I was confused about this and on the surface, it seemed quite unfair. After watching this, It seems our founding fathers knew our country was diverse and did something a bit awkward, but purposeful to preserve the republic. This is DEFINITELY worth the 5 min.
Yep and you remember Hillary's not giving a shit about half the country aka her "basket of deplorables"... that's exactly what the founding fathers did it for.
Doug Crowe, this video is just made of pointless assumptions: you cannot win presidency just campaigning in the South, in the Midwest or in big cities as their votes are far from being enough to win, if you check the effective demographical distribution it is clear. Furthermore, why on earth should we avoid the tyranny of the majority by giving presidency to someone representing a minority? Protecting minorities is extremely important, indeed, but it happens by making them relevant (this is why the US and most countries are representative democracies or require special procedures to modify the Constitution), not by making them a new majority, because it is a negation of democracy itself; it is treading over the rights of the majority by making them a minority. It is right to avoid a tyranny of the majority, but a tyranny of the minority is to be avoided as well. Think about what happened in 2000. Why should 40,978 Republican votes in West Virginia, or 7,221 in New Hampshire, or 573 in Florida count more than HALF A MILLION Democratic votes? Are these people's rights inferior to those who live in a swing state? Are their needs less important? Are they half-citizens?
de da This is not a popularity contest. Trump won *most* of the states, so he wins the presidency. If Hillary won most of the states your mouth would be shut oh so tight. Speaking of her, she knew "the rules" and agreed to play by them by running...that's why she's the ONLY one who wouldn't dare, even with her hutzpah, say one word on it suddenly being "unfair". We all know this representative majority/democracy sysyen will *never* go, but it's always nice to get a civics refresher...
I saw someone else comment this and it's the truth: If Hillary won the Electoral College but lost the popular vote, they would praise our Founding Fathers' system. I however would not condemn the system no matter who won.
Four times in history the candidate with the popular vote lost the presidential election. And all four of those candidates were Democrats. Of course democrats are more against it, because it's always them getting the short end of the stick ;D
Every election (except 2004 because Bush was the sitting president of 911) since 1992, the Democrat won the popular vote. I think that a Republican won't win the popular vote until California and/or New York flip back in about 20-25 years. Even then, Texas expected to turn blue by the 2028 election. We cant have one party rule the executive branch for decades.
And the moment a republican wins the popular vote but loses the electoral college, the entire republican party will rush to abolish the electoral college.
I hope you realize that even if we got rid of the electoral college, we would still not be a pure democracy. A pure democracy is when every individual has a vote for every policy and law. If we did not have an electoral college, we would still have an indirect democracy or in our case, a constitutional republic. And yes, most educated people do realize that pure democracy is mob rule. No one is advocating for that.
Sanjana, do you know who Socrates was? Do you know what pure democracy did to him? His only crime was he didn't agree with the state! The founding fathers of my country were very learned that is why they demanded a constitution. @@sanjanamupparaju6637
@@terrencerogan7881 That's exactly what I'm saying. I'm not arguing for a pure democracy. A PURE DEMOCRACY IS NOT GOOD. I agree. I was just saying that that is completely irrelevant to the argument. Even if the electoral college was not a thing, we would still have a indirect democracy since WE ARE NOT DIRECTLY VOTING FOR LAWS AND BIILS- WE HAVE REPS. Therefore, the argument that a pure democracy is not beneficial has nothing to do with the electoral college. No one wants a pure democracy. No one is asking to get rid of represantives and senators.
@@sanjanamupparaju6637 True. I'd say that the electoral college would be better classified as an aristocratic process, in the Aristotelian sense. Namely, it's a hybrid process of democratic and oligarchic nature that results in something with several advantages over either of it's counterparts. These advantages are covered above. That's not to say that any of this changes that we are a democratic republic; as you said, we still elect the members of our legislature, the most powerful and essential part of our government, in a democratic way.
This skips over the winner-takes-all method, which is the most important aspect. First of all it blocks any 3rd party from ever breaking through, so you're practically stuck with a two-party system. More importantly, if in California the outcome is 65% democratic votes and 35% republican votes, then effectively ALL 55 electoral votes go democratic. For all intents and purposes this nullifies 35% of the votes, how can you call that 3:58 "every voter in every state is important"?
@@jonnyq2323 It is actually fundamentally different. Because in a popular vote system at least the people on the losing side have a chance. And when you separate people based on where they live its pretty much the same thing as gerrymandering. Which I think everyone can agree is a terrible thing.
They also conveniently leave out the connections to slavery and I love the idea of the "tyranny of the majority" because the majority is being terrorized by a tyrannical 1% as a result
@@southerncross5360 , the problem is that the so-called "teachers" of our public school system are no longer educated in civics, themselves! How can you teach something that you don't even understand? Additionally, the Left has been infiltrating our educational system for DECADES. One of their pillars of success is to spread their message to school children. They have been sneaking in their agenda drip by drip. It's the old "art of boiling a frog."
Yup! The Liberals here in Canada figured out long ago that they only really have to worry about Quebec and Ontario to get a majority government. And right now the Liberal party is pushing through "electoral reform" and from all appearances they are pushing through a system that will favor them for a majority out come even more often because they now hold a majority government. they also refuse to hold a referendum despite roughly 75% of Canadians wanting one.
I know! But some of those same liberals who saw no problem with that demanded that a conservative MP be kicked out over a $16 glass of orange juice! And then there was Trudeau's in flight bar tab, and the professional photographers, and the moving bills, and the illegal expenses for a by-election, and the list goes on! We can't afford these baffoons.
I learned this when I was a kid in the early 70's...I dont think its taught in school anymore and I heard a teacher a while back, explain the EC wrong, so its possible that they arent educated either
This isn't taught in school, because this is a mixture of truth an propganda. The main reasons why the founders chose an electoral college system was as a compromise with slave states (a popular vote would've favored the Northen states), and because they were concerned with the education level of the average voter. Many of the founders also wrote later that they felt the electoral college was one of the biggest flaws in the constitution. This video, being the product of a far right propaganda organization omits those facts, bc conservatives recognize that if it weren't for the electoral college, every president since George Bush I would've been a Democrat.
Also - the line about two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner was a socialist critique of capitalism, not democracy. Again, this is not a factual video, it is propaganda.
its more like population reigns supreme if we didn't have the electoral college. so states with large pop counts would likely get their voices heard while leaving small ones like rhode island get left in the dust just for having less people.
This is a made up problem used to justify an obviously unfair system. The large states simply aren't large enough that politicians wouldn't need smaller states to vote for them too.
@@thomaslalonde1532 the founder are smart yo which is why states will bigger population like califonia can't elected a winner presidency. The founder knew some states will have bigger population then the others
I find the whole thing rather complicated. But, now that I understand a little more why it's there, I'm glad it is. This is why Due Process is so important.
This is what every school district SHOULD teach their students. So when some liberal opens their mouth and say, "we should get rid of the electoral college" they should watch this video. This method works both ways not just when the republicans win.
@Reuben Purcell you ask why? Because people are sheep. They either subscribe to CNN or Fox news and are never given the facts and allowed to decide for themselves. Instead you have both candidates spewing B.S. and campaigning on promises they never come thru with. Popular vote??? Are you kidding me? Democrats are turning city after city into a dumpster while republicans are entrenched in ideologies that are unsustainable. And what about our elected senate and house of representatives? They can't even get along unless someone is paying them for their vote. At least the electoral college remains constant to an extent. If you hate it that much move out of the U.S. to a better place. Let's see how that works out for you.
