Does my vote count?

The framers of the Constitution put the electoral college in place as a compromise, and ever since voters have wondered if their vote counts. Check out this podcast from HowStuffWorks to learn more about the fact and fiction of the electoral college.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, welcome to the podcast. I'm
editor Candas Cason, joined today as usual by start writer
Josh Clark. Hey, Candice, Hey, Candice, who you're gonna vote for?

(00:22):
I'm kidding. I wouldn't really ask you that, although I
did hear recently that, um, there were some Hillary supporters
who said that they intended to vote for Hillary in
the general election. Have you heard about that? Um? No,
I heard there were some Hillary supporters who were going
to vote for McCain. Uh, and some who for who
will vote for Obama too, sure, but there are some

(00:44):
who plan on voting for Hillary. And of course you
you say, why would you do that? That's a waste
of a vote, right, sort of like a vote for
someone like Bob bar someone who's not one of the
teen major parties, right, or Ross Perrot, who I heard
was considering throwing his hat in the ring. Why not? Well,
that's that's a great question. I mean, is it a
wasted vote? Um? I've spoken to my wife about this. Uh,

(01:05):
she's voted third party before and I'm like, wow, you
really wasted your vote, didn't you? And I think her
response with something along the lines of, how is it
wasting a vote when I'm voting for the person I
want to vote for rather than voting for someone I
don't really like to defeat someone I like even less.
You know, it votes a personal it's a personal thing.
It's not to be used strategically. So I see that,

(01:27):
and you know, I my hat is off to the
Hillary supporters who are going to vote for Hillary no
matter what. You know, I they're gonna have to write
her in. Um. But it kind of brings up this
question of, you know, just how much does a vote count? Like,
you know, there's been several instances in the history of
the US where people have voted for one of the

(01:50):
two major candidates and you know, one of them gets
the most votes but still doesn't win the presidency. Uh,
you were around in two thousand, right, Yes, Okay, I
was just a baby, but I was here. Have you
Do you know much about the two thousand election? Yeah?
I do. Actually, it all boils down to the fact
that Gore won the popular vote and by like half

(02:13):
a million votes, which is pretty close because there's like
a hundred million votes cast that year. And then Bush
went on to when they vote from the electoral college. Yeah,
and it's funny because predictions said the exact opposite would happen,
that Bush would win the popular vote and Gore would
get the votes from the electoral college. Yeah, because this
is back before you know Gore was the environmentalist that

(02:34):
he is, or at least as well known as the
environmentalist that he Isn't I remember him being looked upon
as fairly stiff. Uh. There's this great Simpsons episode where
Lisa Simpson buys one of his books, and the information
that his book has been purchased as transmitted to the
White House. Somebody comes running and goes, Mr Vice President,
someone actually bought your book, and he goes, well, this

(02:56):
calls for a celebration. And he turns around and puts
the needle on a record player and it's cool and
the gang celebrate good times, and he goes, I will.
So he's kind of a stuff shirt. So I'm surprised
to get a popular vote, or of your that I
liked him better. He was sort of a solid wall
of man, and now he's got kind of yeah, and

(03:16):
he's I don't know, I got a little softer. Well,
you know that that two thousand election was determined by
two lawsuits that were filed in Florida. Florida was the
point of contention for the whole thing. Gore wanted a
recount of the popular vote, and Uh Bush um didn't
want one. So they sued one another, uh and sued
the state of Florida because you remember, this whole box

(03:39):
of votes went missing from the polling station to the
counting station, right. Um. So there was a bunch of
contention and everything. Finally the U. S. Supreme Court said, no, Florida,
you can't extend the deadline for the votes to be counted,
which meant that a recount wasn't possible. And you know,

(04:01):
by proxy, Bush won the state and the election, which
kind of leads me to my question, is it fact
or fiction that my vote, your vote, anyone's vote doesn't
really count. That's a really tough question, and thank you.
I can't be miss history today. I think that that's

(04:21):
really an ideological debate, and but I will be miss
history for for a few minutes. Actually, I can't say
whether I'll say it's faction. There you have it, it's faction. Um.
It all boils down to the actual creation of the
electoral college, and it wasn't something that we made up willingly.
The framers of the Constitution put the electoral college in place,

(04:44):
and it's sort of a compromise between essentially Congress designing
the next president of the United States or a popular
vote choosing the next president of the United States. And
you have to, you know, sort of put the electoral
college in context and think about the United States. It's
as a nascent nation. And essentially the opinion among the

(05:05):
framers of the Constitution was that people in general were
not educated and informed enough back then to definitely before L.
Gore invented the Internet, precisely to really make a good choice,
a good, sound, informed choice for the president. There wasn't
this widespread dissemination of information. You know. Today, you can
go on the internet copyright al Gore. You can pick

(05:28):
up a newspaper, you can download a podcast. There's so
many ways you can find out, you know, what's really
going on candidates. But back then they thought people you know,
far flong across the coast wouldn't really know. So I
can see this kind of necessary elitism right back then,
Well I think that's a charged word. Maybe I don't

(05:51):
know if I would say elitism. I would say, I
mean they were doing this as the founding fathers, they
were doing it as a fatherly gesture, and you would
have to ask yourself, is that still impoor it in today?
Is that? The second part of my question is is
it anachronistic? I don't know. Again, I think that's a
personal choice. I mean, do you honestly believe that everyone
out there voting is making an affirmed choice, or do

