What are red states and blue states?

What is voting? Why (and how) do people vote? Why can’t kids vote? Why are there red and blue states (not to mention donkeys and elephants representing political parties)? How can someone win the most votes but still lose the presidential election? We’re answering kid questions about elections with Bridgett King, a political scientist at the University of Kentucky. 

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Episode Transcript

Jane (00:19):
This is But Why
Lindholm. On this show, we takequestions from kids just like
you all over the world, and wefind answers. We do a lot of
science here on But Why? Buttoday, we're thinking about a
different kind of science,political science. That's the
study of government and politicsand how people relate to those

(00:41):
topics. Of course, here in theUnited States, politics is
something we hear a lot aboutevery four years when we have a
presidential election, and alittle bit every two years when
we have congressional elections.But elections happen all the
time. Sometimes towns and citieshave elections for things like
mayors or town or city council.School districts elect people to

(01:04):
their school boards, andsometimes voters have to go to
the polls to agree to a town orschool district budget.
Sometimes we'll even vote onlocal issues, and that's just in
the US. Elections of all sortshappen all over the world all
the time, going to the polls ormailing in a ballot, these are
important parts of ourdemocracy. We'll be talking

(01:26):
today about voting in thecontext of the U.S. presidential
election. This show is based inthe US, after all, but we hope
if you live in a differentcountry, you'll learn something
too. Our guide today is BridgettKing from the University of
Kentucky.

Bridgett (01:41):
I am a college professor, which means I teach
students who continue withschool after they graduate from
high school. I am someone who isa political scientist, and what
that means is I studygovernment, the people who work
in government, and sort of thethings that they do and how
those decisions affect people.

Jane (02:02):
Our first question is from Ellie.

Ellie (02:04):
And I'm five years old, and I live in Massachusetts,
Cambridge, and my question is,what is voting?

Bridgett (02:14):
Voting is how you tell people in elected office, or
people who will be in electedoffice, who you want there, what
you care about, what issuesmatter to you.

Jane (02:25):
Voting is how we decide who's going to make decisions
for our towns, states andcountry. We elect the people who
run our governments, andsometimes we vote on decisions
about how to spend our money orwhat kind of changes we want to
make to our laws. The act ofvoting is actually pretty
simple. You have to register.That means, say that you want to
vote and make sure you'reeligible or allowed to. You

(02:48):
register in the town or countythat you live in. Generally, we
don't vote with our hands or ourvoices in major elections. We
vote using something called aballot. A ballot is simply a
piece of paper with options tochoose from. Often, you fill in
the circle next to the name ofthe candidate you want to vote
for. Sometimes there's a boxthat you can put a checkmark

(03:09):
next to, and sometimes you canwrite in the name of someone who
wasn't already printed on theballot. You could even write in
your own name, but you wouldn'tget elected unless lots of other
people wrote in your name too.Lots of people vote in person at
what's called a polling place.That just means it's a place set
up to take voters on electionday. But lots of people vote

(03:31):
before the election usingsomething called an absentee
ballot.

Bridgett (03:35):
Yes, so absentee ballots, which are also
sometimes called vote by mailballots, so that also can be a
little confusing, becausedifferent states use different
words to describe the samething. Absentee ballots
basically give you anopportunity to not vote in
person. Maybe it's becauseyou're busy or because you're
not going to be in town onelection day, but it's a way for

(03:56):
you to still cast a ballot thesame way you, the same ballot
you would vote if you voted inperson, but to do it in a
different time frame thataccommodates your schedule.

Jane (04:07):
Because if you're busy or, let's say you were on vacation,
let's say your family decided togo out of town for a couple of
weeks, and you're out of town onelection day, even if you were
at another place in the UnitedStates, you can't just go vote
wherever you want. You have togo vote in the town that you're
registered to vote in.

Bridgett (04:24):
That is correct. And absentee ballots also allow
citizens who are overseas tovote as well. So it's not just
people who are maybe not at homeon election day because they're
in another part of the country.Absentee ballots also let people
who are in other parts of theworld still participate in our
democracy.

Jane (04:40):
But if you're going to vote in person on election day,
you go to the polling placewhere you're registered to vote,
and you're going to be helped bypeople called poll workers, who,
you guessed it, are working atthe polling place. There's a lot
to do on election day, so peoplevolunteer to help out.