I watched this for the 2016 elections and I’m here again for this years election. I’m sure I’ll be back again in 4 years. I’m a naturalized US citizen and this is always confusing but makes sense
Ah, I recommend watching several different videos on the topic. This video is a conservative viewpoint-based video and only gives one side. If you go the www.archives.gov, there might be a more nuetral explaination of the electoral college. Best of luck, friend.
It made sense when it was initially used, but today, it is no longer needed. Additionally, to blame Gore's loss on WV instead of what happened in Florida is just factually inaccurate.
John Locke exactly right. Because the same thing happened in the 2000 election. George Bush lost the popular vote. The last time a Republican won the popular vote in a presidential election was 1988. They know they can’t win without gerrymandering, voter suppression, & the electoral college. That’s why Prager U is SOoOo pro-electoral college.
@@MDNELLEY Both sides gerrymander, it isn't just a R or D thing. Also, voter suppression? I'm assuming you are referring to requiring voter ID? If so, then R's are also anti-gun, since buying a gun requires ID.
@@MDNELLEY meh, bad point, george bush lost florida and lost both the electoral college, if you want to talk about 2000 you can blame the supreme court. (this is coming from a republican)
The Constitution doesn't require electors to vote for the candidate that won the popular vote within their respective states nor does it require states to hold popular elections for Presidential electors. Voting for Presidential electors is a privilege granted by the individual states, not a right.
States may require by law that Presidential electors vote for the candidate that won the popular vote within their state. However, since electors are community leaders and party regulars , they have little or no incentive to change their pledged vote much less vote for a candidate of another party. That likely explains why faithless electors are so rare and none have ever changed the expected outcome of an election.
Tom Cho...you don't change something just because you didn't get the Outcome that you wanted. I love how 'todays' generation think they are smarter than the Founding Fathers of this Country... If you can't figure out why it is setup the way it is , then I'm truly sorry cause you are a lost cause...
3:06 the top 100 biggest cities only take up 13% of the US population The problem with the electoral college is that unless you live in the swing states, your vote doesn't matter. Democrats in san antonio and Tucson and republicans in san diego are drowned out by the majority in their states. The winner take all system also drowns out 3rd parties and keeps the current 2 in power. Defenders of the electoral college say that it gives small states more power but in reality, no presidential candidate has ever visited wyoming, vermont, or alaska. The only small states visited were maine and NH.
araeshkigal yes, the swing states change (my state is expected to be a tossup this election while previously being slightly red leaning) but San Antonio and Austin are predominantly liberal cities whose votes don't matter because all of the votes go to the republican candidate. There are also 14 republican majority congressional districts but guess what, their votes don't matter because california is a safe democratic state.
Actually it's 19.48% and many metropolitan areas are not included in this number. For example the CITY of Los Angeles is only 3.7 million but metropolitan Los Angeles is nearly 14 million, nearly three times the amount. So that 19.48% is much closer to 40%-50%. Also those that live in large cities tend to be similar in ideals and thoughts they either have lots of money or are extremely poor and rely of government for much of their existence, they have small families and tend not to marry. Where as rural areas have more moderate incomes, larger families, get married and rely much less on government programs. There are two very different demographics. The electoral college makes its much harder for candidates to pander to one or the other.
Why are you against stable government, as well as stable elections, 💩head?!? 😠 If this system didn't exist, American elections would be highly chaotic! Stupid dummy! 😠
Half the population lives in 14 states, and if all those people vote the same way, then whatever happens in the other 36 states won't matter. To change the constitution, you must allow each US citizen to vote on it. Even if the Congressmen in those 36 states vote to make their citizen's votes meaningless, you're dreaming if you think that the citizens in the 36 states will knowingly vote to make their votes worthless.
I appreciate you breaking it down. I finally have a better understanding. The thing is, this need to be taught in school, right along with history. Thank you.
Sadly, schools are becoming left-wing indoctrination camps these days and will keep moaning that the electoral college is so "unfair and outdated." BUT when it benefits them, they'll whine that it's "old but necessary."
In my school, they teach us how it works, give us pros and cons, and then let us decide if we agree with the system or think we should try something new.
"Isn't the election only about the so-called swing states? No, because the swing states are constantly changing." That's a complete non-sequitur. Just because the swing states are 'constantly changing' still means that any given election is about the swing states of that particular election.
I think she meant to say that some states that are safely on one side of the political spectrum can become swing states or shift their political ideology. That's what I think she's trying to say.
Mr. Mxyzptlk it is still meaningless. Because swing states don't Change every cycle you can get an accurate idea of which states are safe by looking at the last cycle and polling the states in question. Besides the need to give some states more weight then others is mathematically inaccurate because the 90 largest cities in America, which are spread thoroughly across the nation, hold only 20 percent of the total population.
+Mr. Mxyzptlk Right. But what I'm saying is that that still isn't a good argument for the electoral college, or one that actually refutes the idea that elections are not about swing states. To say that something constantly changes doesn't mean that the phenomenon isn't significant. You could just as easily say about a sharpshooter with poor precision that the targets he hits are always off, so you never know where he's going to hit next. That still doesn't mean he doesn't have a precision problem.
+Mr. Mxyzptlk Hahaha I will, I will. What's her email or phone number? I'll call her up and enlighten her. Probably tara.ross@gmail.com or electoralcollegealltheway@gmail.com
3:22: Even if which states are "swing" or "safe" is constantly changing, don't we have a fairly good idea about which ones could realistically be flipped in any given election? Therefore, candidates are wise to ignore the safe 1/2 to 2/3 of the states and focus on the ones which are close in that election. Sure, a party will occasionally lose a state it thought was safe, but that's better than burning money in a state that was definitely not going to flip.
My point is, they're only going to pay attention to Michigan and Wisconsin next cycle _because_ they flipped this cycle. A state inevitably loses the attention of candidates unless it flips frequently enough or looks winnable before an election. As for West Virginia, since it's become increasingly red over the past five cycles, it'll probably start being ignored by both campaigns too.
@@takatamiyagawa5688 > My point is, they're only going to pay attention to Michigan and Wisconsin next cycle because they flipped this cycle They won't pay attention if polling numbers are 55/45 or more either way. Only if they're less than about 52/48.
> ignore the safe 1/2 to 2/3 of the states It's a LOT more than just 2/3. Florida got more visits than the bottom 46 states, for instance! Only about 5 states got more than 3 visits, and Florida and Pennsylvania often got 3 visits a weekend.
That's not true either. Let's take example of CA. Everyone knows it will go blue, but what matters is by what margin. The more voters of either party come out and vote, the better the chances of winning congressional seat. GOP might lose CA by 15 points or 25 points. But if they focus on CA and their issues then they might only lose CA by 15 points and win more seats in house when compared to losing by 25 points. But yes, this doesn't work in states like Wyoming or Vermont where we only have 1 seat
***** Alright, I already displayed how ridiculously stupid you are in the other comment (please change your name). Firstly, you don't know me and if I *didn't (blindly) believe what she said*, I'M the sheep?! What is wrong with you? Seriously. You're absolutely ridiculous.
