Speaker 1: some cameras. You get something called Stuff you Should Know cameras.
Speaker 1: Yeah you're talking about. Oh yeah, there's nothing here. Everything's
Speaker 1: very normal. Just proceed, Chuck. Yes, how you doing. I'm great.
Speaker 1: How are you? Election time is nigh. I'm getting over
Speaker 1: my cold. Yeah you sound good? Do I yeah, well
Speaker 1: you sound better than he did that. Yeah, I'll give
Speaker 1: you that, but I still I don't feel like I
Speaker 1: found a hundred percent. But compared to the swimming and
Speaker 1: snot phase, I will take this and it got really bad.
Speaker 1: It's pretty snotty. I'm not going to go into it here,
Speaker 1: but wow. Yeah, um okay, yes, election time is nigh.
Speaker 1: I try to get right to it. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: blocked you, um so uh yeah, that's why I wanted
Speaker 1: to do this one. Because people perennially perennially ask for
Speaker 1: the electoral college, and other people say, I don't know
Speaker 1: what that is, but I want to hear about that too,
Speaker 1: and then people in other countries just say, you guys,
Speaker 1: do what It's kind of depressing. Yeah. Actually, I'm meant
Speaker 1: to look up to see what other countries did with
Speaker 1: their elections. It's like kings and birthrights and stuff, but
Speaker 1: it is no one else votes. Okay, that's that's just
Speaker 1: the USA that does that. Um yeah, chuck, yes, um.
Speaker 1: I 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,
Speaker 1: Yeah I was confused. Actually, uh, I'm gonna be a
Speaker 1: shame shame myself. Right out of the gate when it
Speaker 1: said every four years on the Tuesday following the first
Speaker 1: Monday of November, I was like, why don't they just
Speaker 1: call it the first Tuesday in November? But then I
Speaker 1: realized that, I guess if November one is a Tuesday,
Speaker 1: then it won't the election won't be to the following
Speaker 1: Tuesday because they got to get the Monday in there.
Speaker 1: It gets even crazier than that with the electoral college.
Speaker 1: They go the first Monday following the second Wednesday in December. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and everybody had like gout or something like that. Back
Speaker 1: it's just passed out. Yeah, that's what it was. So
Speaker 1: that is when the actual presidency is decided in December.
Speaker 1: Although everyone knows well you would think, yeah, so okay,
Speaker 1: so let's talk about this. So the electoral college the
Speaker 1: whole thing, like, why don't we just stick to the
Speaker 1: popular vote, which is what everybody thinks they're doing. Anyway,
Speaker 1: where did this come from? I have an answer. Uh,
Speaker 1: back in the day when our founding forefathers and mothers
Speaker 1: were doing their thing here, they decided, you know, I
Speaker 1: think I don't trust a regular popular vote. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: reckless as described in this article. And then um, another
Speaker 1: camp said, you know what, we sure as heck ain't
Speaker 1: gonna let Congress decide the president. So why don't we
Speaker 1: come up with a really confusing, wacky system called the
Speaker 1: electoral college because it's like compromise. Do you want to
Speaker 1: have a bunch of uninformed rabble rousers who just revolted
Speaker 1: against the King of England a few years before voting,
Speaker 1: or do you want a group of elites voting. It's
Speaker 1: like citizens United. You don't want either of them. So yeah,
Speaker 1: they just went and got confusing. Uh yeah, imagine it
Speaker 1: was more confusing back then than it is today. Or
Speaker 1: maybe not, maybe it made more senspect I think it
Speaker 1: probably did. So Okay, So when they come up with
Speaker 1: it was the compromise. Well, the compromise is when it
Speaker 1: comes election time. Um, there are these people called electors
Speaker 1: who actually decide the presidency and they represent. Um, it's
Speaker 1: equal to to two U. S. Senators that every state has,
Speaker 1: plus the number of representatives that each state has. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that comes to five thirty eight total. Yes, um,
Speaker 1: and three of those are part of the twenty three
Speaker 1: Amendment from nineteen sixty one that gave three electors to
