But seriously, why on earth do we have the Electoral College? Something about having to travel in carriages?
It’s a question a lot of people are asking after an election with a pretty big gap between the popular vote and the outcome.
So why on earth does it exist? What’s the point? Is it fulfilling its purpose? What alternatives are there, and how would we get to them?
Learn all this and more, including why you don’t kill your admirals, on today’s episode!
Sources
- Election results http://edition.cnn.com/election/results/president
- Faithless electors: http://www.fairvote.org/faithless_electors
- Federalist no 68:https://www.congress.gov/resources/display/content/The+Federalist+Papers#TheFederalistPapers-68
- Federalist no 10:https://www.congress.gov/resources/display/content/The+Federalist+Papers#TheFederalistPapers-10
- Tocqueville, Democracy in America, vol 1, chapter 25:http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/detoc/1_ch15.htm
- 5th Article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Five_of_the_United_States_Constitution
- 2 electors voting against Clinton, Trump http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/electoral-college-effort-stop-trump-231350
- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/30/faithless-electors-electoral-college-donald-trump
- http://www.factcheck.org/2016/11/could-electoral-college-elect-clinton/
View ReConsider on Patreon.
“Politics, but we don’t do the thinking for you.”
ReConsider, by Xander Snyder and Erik Fogg, is a twice per month podcast in which we take on, in-depth, one pressing political issue facing western Democracies with a fresh, researched, and challenging perspective. We help listeners see the full context behind the issue and make up their own minds.
ReConsider Media is a syndicate of IVN.us. This podcast was originally published on ReConsider Media December 15, 2016.