+Kenny Lam That video is a joke! Grey is basing his argument on the false assumptions that the US is or should be a so called 'fair democracy' and the equally false assumption that the President is a direct representative of the people. Grey then further lies and distorts facts like saying that small states somehow 'steal' electoral votes from large states while ignoring both the 10th and 14th Amendment. Grey needs to go back to school and take a 7th grade Civics and Government class because he knows nothing about how the federal character of the nation works nor does he understand how Presidential campaigns are ran.
Except it doesn't really work in this scenario. The electoral college is an institution surrounding the process of voting for president. Even if we made the presidential voting process a simple popular vote, it would still be the three branches making the decisions, not the public directly voting on them. The difference would be that the president we elect would simply be more likely to be the one whom most Americans voted for. If we got rid of the electoral college, the president would be more likely to represent a majority of Americans.
@@mitchellrovit2010 well a plurality of Americans, we should have a popular vote with a runoff for President like what a lot of European countries do imo.
Thank you PragerU. for help me undeslrtand how pretty much everything works, I am an inmigrant Naturalized American Citizen just on August of this year. I learn a lot from my citizenship test, now I want to keep learning from you. It help me to take an informed decision when I cast for first time my vote in this country. I applaud your effort. Extremely educational videos.
i agree as i believe the 2 earlier elections were tampered with, i believed that even before this was uncovered on camera recently and stopped.. still it takes vigilance.
no i don't believe i mentioned rebublicans nor do i blindy subscribe to any party. Evidence was presented that voter fraud has taken place and a foolish notion was pressed that you shouldn't have to show a picture ID to vote.. but you need one for everything else... that alone leaves no room for argument rationally.
I expect many college professors DO know about the Electoral college. They want it dumped in favor of "mob rule" Tyranny. This is the Marxist way. Heartland America will be made voiceless.
@John Locke The interests of the heartland states are already heard at the state level before the first votes are even cast. That is why many states are solidly in one column or the other.
+Martin Menendez I totally see where you are coming from. What you have to realize is that America is not actually a democracy, it is a democratic republic. That is a common misconception, so I understand why that might sound funny to you.
+Jace Holt And there is no democracy in a republic? I always find that an absurd argument. Oh and please give me an example of a major democracy which isn't a republic!? In the US (unlike Germany for example) you can change every part of the constitution with a 2/3 majority. So it is still the rule of the majority! (Just a bigger majority) And due to the electoral college, you can become president with 22% of the popular votes! Get a super majority in the senate (67 senators) with 34% (67*50.1%) and in the house (the number is between 22% % for a super majority I think but note sure). So in theory with 34% of the popular vote, you could change the constitution! So the electoral college actually provides a tool, for the rule of the minority over the majority.
I haven't said whether it is good or bad. You bring up some points that are definitely worth talking about. I agree with you there is absolutely a form of democracy in our republic. In fact its in the definition. however, you don't go to the voting booth every week and vote on 15 different laws. That is what an actual democracy is. A republic is where you vote in representatives to go vote on the laws for you. You do not have representatives in a true democracy, so it is impossible to give you a major democracy that is a republic because true democracies do not have reps.
+Jace Holt sorry but I have to say, that I might have projected something into your statement which you didn't say, but many using that argument do. Also I think you have a misconception about the meaning of republic and democracy. (At least in detail) I might be wrong there aswell, but as I remember: - a democracy is the rule of the majority (51% decide) A: In a "direct democracy" (like Switzerland is in many ways) the people vote directly on issues (like legalizing pot in Alaska) B: In a "representative democracy" ppl elect representatives who vote on issues (US congress) - a republic is mostly B, BUT has basic rules protecting the minority, with some document, like the US constitution, German basic law, or the magna carter. For example in a republic: Only a super majority (2/3) can change the US constitution. In Germany after WW2 they changed this, that some parts of the basic law (like human dignity,social state principle,...) can't be altered (not even with a 99% majority)
@@fredphlogiston4620 Only on paper. The scenario that is presented in that ridiculous video is nothing more than a cute little math exercise and it is intended to confuse and confound the uneducated and ignorant.
@@dsmith9964 The electoral college has many flaws. One of them is that the outcome of the popular vote can be different. Another is that a lot of people living in deep red or deep blue states find it obsolete to go to vote. The next is that the electoral college makes it easier for big money to concentrate mostly on battleground states. That you don't show any concern about that shows merely that you have closed your mind.
@@fredphlogiston4620 My mind is open to fact, not biased propaganda like CGP Grey. If you open up your mind and set your biases aside, you might learn something. First of all, the President IS NOT intended to represent the people directly. There is absolutely no Constitutional provision for popular election of Presidential electors. The Constitution is clear that the states elect the President, not the people. Some states are solid Republican or solid Democratic because the platforms of those parties appeal to a solid majority of the voters in those states. As the parties change and evolve, the loyalties of the states also change. States that voted Republican 20 or so years ago are now voting Democratic. States that voted Democratic 20 years ago now vote Republican. Got it now? Swing states are such because the loyalties to the major parties are evenly split. The average voter in the swing state is typically more politically moderate than the average voter in the solid Democratic leaning or Republican leaning states. Therefore, the swing voters in the swing states will actually listen to the candidates and party platforms and they make a more informed decision when they cast their ballots. Now answer this question. Would you want a President that was chosen by people that actually listened to the candidates up close and made an informed decision or would you rather have a President that was elected by whichever group of partisans shouts the loudest?
@@dsmith9964 Are people in swing states really better informed? Most people shut down by being bombarded by political adds at best. The worst are those who "get informed" through this. If the popular vote would determine who gets president the people where better informed by average. One thing you miss out is that the fact that swing states may change over time has no value for the actual election where candidates concentrate on the swing states of the actual election. What was intended in the constitution is not an argument to keep it that way until the end of times. The constitution is a secular document and not send by god. It is designed by itself to be changed. Which has been done only three years after it's ratification by ten amendments (bill of rights) The whole population is more moderate that most single states. With the popular vote you can see the whole country as one big swing state.
For you baseball fans. Let's say Team A & Team B make it to the World Series. Team A wins the 1st game. Team B wins the 2nd game with 39 runs! But team A wins the next 3 games. The "popular vote" concept with give the WS trophy to team B for having the most runs, even though they lost the most games! The Electoral College protects YOUR state's sovereignty! Trust me, you don't want to lose that.
The aggregate only comes into play if the two teams have each won a game or if they tied both games. Regardless, this would still be an argument "for" the electoral college
simgarfu How? If the rules going in are most goals across the matches, then those are the rules. The original argument makes no sense because it assumes that winning more games is a better indicator of the better team. However, it would completely change the way the games were played if total runs were the deciding factor. When a baseball team is losing by several runs in a game, they'll often just put their worst relievers on the mound to eat up innings, not caring if they give up a bunch more runs. However, if most runs was the deciding criteria in a series of games, they wouldn't do that.
Prototype Atheist greater emphasis is on away goals so that a team can't simply load up at the "home" game and call it a day. It was more that it helps the argument for the electoral college in that there are controls put in place to ensure that both games are important. Similar to how the electoral college (supposedly) keeps candidates focused on the nation as a whole and not just the most densely populated cities.