Speaker 1: d C. Yeah, they figured since everything is based here,
Speaker 1: we might as well toss him a few votes. Seemed
Speaker 1: like the right thing. Um. And did you say that
Speaker 1: was the amendment? Okay? 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. Nine
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're like, um, I'm going to vote for Barack Obama,
Speaker 1: but who's 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, you dog catcher, and then electors and
Speaker 1: then there's a list of people's names by party or
Speaker 1: like 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? Okay? But I could you could? I think
Speaker 1: maybe you should reconsider. I'm just surprised. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I guess, well, we know where the president lives, so
Speaker 1: that's not a big deal. But I guess I'll surprised
Speaker 1: that all that stuff is common knowledge. I thought they
Speaker 1: would be like secret. Yeah, I think they want that
Speaker 1: to go the opposite way. Well, no, it makes sense
Speaker 1: now that I figured it out, Like they do want
Speaker 1: everything out in the open so everyone knows. But it
Speaker 1: just seemed a little weird that the guy voting for
Speaker 1: the president is actually like half a mile from my
Speaker 1: house or 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 whips up a certificate 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 January.
Speaker 1: And that's what 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 or blocks
Speaker 1: or miles, Um, I think I charted him out. I'm
Speaker 1: stalking him. It was less than a mile, that's that's yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh so that guy, um, you want his name, Yeah,
Speaker 1: John White, that's his name. So John White, the elector, right,
Speaker 1: one of them. Yeah, it's it's perfectly legal for him
Speaker 1: to say, you know what, supposedly I am supposed to
Speaker 1: be voting for Barack Obama. But I really like the
Speaker 1: cut of this. Mitt Rodney's Jim. Yeah, that doesn't really happen,
Speaker 1: though it has, but not quite like that. But in
Speaker 1: the modern times, I think one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: they published their addresses is so, you know, a good lynching.
Speaker 1: It's throwing you out there like, hey, man, you can
Speaker 1: vote however you want, but everybody knows where you live.
Speaker 1: And if you think they get mad about, you know,
Speaker 1: referees making bad calls, faithless elector that's what they're called,
Speaker 1: which is a great band name. Do you think faithfles
Speaker 1: selector or the faithless electors? No, I don't think so.
Speaker 1: It's too um maybe for like a DC law school band.
Speaker 1: Faithless electors I can see that saying almost girls, they
Speaker 1: have no future whatsoever unless they turn it into something
Speaker 1: like scorpions or something like that. Right, And actually, faithless
Speaker 1: electors have no future as electors because one thing you
Speaker 1: can probably be sure of if you change your vote,
Speaker 1: then you're not going to be asked back to be
Speaker 1: an elector in the future, and you could possibly be
Speaker 1: fined depending on what states you're in. Yeah, and you're
Speaker 1: probably going to be kicked out of your party. You're
Speaker 1: putting a lot on the line. Yeah. And see this
Speaker 1: 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: They know where their bread is buttered exactly. Um. Okay,
Speaker 1: so let's talk about these people. How are these people,
Speaker 1: like to what do they have to qualify for it?
Speaker 1: Obviously everyone has to have at least a juris doctor,
Speaker 1: if not a PhD in law of some sort, like
Speaker 1: a Juris doctorate UM, some sort of political science degree UM.
Speaker 1: And probably UM they have to have like several hundred
Speaker 1: hours of community service under their belt. Yes, that is
Speaker 1: not true? Are you sure? And I set up? Though?
Speaker 1: Thank you're being coy. Uh. There actually are no real
Speaker 1: UM strict outlines per the constitution as to who these
Speaker 1: people are. UM. They are usually nominated by a state
Speaker 1: party committee UM, it says in here, usually as a
Speaker 1: or sometimes to reward many years of service to the party.