(06:12):
you think people are saying, well, I like Sarah Palin's hair,
or I think that Barack Obama's kids are cuter. Yeah.
And it does seem like, especially in the circus that
the two thousand and eight uh elections become Uh it does.
It does strike me that people are making kind of
shallow judgments about candidates rather than on the issues. And
I think a lot of that is coming from the

(06:34):
candidates themselves. No one's willing to discuss the issues. Um.
I was watching the Daily Show last night and they
had a generic off on the topic of the economy,
and they wanted to see who could be more generic,
and uh, actually I think it was a three way
tie between Obama, McCain and Biden and Sarah Palin actually
came out sounding you know, the most specific. So, um,

(06:57):
I don't think anyone's really discussing the issue. So how
can a public be informed about where candidate stands on
the issues if no one's discussing them at the same time, though,
this electoral college that you're talking about, who who's who?
Comprises that? How does that work? It's made up of
electors and essentially each state has a number of electors

(07:18):
that are equal to the number of representatives in the House,
and then the number of senators representatives. Every state has
two senators and then say a state head five representatives,
they'd have seven electoral votes, right, okay, which means that
it's a weighted system. If you're a state that has
a greater population, you're going to have more, say, you know,

(07:39):
as far as the electoral college vote goes. So that's
why when candidates are out stumping, you hear them, you know,
trying to win a state like Ohio or you know,
it being really important for them to get the public
riled up in California. Right, these are the states that
have the most day, which could be fair or unfair
depending on where you live. I mean, if you're a

(07:59):
call Foreignia, and you may feel that you're represented. But
if you live in a state with a very small
number of electoral votes, you may feel that your vote
really doesn't count. But it boils down to two different
types of electoral votes, and the most popular one is
called the winner take all system, and forty eight states
use this. And essentially, when you vote in these states,

(08:21):
you're casting a vote for the electors, and then the
electors in turn cast their vote for the president. Okay,
so it does because then you know you you've you've
cast a vote for say the Republican, and you're actually
voting for the elector right to vote for the Republican Canada, right, Okay,
so if enough people elect the Republican, then that Republican

(08:45):
elector goes to vote. And so it follows the popular vote,
right most of the time. How when does it not
when you have what's called a faithless elector, And this
is when the elector casts a vote that's different from
the popular vote. And most electors won't do this, and
there are some states that actually have fines imposed to

(09:06):
electors who do. I think North Carolina imposes like a
ten dollar fine. But this is a state law and
it wouldn't hold water against the constitutional law which says
you can't do that. So again, I mean if elector,
if an elector wants to be taken seriously and he
or she is elected by the state party, they're probably
going to stay true to that particular party line, but

(09:29):
they could conceivably betray the vote of the people who
cast the popular ballots. Yes, I got you. Now. The
other system that's used, and just Maine in Nebraska is
called the district system, and this one is like the
popular vote. The elector follows the popular vote, so that
one was a little bit more closely aligned. I understand,

(09:50):
I understand. So I know two thousand wasn't the only election.
There were three others as far as I understand, right.
That was John Quincy Adams and eighteen Rutherford B. Hayes
in eighteen seventy six, and Benjamin Harrison in eighteen eighty eight,
all of whom were eventually elected by the electoral college
instead of the popular vote. And you know, it's funny

(10:12):
because today a lot of those presidents, maybe with the
exception of Adams, there's sort of not inconsequential because I
wouldn't say any of our presidents has been inconsequential. Everyone's
done something to either get people riled up or pacify
them or please them. But off the top of my head,
you know, I can't name any great success that success
is associated with those administrations. So I don't know. Who

(10:35):
knows what would have happened if the popular voted one.
Maybe the tides would have turned in some way for
our nation. Maybe so maybe so that may have happened
very recently too, You never know. And I mean what
happens when there's a majority as well? I mean what
happens when there's a tie in the electoral College, I
should say, I mean there has to be a tiebreaker, right, yes,
well sort of. Then the vote goes to the House

(10:57):
of Representatives and that is sanctioned by the twelve and
at the Constitution. And there have been two elections in
history that have resorted to death and that was when
Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr squared off in eighteen o one,
victory went to Teach and then in eight when John
Quincy Adams competed against Andrew Jackson, and it went to
j Q Adams. So, so what happens in this instance,

(11:20):
I mean, like if if there if the vote goes
to the House of Representatives to pick the the president,
I mean what happens that Does each state get it
one vote basically yes, and then you just keep voting.
If there's a tie, yes, I got you. Okay, all right,
So this sounds a lot like um, like delegates at
a at a party convention sort of. Yeah, And it's

(11:42):
something I like to think of it in my mind
as the People's Choice Awards versus the Academy Awards. You know,
which is more prestigious. I think most of us would
say the Academy Awards. You know, people get more gussied
up for the oscars. You know, they're considered a little
bit more formal. Um, But you know, who would you
rather be thought more highly of? Your peers? The people

(12:03):
who actually in your industry are a very well informed,
very educated body of people who know your trade and
say you're the best of the best. For this, I
still say it's the latest and outdated. But thanks for
clearing it up formula. Well, let our our listeners decide,
of course. And in case you were wondering how many
votes it takes to get the majority in the electoral

(12:23):
cop Okay, how that you go ahead, go ahead, I
just wanted everyone to know that I knew already. I
know it's two hundred forty three. That's not right. I
was just tested. And now everyone, now we have informed listeners.
Go forth and vote, and remember there's no such thing

(12:44):
as a wasted vote as their candice no. And you
can read even more about votes and whether or not
they're wasted when you read how the Electoral College works
on how stuff works dot com for more on this
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