People fail to realize that the electors have the exact same weight as individual states have in Congress. The number of electors in each state matches the number of representatives each state has. Plus 3 from D.C. representing two Senators and one House member. So the popular vote from each state, as it applies to the presidency, is a better representation of the entire population of that state, not simply the voters who showed up. Trump won 60% of the states to Hillary's 40%. Hillary won 48% of the popular vote to Trump's 47%. So do we give the presidency to the majority of the states (which Trump won by a landslide) or the majority of the people (which Hillary narrowly won). The Electoral Congress takes both into consideration. If we consider the number of seats in Congress (435 in the House and 100 in the Senate) and consider that the popular vote represents the number of seats in the house and the state majority represents the number of Senators, we can see that the popular vote counts for only about 81% of the final results while state majority accounts for about 19%. If we use those numbers for our calculations, Hillary ends up with about 48% and Trump ends up with right at 52% of the electors. The system works.
Trump won the majority of states -- 3 out of 5. I never said he won the electoral vote by a landslide. But I absolutely agree about the winner-take-all situation. If we want to base the electoral process on the same wieghted system we do for Congress, then the winner of each state should get the two electors that correspond to the number of Senators each state has and the remaining electors should be distributed based on percentage won in that state (representing seats in the House). You still have the additional weight of a majority of states, plus the popular vote is more accurately represented. So for instance in Michigan, Trump should win two votes for taking the state (in the same way each state gets two Senators), but the other 14 should be split 50/50. Trump would net 9 to Hillary's 7. In California, Hillary would automatically take 2 for winning the state. The remaining 53 would be split among Hillary (33), Trump (17) and Johnson (1). So based on winning the majority of states, Trump would have 60 votes to Hillary's 42. The remaining 432 electors should be split accordingly based on popular vote in each state, not nationwide, so it represents the entire population like the House, not just those who voted that day.
Olaf Jernskjegg Altough splitting the vote based on how much of population voted for seems fair, it ultimately comes back to who has the majority of popular votes. Smaller states would have a smaller say. We could go back and look at which candidate won what state. Trump won the majority of states, but had less popular votes. That would mean that Hillary's states with bigger populations would ultimately steal the election from the others because they have a bigger population or more votes.
In this election, by aligning the votes with a winner take two system and distributing the remainder based on popular vote, Trump still wins with 263. Clinton is closer with 254 (as you would expect with a tight popular race). Third party candidates would win 21 Electoral votes.
Don't think of it as so much Majority as it would be "mob rule" which is what a "pure democracy" is. The U.S. is NOT that. We are a Federal Republic that borrows from Plato's idea of a democracy. James Madison knew this.
+Jerry Gomez If is popular vote it will get more people to vote.....people dont vote bcs they know that their state will mever turn blue or red.....like cali and texas.....
Thats stupid, They should at least vote for the legislative and judicial areas. Not everything is about the presidency. Those people are unfortunately ignorant.
They don't teach it anymore, not even in middle school civics classes. They certainly don't teach it in fourth grade. I have two children in elementary school and in elementary school, they teach the children about their state's history and a little about state government, but how much they teach or even if they teach it at all, varies greatly from school district to school district. That's one reason we have one of are children in a magnet school and another on the list for next year. They get a much better education and it's still public. Many of our regular public schools even the "good" ones are struggling due to Bush's, "no child left behind" program. It sounds great but it's produced three things that are not helping any child's education. First, many teachers must teach to the standard of the slowest learners, although they are getting away from that. Second, teachers must teach to the standardized tests, to the exclusion of almost everything else, because the percentage of students that do well on the tests determines the "grade" that school will get and that grade determines how much money that school receives, the A's of course getting the most money. Third, The F schools receive little to nothing when those schools need money the most.They're children are not doing well because they don't know have the facilities, computers etc. that they need to be taught more effectively and they attract the least effective or the newest teachers with the least experience so the F and D schools and students fall farther and farther behind, although they can opt to go to an A school, which often means busing small children large distances. I think, and it's just my opinion, if a school get's an F or D two years in a row, I think they should shut those schools down, therefore saving maintenance on failing schools, sell the land, therefore getting more money for the school district, sending the students and the best teachers to the A, B or C school closest to them. Most of our elementary A schools have up to 20 portable classrooms anyway. The money they would gain could go to expanding the schools who would be taking the children. It's just my opinion, but something needs to be done, because more children are being left behind, not less.
Quick note at 3:10. Those states highlighted account for 256 electoral votes. If a candidate wins one more state, say New Jersey, they just won the electoral college with only 11 states, regardless of how the rest of the country voted. If we used a national ranked voting system (you rank candidates based on preference and the election has instant run offs until a candidate has won 50% of the vote through coalitions) then a candidate could still campaign in these big states and be popular their, but unless they campaign in other parts of the country to build their coalition, a candidate focusing on some of those states and other more rural states will pick up the pieces in the run offs and ultimately win the election.
John Isaac Felipe In the future,51% of the people in all the smallest states might agree: enabling a candidate to win with just 21% of the vote. Check out CGP Grey's video on the Electoral College. Besides, if over 50% of the country agrees on someone... maybe that person should be President. Just food for thought.
mikewalker678 and what if those 50% was only at the east coast? would that be fair for the rest of the states? you could even go as far as to say that we can have a president that only has 1% of the total population's support. because in this country, we give people the liberty to not cast a vote if they don't want to. So that warrants the possibility of a president voted into office through 1% of the vote.
That's ironic because the wicked men who lusted for power are the very people who murdered others and stole land oh that's the so-called founders & nothing can be founded if people already occupy the land, history is an entire falsehood told by the Victor's of war all of these teachings should be thrown out of school they're full of shit and lies I'm talking history itself.
Elliot Ness they founded America not the land they founded the government also if you can’t defend your land you don’t deserve it, (although now we try to peacefully gain land note on the word try)
It is rigged. Regardless of which way you want to defend this system, the Republicans need much fewer votes to win the presidency than the Democrats. There needs to be some balance.
It's still rigged. A State could vote 49% Reps and 51% Dems and all of the votes from Reps are now nullified because Winner of the State takes all, that makes a huge difference.
People the only reason the US has two parties instead of many more like in Europe is because we have a winner take all system. In the US if you get 51% you win any less you get squat. But, in Europe if you get 49% you dont strait up lose but you get an equal representation of the population. That is why Europe can have many parties but in America having more than two may lead to chaos in the electorate
lieutenantbears The USA actually have more than two parties but they are systematically and criminally obstructed, mainly through vote fraud in the computerized voting systems, and the two big parties often act as one monolithic party, the Repubmocrats. That is also why you get presidents like G H W Bush, his son and The long-legged mack daddy.
Magnus Johansson Finally, someone who isn't swallowed into the false arguments of the left-right paradigm proliferated by the Republican-Democratic system.
lieutenantbears Are you sure there's only two Parties? I count seven at least. If you want to count ones that draw enough votes to actually matter, I suppose we could say three.
I am 75 years old in schools we all had a civics class. I don't believe it is taught anymore that is a mistake. Frank Capra movies put a civics class in some of his movies to help the uneducated learn how our government works. This is a terrific video.
I am now 40, I had to go to a "continuation" High school here in California because I was what most would consider a F up at that age (ditching school, not doing assignments and just generally hanging out with what my father called a ruff crowd) Government class that was mandatory at this High School for screw ups that taught me how our government works and how genius our founding fathers really were. Ironically at that 17 year old age I actually thought that Socialism was a good idea until my former punk rocker/Anarchist government teacher and I had a few talks, it was then ai realized that I was a pretty far right consevitive and how much of a hard core pro Constitution / Bill of Rights supporter I was. I will never forget my government teacher for opening my eyes and it is that man who decided to get educated on our government that as a teen he was so agianst that influenced me to make educated voting... In short I absolutely agree with you that a civics/government class or two should be taught in school, one semester specializing in our government and perhaps maybe another semester specializing in other government systems that are used currently around the world so you could really get an idea of how special our society really is. I find it odd to this day how this is not mandatory in our nation.