Speaker 1: So they could be like big on the campaign trail
Speaker 1: for you, or activists maybe for your party, or like
Speaker 1: a robo dialer. Yeah yeah, I guess so, like the
Speaker 1: all time robo dialer. UM. But they cannot be UM
Speaker 1: senators or representatives, and I would imagine former too, although
Speaker 1: I didn't see that. I don't know. I think active
Speaker 1: is what it is. UM. You can't be a high
Speaker 1: ranking official in a position of trust or profit. Makes sense,
Speaker 1: And this one I love that they actually had to
Speaker 1: specify this UM he or she cannot be someone who
Speaker 1: has engaged in insurrection or rebellion. Well, this is this
Speaker 1: obviously by the people who are like, we can't just
Speaker 1: leave it to a popular vote. These people are crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like I saw a musket in that guy's hands last week,
Speaker 1: aimed at my office, and now he's an elector he
Speaker 1: can't vote that It 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 manytimes, they know the president or
Speaker 1: a president elect right like they met him on the
Speaker 1: campaign trail. Um. And that's really about it. Each state
Speaker 1: has i think probably a different um nominating process. But overall,
Speaker 1: when you are when you have a candidate who's running
Speaker 1: from Green Party, Democrat, Republican, you take your as your party,
Speaker 1: as your Green Party, you all go down together and
Speaker 1: you pile into like the the camper and go down
Speaker 1: and exactly and you're all very depressed because you don't
Speaker 1: have a shot at winning. You know, Roseanne's running for
Speaker 1: president for the Green Party, really yeah, and she's being
Speaker 1: roasted right now, I don't think that that's not a
Speaker 1: media play, right. Um, So they all go down to
Speaker 1: the Secretary of State's office and say, hey, these are
Speaker 1: our candidates. There are electors for candidates for electors. So
Speaker 1: when you vote for Roseanne, um, it should have all
Speaker 1: those people's names next to hers or on on, like
Speaker 1: by party. It might say, like Green Party electors, here's
Speaker 1: all the people, or it might not say anything. But um,
Speaker 1: when you cast that vote for Roseanne, you are voting
Speaker 1: those electors. That's who you're voting for. That's who the
Speaker 1: vote goes to, Not Roseanne, right, it goes to John Goodman.
Speaker 1: I would be That's who I would have as my
Speaker 1: elector if I was Roseanne. What about Tom Arnold? Now
Speaker 1: Arnold that a messy divorce, he'd be the party press though. Well,
Speaker 1: John Goodman was never married to there's just TV TV
Speaker 1: marriage though. That's like Sacer sanct It's just my opinion.
Speaker 1: All right. Well, now we're on the road, driving in
Speaker 1: your truck. Want to learn a thing or two from
Speaker 1: Josh can chuck stuff you should know? All right? All right,
Speaker 1: so where are we We're talking about how the vote
Speaker 1: goes towards not rose An where you wanted it to go,
Speaker 1: not Tom Tom Arnold or John Goodman, but to uh
Speaker 1: Todd Winemaker and all the other electors. Right, So, what's
Speaker 1: what's going on here? What's this process? Well, I mean
Speaker 1: they they literally just make their vote um, supposedly in
Speaker 1: accordance with the people's popular vote. And I think, what
Speaker 1: do they give it to? The secret secretary of state? Right?
Speaker 1: That's that's who's like, it's registered before election day? Right,
Speaker 1: your names on the list? It's yes, So at the
Speaker 1: very least, if it's not printed on the ballot, the
Speaker 1: secretary of state knows who the electors are. And there's
Speaker 1: two ways to do it. Forty eight states have a
Speaker 1: winner take all system and then Maine in Nebraska have
Speaker 1: 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, Oh, it's hot, right, and you're you decided
Speaker 1: to stay, you're not moving. Um, that wouldn't happen. You've
Speaker 1: got like you have ten. There's ten, well in two
Speaker 1: thousand eight, and I believe it's the same in two
Speaker 1: thousand and twelve. There's ten electoral votes. Right, Um, So
Speaker 1: the Green Party candidate Roseanne should have ten electors associated
Speaker 1: with her, right, Um, the Barack Obama should have ten electors.