Bridgett (04:56):
Yes, they're mostly volunteers, individuals who are
from your community. So they'reyour friends, your neighbors,
they might even be a relative,but they are the people who on
election day, will greet youwhen you show up and help you
work your way through theprocess to make sure you can
cast a ballot. The equipment orthe machines that are in polling
locations are very different,sometimes within the same state,

(05:17):
but definitely across states.But generally, though, the
process is the same. You showup, someone is going to confirm
that you are who you are. You'regoing to receive a ballot,
you're going to make choices onthat ballot, and then you're
going to submit it, and then itcomes my favorite part, you get
an "I Voted" sticker.

Isla (05:38):
My name is isla. I'm in Colorado, I'm five and a half
years old and why do peoplevote?

Jane (05:44):
Isla in Colorado wants to know, why do people vote? So why
do we have the system, and whydo people still do it?

Bridgett (05:54):
Part of the reason is so, if you think back to like
early America, where thecolonists basically had to
follow the desires of the Kingof England, in an effort to get
away from that after theAmerican Revolution and the
founding of the United States,voting creates an opportunity
for citizens to express theirchoices, their desires and

(06:18):
things that they want to seehappen, Not only in the nation,
but also in their localcommunities and in the states.
So voting is something that wedo in a democracy, which is what
we live in, because it allowscitizens to actively participate
in government.

Raanan (06:36):
Hi, my name is Raanan, and I live in Houston, Texas. My
question is, how can someone winthe most votes in the state in
America, but still lose thepresidential election?

Jane (06:50):
Did that question surprise you? You would think that in a
democracy, whoever gets the mostvotes wins, right? Well, kind
of. There's one other step inthe presidential election, and
it's really complicated. When wevote for president, it doesn't
mean all the votes of everyonein the United States get added
together and counted. The way itworks is each state gets counted

(07:14):
separately, and a small group ofpeople called the Electoral
College are the people whoactually get to vote for who
becomes our president.

Bridgett (07:24):
When citizens show up to cast a ballot, we're talking
about president, you either votefrom one candidate or the other,
and depending on in most states,which candidate gets the
majority of the votes cast bythe public, that is where the
electors go. So you can thinkabout the electors as kind of
being middlemen, right, who arein position to communicate to

(07:48):
our two major parties or to thegovernment, actually, more
clearly, who it is that citizensin a specific state have
selected. So if, for example,let's say, in a state, the
Democratic candidate forpresident gets the majority of
the votes, then those democraticelectors would go to the state

(08:10):
capital, and the electors orvotes would be cast for that
person. In the event arepublican candidate gets the
majority of the vote in a state,then the republican electors
basically assert that that statehas been won by the republican
candidate, and that candidate,in turn, gets the electors.
Basically, you start with thepopular vote. The popular vote

(08:34):
is then changed into anelectoral vote, which is based
on the outcome of who wins thepopular vote in the state, and
then those electors are thenapplied to reaching that 270
which you need to becomepresident. It is complicated,
and it's not going anywhere.

Jane (08:53):
There are a total of 538 people in the electoral college.
You need to get the votes ofmore than half of them to be
president. Half of 538 is 269 sowhen Bridget says you need 270
to be president, that meansyou've got to have at least one
more than half the votes of theelectoral college. That 538

(09:16):
number seems kind of random,doesn't it? Well, it's not. Not
every state has the same numberof electoral votes. It depends
on how many people live in eachstate. States with more people
get more votes.

Bridgett (09:29):
That is true. So the number of electors is based on
the number of representatives inCongress, and that is the House
of Representatives plus theSenate put together. And so
because everyone has twosenators, every state's the same
in that way, but because theHouse of Representatives is
based on population, that is whywe see larger states with larger

(09:50):
populations having moreelectors, and smaller states
with smaller populations havinga smaller number of electors.

Jane (09:56):
In most states, all but Maine and Nebraska, whoever wins

Bridgett (09:59):
Yes, but right, because so we don't have a
the most votes in that stategets all of that state's
electors. Even though they mayonly have won 60 percent of the
votes, they get 100 percent ofthe electors, which makes it
really important to try to winin states where it looks like
the election is going to beclose, because you can get all
the electoral votes, even if youjust get barely more popular

(10:23):
votes from regular people thanthe other candidate.
national popular vote, so acrossour fifty states, who gets the
most votes in their favor doesnot determine the outcome. So
when you're doing thepresidential election math, the
best way to think about it is tosort of think about the
individual states and what ishappening in each individual

(10:46):
state in terms of the popularvote, because that will then
determine who gets the electors.And you need electors to become
president. See, I

Jane (10:54):
told you the Electoral College and our presidential
election system were confusing.Can you even remember the
question that started this wholeexplanation?