In their map at 3:10 where they say you can’t focus on the biggest states to win, if a candidate were to win every orange state they highlight, plus New Jersey (the next biggest state), they would win the election under the current electoral college system. So in their illustration of what can’t be allowed to happen, they showed something that already can. Furthermore, why is focusing on swing states any better than focusing on cities? Neither is enough to win the election on their own (top 15 cities account for 1/6 of the US population, and Any one party only wins around 60% of the urban vote). This video makes a total of zero good points.
It is not perfect but its better than popular vote. I do think each state should not have things rammed down their throat by large cities. Personally I don't like the popular vote because it hurts third parties even more. I have voted Third party the last 3 elections because I am not in a swing state, had it been popular vote I would be voting for someone whom my values do not align with. I also think Popular vote encourages fraud with regards to each states reporting.
VOGELTRON wow!!! Nothing hurts third parties and much as the electoral college. I am independent. The electoral college keeps it a two party system by giving all electoral votes to one candidate. Neglecting other parties.
Anthony Sanchez I think the biggest factor hurting third parties is hedge funds and superPACs. the two major candidates get all the funding and the third parties can barely get their names out. In this case Trump was largely self-funded but that's besides the point
The big cities make far from a majority of the country. 21% of the population live in big cities, and their suburbs are completely independent of that, as can be seen in the 2016 election.
The United States is a nation of laws, not men. My individual rights are protected by the Bill of Rights in the Constitution. It doesn't matter if the "majority" likes it or not. The Electoral College serves a similar function. It protects the States by giving them all an equal voice regardless of their size or population, so that a handful of States cannot lord over the rest. This protects and preserves our Federalist system. The Founding Fathers were well versed in history and knew that for the Republic to endure it needed to be carefully created with checks and balances to avoid the fate of others in the past.
"It protects the States by giving them all and equal voice regardless of their size or population" BS. If this is true, why does an individual Californian's vote equal 1/3 of a Wyomingite's vote? No other democracy uses this system, and look how they turn out. Not tyrannical, chaos states. They are as prosperous as the good ol' USA, without the terrible presidential voting system.
You are incorrectly conflating the individual right to vote with the Electoral College. It doesn't matter what your individual right to vote is worth compared to that of someone else in another State. Each State counts in citizen's vote separately and assigns its Electors according to their own results. Also, no other republic is as large as ours with so many different States. The USA isn't a democracy, and never was.
Peridolin I never said it wasn't a democracy. Technically, we are a republic, yes. But, our government is very much run democratically. I do think that we should change or abolish the college. bBecause as it stands, we're pretty much a democracy of a country already, since states cant leave the union.
the direct democracy argument is really bad. No country except for switzerland has anything close to direct democracy. I do think that making sure a president is supported throughout the country is important. But the electoral college is severely rigged and should be changed. It makes it possible for a minority to control the majority, which is just unexcusible. Why not just remove the winner takes all system? This would make all states equally important because then getting a large minority vote is actually more important than getting a small minority vote. Also, the electoral college destroys coalition building. It greatly incourages the two party system. Without the electoral college, parties like the greens and libertarians could get house seats. Which would make it possible that neither democrats or republicans have a majority. THIS encourages coalition building.
Ward Huyskes if you take away Los Angeles County alone Trump wins..If you take away NYC and Los Angeles County Trump wins by 3.5 million votes..Now why should 2 major cities who often have an elitist attitude towards other parts of the country be,able to dictate a whole country?
David Winkler why do you people label places as if they have political power? places do not have political power, people have. And there are a lot of people in NY and CA that are really underrepesented. Your argument is basically saying: why should wyoming, vermont, north dakota, south dakota, montana and alaska have so much power together?
The electoral college was created at a time where in most states women were not allowed to vote and in many places you had to be a white male who owned land to vote. The Founders were not worrying about the minority ruling the majority. Minorities ruling majorities were normal in politics. The Founders were _really_ concerned with a tyranny of the majority and the delegations of states with small population did not want the presidential election to be decided in the states with the largest population only. It's also important to understand that the delegations that decided on the electoral college were not representing the country as a whole but _their_ states especially. The delegation from Rhode Island did not want the state of Virginia to have too much power and the delegation from Georgia didn't want to yield their voice in decision making to Pennsylvania. Back then, Rhode Island and Georgia had very few voters and Virginia and Pennsylvania had the most. The reason we haven't done away with the electoral college is that we have the same problem the founders had. You suggest the winner-takes-all has to go but proportional representation has its problems too. In Spain they had an election in December of last year. The results were inconclusive and they still haven't been able to form a government.
Ward Huyskes switzerland doesn't even have direct democracy, it works under a republican system as well wherein repsentatives from the different cantons are voted i n to make legislation.
Your vote is worthless then. Especially if you live in a blue congressional district. Your representative represents you, whether you want them to or not.
Pure democracies aren't perfect, but getting rid of the Electoral College would not make it one. With the Electoral College, a candidate can win with only 22% of the popular vote. Candidates already don't care about small states. Plus, swing states are good, a whole state shouldn't be so gerrymandered that the vote will be the same every year. Also, if the tyranny of the majority is bad, the tyranny of the minority is worse.
UpperJeans Even if the popular vote was the law of the land, it's not a "pure democracy", because we still have a constitution limiting the power of the gonvernment elected. Calling the popular a "pure democracy" is misleading. It is simply another form of a democratically elected Republic.
great video,ive always understood we live in arepublic and had agood grasp on the electoral college but this was the best representation I've seen about the electoral college,and this should be taught at all schools instead of common core crap they teach or kids
jimmys511 a lot of these arguments are very debated among. And they honestly have quite a few holes. I’m not saying the position is wrong, it’s just got problems to deal with
Personally, I still think it's a travesty that Americans vote directly for their senators these days. Talk about a constitutional amendment that was enacted with good intentions but that had bad outcomes. The income tax and prohibition amendments beat it in that arena, but it's definitely up there.
antoyal notice how the income tax, federal reserve, and direct vote for senators all happened around the same time... a little too coincidental if you ask me
antoyal I was reading about a defence of the House of Lords in England in which a Lord was defending the Lords because they are not beholden to the mob/populace, and at the same time they are not overawed by the King. That it was important that there be a second house that was selected by a different method to that of the Commons. Leaving aside the rights and wrongs of the Lords as an elite in Britain, as a general theory a second chamber selected by different means has merit on its own. And I suddenly remembered the US Constitution, and I realised "Oh, my God. They started the American system with the same idea,, but then they just threw it away!" The feeling in 1913 seemed to be that State Legislatures were more likely to be corrupt and to entrench unchallengeable incumbents. But I think the main problem was that it was just assumed - and probably is to this day - that the senate ought to be popularly elected because democracy is the best possible system.
antoyal I'm not so sure the intentions were all that good. It could only have the effect of making people more disinterested in state and local politics and more interested in national politics, which foments a political culture in society of deference to the federal government.