Speaker 1: Uh Mitt Romney should have ten electors. So when when
Speaker 1: that person wins the popular vote and that's certified, then
Speaker 1: those electors are the ones, those ten associated with that
Speaker 1: candidate are the one that should go down to the
Speaker 1: state capitol on the first Monday after the second Wednesday
Speaker 1: of December and cast their vote. Okay, I get that.
Speaker 1: And also we should point out that in this system,
Speaker 1: that is the reason why sometimes the name isn't even
Speaker 1: on the ballot, because there's something something somewhere in their
Speaker 1: state constitution that says a vote for Barack Obama is
Speaker 1: a vote for these ten people. You don't need to
Speaker 1: know who they are, just trust us, right exactly. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's the that's the winner take all system. Right. The
Speaker 1: other system in Maine, in Nebraska is a district system.
Speaker 1: So the winner take all system, that's a lot like
Speaker 1: a popular vote. UM. In the district system, you get
Speaker 1: h two votes the the guy who won, the guy
Speaker 1: or the lady or the gender gender neutral president, depending
Speaker 1: on when you listen to this episode. Um uh. They
Speaker 1: whoever got the most popular votes in the state gets
Speaker 1: two electoral votes, the two associated with the Senate right
Speaker 1: then UM, the other electoral votes that are divvied up
Speaker 1: by congressional district. Whoever one that congressional district gets that vote. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I get that, And I looked. I looked it up
Speaker 1: a little further and saw that there are scenarios in Maine,
Speaker 1: in Nebraska where you could have three different UM votes
Speaker 1: cast for three different candidates. But they said it's never happened.
Speaker 1: It's just theoretically possible, mathematically statistically possible, all three. I
Speaker 1: don't know. It just seems like everyone should just be
Speaker 1: all on the same system. But but it makes sense
Speaker 1: if you're but think about it, like, the whole reason
Speaker 1: you have the electoral College, or one of the big reasons,
Speaker 1: is to prevent um one region or one one part
Speaker 1: of the state from wielding enough power to vote for
Speaker 1: everybody else. And I think that's what the district system
Speaker 1: is is set up to prevent too. It's kind of like,
Speaker 1: hey man, you had let's let you you voted for this, this,
Speaker 1: this person, um, and we want you to have your
Speaker 1: say in the electoral college. I think it's smarter. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so well than I do too. You swaye
Speaker 1: me good? John White. I've got his number. You know,
Speaker 1: he could use this his evidence one day for what
Speaker 1: I don't want. What's gonna happen? What are you gonna do?
Speaker 1: I'm but if something happened, then everyone would point their
Speaker 1: fingers at me. Yeah, it's like we heard him say
Speaker 1: it so on his podcast. All right, I won't testify
Speaker 1: against you, though I appreciate it. Um. Should we talk
Speaker 1: about some of the hinky results over the years when
Speaker 1: things don't go quite as planned or exactly as planned?
Speaker 1: Very true, that's a teaser. Um. There have been four
Speaker 1: presidents um potass what they call him, four potuses podai
Speaker 1: that have one UM there their post with without the
Speaker 1: popular vote. Yeah. I mean that's happened four times in
Speaker 1: this country, and all the ones up until two thousand,
Speaker 1: we probably weren't his concern with because You're like, who cares.