Raanan (11:02):
How can someone win the most votes in the state in
America but still lose apresidential election?

Jane (11:11):
Thanks for the reminder, Raanan, because it's usually
winner take all in each statewhere the winner gets all the
electoral votes, even thoughthey didn't get all of the votes
of the regular people, it'spossible that overall, one
candidate could get more of thepopular vote of the whole
country, the votes of eachindividual person, but still get

(11:32):
fewer of the Electoral Collegevotes. Most recently, this
happened in 2000 when George W.Bush became president, even
though Al Gore had more votes,and in 2016 when Donald Trump
became president, even thoughHillary Clinton got more votes.
Many people don't like theElectoral College and the way it

(11:53):
influences our electionoutcomes, but it's written into
the U.S. Constitution, and itwould take a lot of work to get
rid of it. So Bridgett thinksit's here to stay, at least for
the foreseeable future. Thepresidency is the only office
where the Electoral Collegesystem is used. Okay, I need a
break, and maybe you do too moreon voting and voting systems

(12:15):
coming up.

This is But Why (12:17):
A Podcast for Curious Kids? I'm Jane Lindholm,
we're learning about electionswith Bridgett King, a political
scientist at the University ofKentucky. Here's a question from
Isaac.

Isaac (12:28):
I'm eight years old, and I'm from Colorado, and my
question is, why are there colorstates like red and blue?

Jane (12:38):
We often hear people, especially in the media, talking
about red states are going tovote this way and blue states
are going to vote this way. Andit can be confusing, because the
states don't have colors, so whyare we talking about them like
they have colors?

Bridgett (12:52):
This language of red states and blue states wasn't
really agreed upon or consistentuntil the 2000 presidential
election. So before that, youwould have newspapers or print
media inconsistently referringto democrats as red or blue or
republicans as red or blue. Sothis, this language we use to

(13:14):
describe states as red or blueis, I'm actually older than it.
It's relatively new. And so itwas in the 2000 election that
sort of, news media agreed uponthis idea that democrats would
be described as blue andrepublicans would be described

(13:34):
as red. And all that reallymeans is that in a blue state,
overwhelmingly, the votersvoted, at least in a
presidential election for theDemocratic candidate, and in red
states, it means they votedoverwhelmingly for the
Republican candidate.

Jane (13:51):
So that a red state is a state that pretty consistently,
pretty usually, goes for arepublican presidential
candidate, and a blue statepretty typically goes for the
democrat who's running forpresident. And then we sometimes
describe states that can goeither direction as purple
states, because when you mix redand blue, that makes purple.

(14:11):
It does. So there are alsostates that from presidential
election to presidentialelection, sometimes they're red,
sometimes they're blue, and so,because they're not as easy to
sort of figure out in terms ofwhat's going to happen on
election day, we refer to themas purple states, right? Because
they could either be red or theycould be blue. And it's those
states that you also seepresidents spending a lot of

(14:34):
their time, because those arethe states where they have the
biggest chance of picking up newvoters or those states can be
very important in helping themget enough electors to become
the president of the UnitedStates.
And those states are alsosometimes called "swing states,"
because they swing back andforth from one to the other. Why

(14:55):
red and blue, though? Why? Whydid it get decided that we would
call these two differentpolitical parties by the colors
red and blue, why not green andyellow?

Bridgett (15:04):
I mean, I think it might be, in part have to do
with the advent of color TV. Sothere was a point in time, for
example, when, so when RonaldReagan was president, for
example, like, because his namewas Ronald Reagan.

Jane (15:18):
This was back in the 80s.

Bridgett (15:19):
Oh yes, in the 80s. Yes, important context. he was
affiliated with the color red,in part because his name began
with an R.

Jane (15:27):
Really, that was part,that was why?

Bridgett (15:29):
Yeah, so there's no real sort of, people sat in a
room and made this very wellthought out sort of decision
about red and blue. Part of it,I mean, red and blue show up
really well on TV and in printmedia, so part of it is that,
but I mean, our red and bluestates could just as easy be

(15:52):
green and orange, but again,perhaps not as pleasing on the
eyes. Red and blue are alsocolors that are deeply embedded
in the American flag. So in thatway, it also perhaps makes the
most makes makes more sensecompared to some other colors.