@@вечная_мерзлота the founding fathers disagreed on many things before establishing the government model. today’s democratic and republican presidential candidates can’t have a debate without acting like children. so yeah, both parties are stupid.
Hmmm, just a question. This December election, after November, which you must have at least 275 electoral colleges, does it mean the election cycle is still going? I got confused and I apologize for such, just wanted to understand how all this works. Cheers!
I see. Oh well, hopefully Josef Stalin's quote about 'the ones deciding the votes is all that it takes' or something along these lines won't come into play.
"California voted safely republican in 1988," 1. 51% is not "safely" - that's the smallest majority one could possibly have. 40/50 states were red in 1988; you're not invalidating the concept of "swing states" by saying that california was red by a 1% majority twenty-eight years ago
Because in this system you don't need majority, only the largest number of votes, 51% is not really the smallest percentage of vote. Just as well 21% can be enough if there are 5 candidates.
Many people here are viewing the presidential election and EC in isolation of the rest of the US government. The American system of government is split into three main branches: The Executive, the Judicial, and the Legislative. The EC is used only in the election of the executive branch of government. The Legislative branch--the one that actually has the power of to make laws of the land--is split up in two houses: the House of Representatives and the Senate. Each state has representatives elected in proportion to its population, and each state has two senators. These elections are purely popular democratically elected. The system is a lot more complex and well-designed for many reasons. Presidents, after all, are not monarchs. They cannot decide the rules alone.
I think its actually just the top 11, which is even crazier. Basically the question regarding the EC is would you rather a minority of the people choose, or a minority of the states choose. So, do you think people are more important than states. If people matter more, then having a minority of the states decide the election doesnt matter. If states matter more, than having a minority of the people decide the election doesnt matter.
You will never get 100% of the vote in the top 12 with a popular vote system, but you sure can get 100% of the electors with only 51% of the vote in those states
Jack: what should we do for kyle’s birthday? Steve: làser tag. Mortimer: Jump him. Jack: Well since mortimer’s vote has 45% More worth than Steve’s, we will jump kyle.
I suggest all the states follow the example of Maine and Kansas, and award electoral votes by congressional district, with the two at large EV's going to the winner of the state wide popular vote.
@@yoloking777 It would be closer to that than with the winner take all stakes. The two at large EV's from each state can still be the final determiner, in a very close race. Also, infrequently a district can split the ticket, between a congressional race and the presidency.
It's 2019 and I'll be 21 soon. I haven't voted due to my misunderstanding of how voting works. This Video is one of the best explanations of how it works. Thank you.
I went to a left leaning public school and then a right leaning charter school, both around the 2016 election. My public school actually had an explanation more like this and the charter one had a more modern explanation (we watched Adam Ruins Everything)
This is only half the story. And is partially even debunked. With the electoral colledge you can even become president by only 22% of the popular vote. ua-cam.com/video/7wC42HgLA4k/v-deo.html
@@fredphlogiston4620 That 22% scenario is not realistic at all. Do you see it possible that the same candidate could win both solid red Wyoming AND win solid blue Vermont AND lose every single voter in California, New York, Texas, Florida and Illinois? Of course not! The whole 22% scenario is nothing more than a cute little math exercise that is intended to confuse and confound the uneducated and uninformed.
@@dsmith9964 well it's technically possible, but unlikely. It is a good way to show the faults of this system in their extreme. But seeing a president which wins the presidency with 10% difference. Hillary had 4.5% more votes than Trump. This is odd energy.
@@fredphlogiston4620 The so called 'national popular vote' totals are irrelevant. They are irrelevant because the President is not..I repeat IS NOT intended to be representative of or responsive to the people. The President IS representative of and responsive to our union of states and is therefore elected by the states. It does not matter if a candidate gets 40% 50% or 60% of the 'popular vote' as long as that support is broadly distributed nationwide. The electoral college encourages candidates to seek broad support instead of a few densely populated urban areas.
I've been a huge prager u fan for a while... when I opened this link we were supposed to watch for my AP gov class, I got super happy when I saw it was prager u! I'm glad my teacher is showing both sides
Just because the swing states are "constantly changing" doesn't mean that the election isn't about the given swing states in each election cycle! What she said about swing states does not make logical sense.
Lasse Intemann In Brazil, the president is defined just by the numbers of votes. Thats why we have Bolsonaro as a president, a president that never made in to a college
No they don’t all in Europe fall apart more times then you can ever imagine and us’ collapsed for only and only once. It works. Believe me it does. I know cause I’m from a 3rd Country and you don’t even have any ideas how things can go wrong with majority.
In Argentina we had an electoral college until 1998 when our constitution was reformed. Now the elections are always determined by what big cities and the province of Buenos Aires votes. Buenos Aires has 50% of the population of the country. The other 2.5 million km2 that make up the country doesn't matter to politicians
I don't know either, but my best guess is that the electors are selected by the legislatures of each state, just like how the representatives and senators are supposed to.
The state level Republican and Democrat parties choose a slate of electors, and whichever party gets the most votes in the election, gets to send their delegation to the electoral college.
I'm surprised of how much foundingfather dick Americans eat. Dude, they were some slaver guys over 200 years ago, do something with your current country
There is still one major problem with the Electoral College: if you get enough electors in one state, than all of the states electors have to vote that one way. This is how the Democrats keep winning most elections involving the College. Get a big city with the majority of population, and electors, to vote your way and rest of the state has to follow.
Jacob Sailer Indeed, for the time being. All it'd take to shake up the Democratic victories would be for California to fall into the hands of another party, perhaps the Republicans (not likely) or maybe the Libertarians (a little bit more likely, given how socially liberal California and Libertarians both are). It's not quite as restrictive as you might think. But, it's pretty bad when you get States with inordinate amounts like California and Texas, I grant. It may be better to split those States down into smaller districts for the Electoral College counts, if nothing else.
Another reason the president isn't chosen by a popular vote is because the federal government is supposed to mainly be a representation of the state governments, not the people. That's why we need to stop the popular election of senators.
Correct! The Office of the President is intended to be representative of our union of states. Therefore, the states elect the President, not the people. Likewise, the Senate is intended to represent the individual states interests, not the people. The voice of the people at the federal level is the House of Representatives. Full Stop.
then why have elections even in the House ? let them be elected by some other reason and not by people! its pointless anyways :P why have people vote if you want a system where president is elected by states ! stop it :D or change the whole union to be represented by ppl and not by state :) this half this half that is clearly not working :(
Actually it does work. The president is supposed to be a representative of the 50 sovereign states, or countries. The senate represents their states in the senate and the house represents the people within those states. The senate was created to be filled by the more affluent and educated in society. Its function is primarily functional, practical and again, representative of the states. The house is more about idealogy and is filled with more people who represent the average joe. The house is supposed to show the desires, feelings and thoughts of the people. These distinctions were put in place to prevent mob rule in a democracy. I polity recommend you read the book The Federalist Papers and in it you will find out that all of the Founding Fathers held democracy with contempt and regarded it as backwards and a system of despotism. Under a popular vote, as you advocate, the current swing states would definitely choose the elections due to their large populations and no other state would ever have the ability to decide the election as they have done numerous times in the past.
shtony2717 then a system based on representation of states, should have no voting of people in the first place at all! [Under a popular vote, as you advocate, the current swing states would definitely choose the elections due to their large populations] this is saying lets keep the majority unhappy -.- either make every state have just 1 electoral vote (and split it based on % of voted of dem repub and 3rd party) - the party that reaches 26 wins, or form coalition to reach that number or re-election! [to prevent mob rule in a democracy] looks like its gonna crash soon for a system you required in 18th century where the avg joe didnt know! today more than 50% are informed and make decisions and the rest make it on what is said in MSM, the more the majority is unhappy, the country will not go forward and get such nonsense to run for president! its like a club of elites who pick themselves - thats all it has transformed into! not like what it stood for :(
im still confused who are the electors of each states. are electors composed of common people elected by qualified and registered voters? or they are the senators and congressman?