Speaker 1: They're all old timing. They're all old time they were
Speaker 1: just working it out. Back in four when John adams
Speaker 1: Son John Quincy the Q the Q he received thirty
Speaker 1: eight thousand fewer votes than Andrew Jackson. Um. This one
Speaker 1: was was definitely hinky because neither one of them won
Speaker 1: electoral college. So if that happens, you defer to what
Speaker 1: the twelfth Amendment, and that's when the House of Representatives
Speaker 1: decides who the president is, which would be really weird
Speaker 1: these days. Yeah, don't think. I think there'd be a
Speaker 1: lot of that just be bad news. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, this is four and there were still a
Speaker 1: lot of insurrecting, rebellious people, so I'm sure it was
Speaker 1: a little nervous back then. Um so who won j
Speaker 1: Q Q Yeah, Um eighteen seventy six, brother for b. Hayes. Um.
Speaker 1: He apparently this is the first time, and I think
Speaker 1: the only time that small states actually swung the election.
Speaker 1: Hayes carried a bunch of small states UM and basically
Speaker 1: combined their with their combined electoral votes gave him the
Speaker 1: electoral vote. UM. Although he lost the popular vote by
Speaker 1: a lot, by like a hundred and nine thousand, No,
Speaker 1: two hundred sixty four thousand votes. He lost the popular vote. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we 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 of Sudden Yeah. Yeah, well, I mean everybody
Speaker 1: liked him a lot more. But he's cobbled together a
Speaker 1: win from small states, and Colorado had just been let in.
Speaker 1: This is the Hinky part Um and they didn't have
Speaker 1: any popular vote, there was no vote whatsoever. They just
Speaker 1: did some electoral voting and it went all to hay
Speaker 1: So he put it together with Colorado, so with very
Speaker 1: little popular vote, and then in one state no popular
Speaker 1: vote isn't and he won and he went on to
Speaker 1: be the greatest president of this country's ever seen. I
Speaker 1: mean Colorado, I guess they were just like, we don't
Speaker 1: even have pens and pencils. Can you give us, like,
Speaker 1: just can get the bufflers. We're just like we're all
Speaker 1: boxes over here. 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.
Speaker 1: Yeah good, 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, 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. Right,
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 to 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 I'm 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 right, and
Speaker 1: they're just like dozens and dozens of um factors that
Speaker 1: many people never even saw in the nightly news, you know,
Speaker 1: like military votes, are disenfranchised voters in poor counties. And
Speaker 1: then I think Gore asked for a recount and only
Speaker 1: four counties when people are saying no, 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 okay, so it came down to a hundred votes,
Speaker 1: but Florida's winner take all. Yeah, so that means that
Speaker 1: those hundred votes since Bush got those hundred votes, he
Speaker 1: got all twenty five votes in the electoral college for Florida,
Speaker 1: which just so happened to put him at exactly the
Speaker 1: amount of electoral votes he needed to win the presidency,
Speaker 1: which was to seventy one. It's crazy. I mean, I've
Speaker 1: seen I've looked as many uh people have since then.
Speaker 1: It like the independent studies they did afterward, and it
Speaker 1: just depends on which ones you want to read. Like
Speaker 1: I saw today, I saw like ten independent studies, and
Speaker 1: six of them showed that Gore was the definite winner.
Speaker 1: Four of them showed that Bush was. So it's just
Speaker 1: confusing and disheartening. But what it did was shed light
Speaker 1: on ah a pretty flawed system, um, and how we
Speaker 1: cast our votes, how they're counted, um. And it gave
Speaker 1: us the hanging Chad. I guess the hanging Chad joke. Well,
Speaker 1: now we're on the road, driving in your truck. Want
Speaker 1: to learn a thing or two from Josh can Chuck's stuff?