Jane (16:04):
Maybe you've seen a map of the United States. We often see
them on TV and newspapersleading up to and after an
election where states arecolored in red or blue,
depending on how they voted. Nowyou know what that means. Red
states are states that tend tovote republican, and blue states
tend to vote democratic. Oftenwhen you see maps like this,

(16:25):
it's a representation of theElectoral College that we just
learned about and whichcandidate that state's electors
are giving their votes to. Wealso have animals that represent
political parties. There's anelephant for republicans and a
donkey for democrats. What'sthat all about?

Bridgett (16:44):
They actually derive from a cartoon. So there was a
cartoonist who, in sort ofdiscussing our political
landscape, used a donkey and anelephant, labeling the donkey
the democratic sort of partyslash candidate and the
Republican Party the elephant,the Republican Party slash
candidate. And so over time, itkind of just stuck, and the

(17:06):
parties kind of adopted thesesymbols. So like a lot of the
things that seem to be sort oflong-standing intentional,
things that we use to understandour political parties,
oftentimes, kind of justhappened as a consequence of, in

(17:28):
the case of the elephant and thedonkey, someone trying to be
funny, or in the case of usthinking about red and blue,
obviously them being in theAmerican flag, but also thinking
about that, there was noconsensus until about 24 years
ago, with respect to whichcandidate or which party would
be described as red versus blue.

Jane (17:46):
I should also mention, I keep saying our two political
parties. We have more than twopolitical parties in the United
States. We have many, manypolitical parties right now, in
this point in American historyand culture, the Democratic
Party and the Republican Partyare the two strongest parties,
but it hasn't always been thatway, and it probably will not be

(18:07):
that way forever and ever.Things change over time. We have
different political parties, andeven sometimes we have people
who don't run within anypolitical party. They're called
independents, and we've neverhad an independent for
president, but we haveindependents who represent their
constituents, the voters and thepeople who live in their state
in Congress. So I don't mean togive the impression that we only

(18:30):
have two political parties. Wejust currently have two that are
the strongest, and they wind uptaking a lot of the votes.

Bridgett (18:39):
Outside of our two major political parties, there
are other people who have putthemselves in the race to be
president. A couple weeks ago, Iwas giving a lecture, and I
wanted to know how many peoplehad filed to run for president,
and it's somewhere over 400,right? So there are, I know it's
a lot. The problem is they oftendon't have the resources or the

(19:01):
visibility, or sort of thesupport of individuals who are
affiliated with our two majorpolitical parties, so it's often
harder for them to get thenumber of votes which we talked
about that are necessary withinthe state to secure the number
of electors that you eventuallyneed to become president.
So we talked a little bit aboutthe states, and states wind up

(19:23):
being very important when itcomes to all elections. Really,
we vote in a lot of differentways in this country, and each
state runs its own elections.Why don't we all do it the same
way? Why don't we just sort ofnationally vote regardless of
what state we're in. Why arestates in control?

(19:43):
The Constitution provides thestates with the authority to
effectively determine electionprocesses and procedures, and so
there are some constitutionalamendments and some pieces of
federal legislation that do makesome things consistent. But
because of the Constitution, theConstitution is, in fact, what

(20:04):
gives states the power andauthority to design their
election systems the way theychoose. And so you can think
about why that might be good,right? Because it allows states
to create systems that mightbetter reflect the preferences
of their voters or what it isthat their voters want.

Jane (20:20):
And that, as you said, is the way it's been written up in
our constitution. So this issort of the way the U.S. was
founded, and it's the way thatit runs. But when we think about
states, and we we kind ofseparate them out, and we call
certain states red states andother states blue states. Do you
think that's fair? Is that agood way to do it, or does that
somehow not quite represent howdifferent we all are and yet how

(20:43):
the same. I mean, it's, it'ssort of divides us up in an odd
way.

Bridgett (20:47):
Yeah, I mean, I think red states and blue states are a
good way to describe a state ora city, even, or, you know,
calling them red or blue if youjust want to talk about the
majority of people within aplace who cast a ballot right
but we also know that there arepeople who don't vote, and even
in your red states or bluestates, there are people who

(21:08):
don't vote with the majority.And so when we talk about states
using this, sort of these colorsas the descriptors, there's the
potential to ignore, or forpeople who don't necessarily
vote in according to the colorof their state, to feel like
they're not as much as part ofthe process and that their voice

(21:30):
doesn't matter as much.

Jane (21:31):
Do you think that affects how we feel about our elections?