Yogi the Bear Senators and representatives are elected by registered civilians to vote on behalf of the people of their specific state. I hope this answers your question (-:
@@rdetorres1607 no. The Presidential electors are elected by the people for the sole purpose of electing the President and Vice President. The electors ARE NOT the Senators and Representatives.
They did not follow the advice to have the constitution revisited and revised about every 19-20 years and they didn't want the 2 party system that we ended up with. They also built their idea of how our country should be run on the ideas of several different political philosophers. However, I wouldn't say they would totally agree with how we run things now.
Your vote only counts in your state. There is no national popular vote, And who ever wins the popular vote in that state gets all of that states electoral votes. Just like you cant vote on other states ballot issues, your vote doesn't count in other states.
This explanation of the Electorial College is a good description of the "theoritical" function of the College but with so much state controlled gerrymandering of electoral districts and "winner take all" states distorting that theoretical function, does it still actually function in the way intended by the founders ?
The reasons of slavery was a piece of the EC structure, not the reason for its creation. You guys really need to drop that strawman argument and move on. slavery was involved in many aspects of law and politics in the formation of the country.
I got a bachelors in political science and went to law school and became an attorney and I STILL cant understand the point of the electoral college because they have no repercussions for voting against their "popular vote" in their state. So in reality, it's not really speaking for the people
I think I like that chunky SilverTowne bar the best, but it would be really hard to pick. Amazing pickups from your friend in Georgia! Yes, as you can imagine, I'm doing my routine catch-up, but really enjoyed seeing all of those vintage pieces. Fantastic! I didn't think I was away that long, but you put out a bunch of new videos lately....whew! I have a few more to go. I hope all is well...keep stacking!
The US is not a democracy. The US is a Constitutional federal republic. Democracy is governed by majority rule. Our republic is governed by a Rule of Law.
+Silicon Cake Thank you! Those that bash and criticize the electoral college are likely to not understand how the federal character of the US works. They don't understand that popular election of the President could lead to demagoguery and extremism. A populist demagogue could easily play on the fears of the people to get elected.
You do know that I can theoretically get 22% of the popular vote and get elected as the president of the united states right? It isn't about big states or small states, the electoral college is a rigged system where electors get to decide the outcome of the elections. 22 states don't require electors to vote for what the state's voters demanded them to. And the combined electoral votes already has a huge impact of swaying elections. The government should be elected by the people in representation of the people. This is not a democracy, this is the basic of a DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC, a system where elected officials hold the highest office in the country. Not to mention the clear lack of representation system where it is literally winners take all in states, al gore won the popular vote and lost the election. And this has happened 4 times. 4 times had the representative of the people denied their right to rule because of a stupid electoral college. This is unacceptable for a republic, let alone a democracy. And to people who says that it defends against demagogues, no it doesn't. All it does is defend the interest of politicians who are in the electoral college. Not to mention STV and proportional systems are known to be less likely to elect a demagogue. Those who are defending the system are either a benefitter of it, don't know better or don't want to change it.
Wow, I'm an international student and everyone in my school (from teachers to students) told me the electoral college was a bad thing, without telling how the system works. This video really helped me open my eyes.
This video in my opinion is a bit misleading. I don't think the Electoral College is necessarily outdated. However, to take a look at a process that was created 200+ years ago seems reasonable to me. What I have a problem with is gerrymandering that takes place at the state level that directly impacts the Electoral College.
That's exactly what is happening, republican governors are getting rid of hundreds of thousands of ballots in majority democrat counties in states like Iowa and Georgia.
The system could be cheated ... However (and this is not unimportant) the cheating will likely do more to effect elections to the House of Representatives than for POTUS or even the Senate.
@@salamandersaladman8483 and Democrats are counting unverified ballots with no chain of custody, plus many people in Democrat areas are receiving mail in ballots for people who are either dead or don't live there any more.
What she doesn't say is when the founders were working on this it was a long fought fight. She also doesn't say the tbe electoral representative can vote any way he or she wants despite who the majority of the voters voted for in a state.
Except that it's a bad analogy. In that situation, there's no voting, it's a matter of physical dominance, which is not an election. A better comparison would be if you allowed an entire ecosystem of wolves and sheep to vote on what's for dinner, and the choice with the most votes is what everyone gets. Since there are usually giant flocks of sheep and only a few packs of wolves, the sheep would get to decide. But even this is irrelevant, because electing politicians directly does not give you an actual "pure democracy" - that would be if there were no elected officials at all, and we all just voted on laws and initiatives.
@Sam McIntyre I'm saying that if we're going to compare national election systems, a better analogy would be a whole ecosystem voting on what's for dinner. If we're assuming that the most votes wins, regardless of the predatory abilities of wolves, then wolves probably would lose every time. The sheep probably would lose too, actually. Everyone would live by the will of ants probably. But again, this entire discussion of pure democracy is a distraction because abolishing the electoral college would still give you elected representatives, not mob rule as this video would have you believe.