Speaker 1: You should know? All right, m um? So uh, there
Speaker 1: was also a bit of awkwardness that came out of that, um,
Speaker 1: just a bit. Well in in one instance, there was
Speaker 1: a kind of an overlooked bit of awkwardness. The when
Speaker 1: the votes are the electoral votes are unsealed, they're unsealed
Speaker 1: by the President of the Senate. President of the Senate
Speaker 1: is the vice president. So in two thousand, the two
Speaker 1: thousand election, remember Al Gore was vice president. He was
Speaker 1: president of the Senate, so he had to read his
Speaker 1: own defeated electoral college votes. Yeah. 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 good of
Speaker 1: the country, let's move on. But he he there was
Speaker 1: like no emotion, even the emotion you just had. It
Speaker 1: wasn't that there was less than that for the good
Speaker 1: of the country. Let's move on. You know, Gore always
Speaker 1: got tagged as the robot, the robotron. But there was
Speaker 1: a video I might have talked about it before that
Speaker 1: Spike Jones made of Gore that never was released, a
Speaker 1: campaign video that I think would have won him the election.
Speaker 1: He had like his tie lusened no man. He he
Speaker 1: was like way funnier and cooler than you would think
Speaker 1: he was on thirty Rock. He did a good job
Speaker 1: on Yeah, but that was later. But this was before
Speaker 1: when he had the like the bad rap is like
Speaker 1: a robot. But this like he led him inside his
Speaker 1: home and it was just very casual, very laid back,
Speaker 1: and you're like you saw him as a dude for
Speaker 1: the first time, like cracking jokes and hanging out with
Speaker 1: his family, and it was like very endearing and he
Speaker 1: and he was like, do not release this, Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: sure and he lost the election. Did you ever see
Speaker 1: that Simpsons where Lisa buys al Gore's one of his books,
Speaker 1: and like the information is transmitted and somebody runs into
Speaker 1: the to the I don't know what. The vice president's
Speaker 1: office is called the Trapezoid office, and it's like, Mr
Speaker 1: Vice President, someone just bought your book. And he goes, well,
Speaker 1: this calls for a celebration, and he turns out. He
Speaker 1: turns on the record player and puts on uh cool,
Speaker 1: and the gang celebrate and it's like celebrate good times,
Speaker 1: come on, and he goes, I will it's perfect. They
Speaker 1: nailed him. Oh poor guy. Yeah, so that's Gore. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's Gore. So I guess on both sides of the
Speaker 1: coin here, Um, we have people thinking this is a
Speaker 1: great thing still and people saying this is not a
Speaker 1: great Yeah. For each instance, even the one we were
Speaker 1: saying like the electoral college worked perfectly, there are people
Speaker 1: who are like, no, it's all messed up, Like he
Speaker 1: clearly won the popular vote. However you want to put
Speaker 1: it yeah, like uh, and and other people to say like,
Speaker 1: calm down, let's all just calm down. Well, one of
Speaker 1: the knocks against it is some say it discourages voter turnout. Um,
Speaker 1: because unless you're in a swing state or a battleground state,
Speaker 1: it's quote unquote predecided. Yeah. But then again, so does
Speaker 1: like the two party system. We were in like a
Speaker 1: very very red state. So we can say if we
Speaker 1: you know, word of not vote red. Um, we like,
Speaker 1: we could make a case that our votes would be
Speaker 1: thrown away. Um and that could dissuade voters from turning
Speaker 1: out too. And the people for it say, no, this
Speaker 1: is exactly what we need, because it's a wade system. Um.
Speaker 1: The states that have the most the states that should
Speaker 1: have the most influences are the states that are the
Speaker 1: most populated. Well that's how it's how it's divided up.
Speaker 1: Like Alas is great. We love all that land, but
Speaker 1: land shouldn't be deciding who the president is, you know,
Speaker 1: yeah right, yeah, okay, No, I'm with you. It's people.
Speaker 1: It's people that counts, not mountains. People not mountains, People
Speaker 1: not mountains. What do we want time travel? When do
Speaker 1: we want it? It's irrelevant, alright, I like that side.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, it's just some random guy have
Speaker 1: posted on the Facebook page. Everyone thought it was me though,
Speaker 1: I guess because the facial here. Yeah, it's like there's
Speaker 1: more than me. I see mustaches out there. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean they're all over the place. Um So, over the
Speaker 1: past two hundred years, over seven hundred proposals have been
Speaker 1: introduced to reform or eliminate this process. Yep, the most
Speaker 1: proposals for any constitutional amendment. I could see that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can see that, and 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: sum 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 night one,
Speaker 1: like we don't like this process. Don't make us insurrect.