Bridgett (21:34):
Yes, as you know, when we think about why people don't
participate, particularly whenyou look at surveys, one of the
I would say top three or fourreasons is usually that people
feel disconnected from theprocess, or they feel like they
don't know enough about what'shappening. And so when people
who can participate but feellike they aren't in the best

(21:58):
position to do so choose not to,not only are they not voting,
but they tend to be less engagedcivically in general. So maybe
they're also not watching thenews, they're not reading the
newspaper, they're not followingcandidates, candidates or
campaigns. And you know, when wethink about democracy and sort
of why we vote in the firstplace, part of it is to get the

(22:20):
input of citizens so they have asay in sort of what it is that
government does or what itprioritizes or focuses on. And
when so many people don'tparticipate, they're basically
excluding themselves from theconversation.

Jane (22:35):
If voting is so important, why can't everyone do it?

Elizabeth (22:38):
My name is Elizabeth. I live in St. Albans, Vermont,
and I'm four years old, and myquestion is, why can kids not
vote for president?

Benjamin (22:51):
Hi, I am Benjamin. I am seven years old, and I am
from Brewster, New York, and myquestion is, why can't kids
vote?

Bridgett (22:59):
The voting age in the United States has not always
been 18. At one point it was 21.But so if we think about why
younger children can'tparticipate, one of the things
that I think we as a country andpeople value is that individuals
participating also having enoughinformation to sort of

(23:21):
understand the offices, whothey're voting for, what it is
that individuals do, and sort ofwhy an issue or other sort of
things someone might be decidingon on the ballot matters. And so
one of the hopes is that asyoung people go from
kindergarten through 12th grade,they're getting civic education.

(23:45):
They're learning aboutgovernment institutions and
structure what it is that ourelected officials do how to
vote, perhaps more importantly,and so that when they graduate
from high school, they will haveenough information to be
informed citizens and to makedecisions in the voting booth on
election day when they're ableto.

Jane (24:05):
You know, I mentioned that we have not always had just two
political parties, or these twopolitical parties, and you
mentioned Bridgett, we haven'talways had the same age range of
people who are allowed to vote.And in fact, there have been
lots of changes over ourcountry's history in who is
allowed to vote, and who isn't,and who is allowed to vote in
this country reflects what webelieve as a culture, and often

(24:30):
what the people in power believeis the right of someone to be
able to vote. And you know, ourhistory has some not so great
voting records. People of colorhave not been allowed to vote in
our country's past, women havenot been allowed to vote. People
who did not own land have notbeen allowed to vote. And so
it's not necessarily going to bethe same forever with the age

(24:52):
range of people who can votetoo. And so if you are a kid who
thinks I'm 16, or I'm 14, and Ithink I should be able to vote,
so. That's something that youcan work on and advocate for or
make a case for, because ourcountry is not set in stone, and
we have made changes over thecourse of history.

Bridgett (25:12):
You can have conversations with your parent
or other adult about what'shappening. I know a lot of
schools sometimes bring in thevoting equipment so students
can, like, use it for, like,student council elections. A lot
of states create opportunitiesfor young people to design their
"I Voted" stickers, which, ifyou'll recall, is my favorite
part of the sort of in personprocess. There's programs like

(25:35):
this where you can learn more.So there's beyond being able to
cast a ballot. I just want toencourage everyone to sort of
consider all of the other waysyou can be civically engaged or
educate yourself. I know for me,when I was younger, when my
mother would go vote, she wouldtake me. I may or may not have
stolen her sticker, but shewould take me, and I would stand

(25:55):
in the booth while she made herselections. And I mean, I think
it's a good way for young peopleto sort of get a sense of what
the process looks like, evenbefore they're able to
participate in it themselves.

Jane (26:07):
So if you're curious about the election, start talking to
the adults around you about it.That's all the time we have for
today. But our next episode isabout elections too. We're going
to talk more deeply about votingand how people know their votes
are getting counted by themachines and devices used at
polling places.

Bridgett (26:25):
It's very important that not only are they accurate,
but that people believe and havetrust and faith and confidence
that what they mark in thatbubble on their actual ballot is
what actually shows up in thetotals that makes the decision.

Jane (26:39):
As always, if you have a question about anything, have an
adult record it. You can submita question through our website,
or you can record it on asmartphone using a voice
recording app, and then haveyour adult email the file to
[e-mail] Wecan't answer every question we
get, but we love hearing what'son your mind. But Why, is
produced by Melody Bodette andmeet Jane Lindholm at Vermont

(27:01):
Public and distributed by PRX.Joey Palumbo is the video editor
on our YouTube series, But WhyBites. Our theme music is by
Luke Reynolds. We'll be back intwo weeks with an all new
episode. Until then, staycurious!