Speaker 1: Whoever has the most most votes should win, is what
Speaker 1: many Americans believe. Did we talk about the two elections
Speaker 1: that were decided by the House of Representatives because there
Speaker 1: were ties in the electoral Well, we talked about the one,
Speaker 1: which we mentioned the other. Oh yeah, yeah, but Burr
Speaker 1: and Um Adams or Jefferson one, right, yeah, 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 turn know 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, get out and vote people, That's all
Speaker 1: we have to say. Even if you if you live
Speaker 1: in California and you're in a Democrat and you think, hey,
Speaker 1: we're gonna lock up this fifty votes, even if I
Speaker 1: sleep in and go see my medical marijuana doctor, get
Speaker 1: out and vote anyway. Yeah. Or if you're in a
Speaker 1: state 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 and oversleeps rather than um voting that day.
Speaker 1: And how do you oversleep? You mean like sleep until Wednesday,
Speaker 1: like not get up on Tuesday. That's happened. Have you
Speaker 1: heard about Ohio, Well, well that's a swing state. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but have you heard what's going on there? Uh no, dude.
Speaker 1: The Secretary of State, a Republican, has decreed that there
Speaker 1: that counties that are typically blue generally blue blue counties
Speaker 1: are not going to have weekend voting, and their early
Speaker 1: voting hours are going to be short compared to read
Speaker 1: counties that are going to have weekend voting and longer
Speaker 1: um early voting hours. And like there's no explanation for
Speaker 1: this whatsoever. See that's my problem is, like I know
Speaker 1: you probably can't do a nationwide everything is the same,
Speaker 1: but within the state, every district should have the exact
Speaker 1: same procedure, the same machines, the same like all of
Speaker 1: that should be the same. I can't believe there's districts
Speaker 1: that have like here you do a punch card and
Speaker 1: here you've scribble it in with the number two pencil.
Speaker 1: And here you just say it quietly into a booth
Speaker 1: and there's someone on the other side. Are you blow
Speaker 1: out a candle? One of two candles? Yeah, that's another sentence.
Speaker 1: It's pretty messed up, though. I think at the very
Speaker 1: least we should be allowed to tar and feather elected
Speaker 1: officials who decides stuff like that. Anybody who's responsible for
Speaker 1: voter disenfranchisement, tard and feathered. I guess that's it. Uh,
Speaker 1: and that makes you an insurrectionist. Yeah, all right, I
Speaker 1: always knew what it was. Uh. Okay, Well, if you
Speaker 1: want to know more about this weird process we have
Speaker 1: in the United States called the electoral College, you can
Speaker 1: type those words into the search bar how stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot Com. It'll bring up a handy and out of
Speaker 1: date um graph of how the votes were distributed in
Speaker 1: two thousand eight? Is it out of date? Two eight
Speaker 1: was four years ago? Yeah, but 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. I'm gonna call this
Speaker 1: um an Englishman, the Englishman who went up a hill
Speaker 1: and came down to mole, came down a mole. Dear Chuck,
Speaker 1: Josh and Jerry and then print zs he actually he
Speaker 1: says a small high. The guest producer Matt oh Nice,
Speaker 1: A small high nothing, not a full. Hello. My name
Speaker 1: is Jack Mead and I'm an avid fan from England.
Speaker 1: Just started listening in October, just started in and tonight
Speaker 1: I've just finished the four d and fifty second podcast.
Speaker 1: I wish we had the the sound maker um the
Speaker 1: hey Maker from Grassoline with Josh and Chris Palette print Disease,
Speaker 1: Terrible preach up day uh to the most recent Shark
Speaker 1: Attack episodes. It's been a wild and exciting ride. You
Speaker 1: guys will come a long way. I just listened to
Speaker 1: the first one to see the difference, and not only
Speaker 1: is it missing the sweet dulphip tones of Charles W. Bryant,
Speaker 1: but Josh's voice sounds very weird. Yeah, and it's kind
Speaker 1: of like we're recording in a can. And I was
Speaker 1: really aggressive, Oh yeah, yeah, like, hey, what do you think?
Speaker 1: Huh uh? I can't even listen to him. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: poked me once. Once yea. Um, anyway, I just want
Speaker 1: you guys to know your podcast has become a huge
Speaker 1: part of my life. Catching up with him has left
Speaker 1: me both the sense of achievement but also great sadness. See.
Speaker 1: I listened to the podcast pretty much any time when
Speaker 1: I'm not engaging with other human beings. Um, I've listened
Speaker 1: over nine days worth of your voices in the space
Speaker 1: to ten months. I probably heard you too, speaking more
Speaker 1: than my own fiance's voice. I was thinking, Man, what
Speaker 1: a lovely guy, but he's engaged. Yeah, like, dude, you
Speaker 1: should prioritize here. That's pause. Going from that amount of
Speaker 1: awesomeness to just two episodes a week is making me
Speaker 1: feel confused and frightened. It's okay, Jack, you know it's strange.
Speaker 1: It's like this is a pretty frequent report we hear. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like a condition. Well, I like, bulk up, you
Speaker 1: bulk listen. Then all of a sudden you have to
Speaker 1: wait like every buddy else. Like I just did the
Speaker 1: Firefly marathon. Yeah, that's goodn't think how I feel. You
Speaker 1: watch fourteen episodes of that than the movie, and then
Speaker 1: you're cut off after four days. There's not another one
Speaker 1: coming every week, so I'm just like looking at the
Speaker 1: walls now wondering where Captain type pants is that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm like sad, I've been trying to figure it out.
Speaker 1: Everyone else I've talked to me be 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. Enjoy Chuck's terrible attempt
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 I want to
Speaker 1: catch up first. I think what you do is truly amazing,
Speaker 1: and genuinely enjoy life more with your podcast as a
Speaker 1: soundtrack a crazy I know you guys must get hundreds
Speaker 1: of emails a day. Uh that's not true, so don't
Speaker 1: expect to reply, But I'm just glad to know that
Speaker 1: you will read this. I look forward to day that
Speaker 1: I can contribute information and maybe given even get on
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: wives names? But he actually nailed it? Did he really? Yeah? Wow?
Speaker 1: And um really yeah? Look at that? Wow? And then uh,
Speaker 1: he wants to hear a podcast how Chuck and Josh
Speaker 1: work from our wives? He said, it's a long shot,
Speaker 1: but you never know, and it's a pretty long We
Speaker 1: call that the longest of shots, but a fun idea. Nevertheless,
Speaker 1: it is a good idea. Emily be like, get your
Speaker 1: beat button ready, let me tell you a thing or two? Yeah, exactly. Um, well,
Speaker 1: who is that? Probably good? Jack Mead? Thanks Jack ned Wow,
Speaker 1: it's a pretty awesome British name, isn't it? Agreed, Jack
Speaker 1: Mead to make me want to put on boxing gloves
Speaker 1: and drink mead? Um. Yeah. So if you are a
Speaker 1: fan who is going through why should we all this condition?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I had withdrawal withdrawal? Yeah, I guess that.
Speaker 1: Let me know what it is. Yeah, if you're going
Speaker 1: through stuff, you should know addiction withdrawal and you need help.
Speaker 1: We will 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 podcasts, Facebook dot com,
Speaker 1: slash Stuff you Should Know, or you can send us
Speaker 1: an email to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radios.
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