It's also a terrible metaphor, because no matter what happens, a compromise cannot be struck and the only hope for the sheep is violence or flight. That should never be a person's approach to a discussion
This video only gets half the story right. The Founders ACTUALLY created the Electoral College because not everyone in the Nation at that time was literate, nor were there many newspapers at the time. The only way you could truly be informed was by going to the major cities to watch debates or read the newspapers. They knew that and didn't want the uneducated masses to vote. This is what the video references as the study of history that the did, it was the study of 4th Century Greece and the readings of Plato's Republic that informed their opinions. The Greeks at the time had a very disparaging name for the uneducated masses and the Founders used it, the "Hoi Polloi", it literally means Mob or Rabble. The Founders did not want the same thing to happen in America, but the problem now is that we have TV, the Internet and so many other avenues for being informed and actually knowing anything about our politicians that we don't need the Electoral College anymore. Further, the way the Electoral College worked back then is different than how it works now. Back then it was only Electoral Members that voted for the President, they weren't beholden to their constituents at all, a candidate for president just had to get the College members behind them and they became president. Now there are all of these convoluted rules that govern how the Electoral College works that aren't even Laws. For example, after the Popular vote, each state then picks a number of people who worked for the party that won that state and they then become the Electoral College, then they vote. The assumption is that they will vote like their state did, but there is no Law that prevents them from subverting the whole process and just voting for a different candidate to begin with. You see how this system has numerous flaws in it already? On a second point, the claim that the Electoral College forces National Campaigning is simply not true. Most states are already firmly for one party or another, which makes them not worth visiting. Instead, campaigning is focused on what is called Swing/Battleground States, these are states that can go either way, Ohio is one such example. Usually, there are about 8 Battleground States during any given election, these States are the ones that Candidates spend most of their time campaigning in so they can use them to sway the vote in their favor. Realistically any given candidate only needs about 3-5 of these States in order to win the election. So, the claim that it promotes National Campaigning is simply false. The claim that Swing/Battleground States can't be predicted is laughable, all you have to do to figure out how one State will trend toward is its Districts and the House of Representatives. If a State voted for an overwhelming number of Democrats or Republicans, then it is safe to say it will vote that way in the Presidential election. Further, her claim that a Candidate will focus all of their attention on the biggest states doesn't make any sense either. If the election was based on a popular vote then you would never know how any vote could go, you would need to visit everywhere in order to get as many people as possible on your side. Going to the biggest cities doesn't make sense either since if you were to do the math you would find that the 100 biggest cities in America make up barely 1% of the ENTIRE population of the Country. A Candidate would have to go everywhere in order to have a hope of winning. The only thing I can see a Popular vote doing is switching Candidates attention to Battleground Districts instead. Their focus would have to be primarily on what districts can be swayed onto their side, rather than which 3-5 States need to be. That to me means they would have to go to FAR more areas of the countries and to a wider variety of States in order to get Elected. For my last point, her claim that the Electoral College prevents election rigging doesn't make sense either. It is predicated on the claim that Swing States are impossible to predict, but I presented a method for how that is not true. To make a second claim, history is a good measure as well, how a State voted in the last few elections and by what difference it voted for one candidate over another is a strong indicator to who it will vote for. Her mentioning that California voted Republican in 1988 is ridiculous, that is 30 years ago, things have changed dramatically since then. For a third point, polling data is also a method that ALL parties use to figure out which States to campaign in. This is the single best method, if done correctly, to figure out which States are Swing States and the best part is it can be done in real time. Further, it is even easier to do nowadays with the advancements it technology that we have. So yeah, every single claim made by this video just doesn't hold up and I would challenge anyone watching this video to do some REAL research into this matter so you can truly inform yourself as to the FACTS. The Electoral College was a system that made sense once, but it no longer makes sense.
I suspect the literacy rate was as high or higher than it is today. The country was overwhelmingly Christian at this time. People may not of had a formal education. But my informed guess is, well over 90% of people learned to read the Bible.
People, who want to get rid of the Electoral College, are also essentially stating that they do not value the U.S. Senate either and would just as easily seek to eliminate the U.S. Senate as well.
instead of get rid of it,I will fix it 100k< people:2 seat 100-500k people:3 seat 500k-2 million people:4 seat 2-5 million people:5 seat 5-10 million people:6 seat 10-20 million people:7 seat 20-50 milion people:8 seat 50-100 milion people:9 seat >100 milion people:10 seat
The founding fathers assumed that we WOULDN'T have a two party system. NOR did they think tickets were a good idea (a presidential and VP candidate running together). Whoever made this video should take another look at their federalist's papers before coming to this conclusion.
How can every voter be important when the members can choose to vote for whoever they want regardless what the people want? How are members chosen? Can they be bribed by a candidate or lobbyist? THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO KNOW!
Thank you for highlighting Oklahoma with the South! We are not Midwest 🙄 The electoral college should absolutely be taught appropriately in every school. Every person demanding that it be abolished is ignorant of the consequence of that decision.
The consequence being that the will of the people would be enacted? No, those of us in favor of abolishing the electoral college are very aware of that. That's why we want to abolish it.
@@kalync5948 who are you talking about? Anyone who knows me knows I am NOT a liberal. I am a citizen in a democray entitled to an opinion, and the freedom to express that opinion and to try to convince others that it is correct, though. Or am I confusing this country for Syria?
@@kalync5948 our republic IS a democracy. Indirect democracy, representative democracy is STILL a democracy. Do you have the right to vote? I do. Do your friends and neighbors have the right to vote? Are the people for whom you vote accountable to you? This is both a republic AND a democracy, and I cannot for the life of me understand why some Americans refuse to accept that fact.
"If winning were only about getting the most votes, a candidate might concentrate all of his efforts on the biggest cities or the biggest states. Why would that candidate care about what people in West Virginia, or Iowa, or Montana think?" If this is the rational for the EC, then under the EC, why would a candidate care about what people in California, Texas, or New York think? The EC doesn't erase a problem, it eliminates fairness and creates a new problem in forcing politicians to only focus on swing states.
@@kathleenmead769 I disagree. A "balanced" system would guarantee every citizen's vote count equally in an election. With the electoral college, the power of your vote changes depending on which state you live in. And if you're the minority in your state, your vote doesn't count at all because of the winner-take-all system.
Matthew actually it’s the opposite. If it were a completely equal vote, the presidential candidates would only have to campaign in states with the largest populations, specifically California and New York. Then whoever wins those states would win, and anyone living outside of those states wouldn’t have a voice. Instead, the electoral college makes it so that all votes count. Democracy is majority rules over minority. But a republic makes sure that everyone’s voice matters, including the minority. The electoral college makes it so that the candidates have to campaign in all the states to win the vote. Did you watch the video?
@@kathleenmead769 "The electoral college makes it so that the candidates have to campaign in all the states to win the vote" It does exactly the opposite. Candidates only have to focus on a few swing states to win elections. If, for example, polls indicate 75 percent of voters in a state support a candidate, that candidate has no reason to campaign in that state. California and New York make up less than 20 percent of the US population, and the biggest 8 -- California, Texas, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, and Georgia -- still only make up 47 percent. But that's assuming _everyone_ in those states votes for for the same candidate, something that has not and will probably never happen. With a national popular vote, candidates would need to appeal to a broad demographic based on political and social ideology rather than gerrymandering their way to presidency. "the electoral college makes it so that all votes count" It does exactly the opposite. Like I said before, if a candidate loses in a state, their votes from that state don't count, regardless of the margin they lost by. Let's play devil's advocate. Let's assume electing the president via a national popular vote _would_ cause candidates to only focus on the most populated states... What group should determine who becomes president, the majority or the minority? And, if you answered minority, who decides who counts as part of the minority?
Aight so states get a set number depending on their population, like Colorado gets 9. If Trump wins 4 and Biden wins 5, Biden wins and gets all 9 votes.
I live in a complete functioning democratic system in the Netherlands and I really can t understand why Americans can accept this out of date type of pseudodemocracy. In our system there are 15 partys. So there will never ever be a tyranny of the majority. The point of coalition building is hilarious, i don t know where to start the debunking. And the discouriging of voterfraud... this system was designed to rigg the will to the wishes of an elite. If prager university is representive for the level of education in the USA, then America is a laughingstock. What a ridiculous video. Take a look outside of the USA to see if i am wrong or right
The Electoral College is vital to preserving fairness in elections, but there's the 2 fatal flaws in our current system that's led to the toxic duopoly that's trampling on our rights today: 1. The voters are choosing multiple electors that vote for political parties rather than individual candidates. This is what almost single handedly led to the divisive and exclusionary political climate we have today. This makes elections unfair and biased because it encourages mob mentality when voting, instead of voting for each candidate's individual platform and values. Say for example the majority of a state likes a Republican candidate for president, but also likes a more central or democratic candidate for vice president. Today, if the Republican presidential candidate wins the popular vote, then the republican electors in that state will almost always vote a straight Republican ticket to serve the best interest of their party, rather than the best interest of their people. 2. Electors are legally permitted to vote against the popular vote in their state if they choose. Now this may not be the case in all states, but it's enough to make a huge difference. Allowing electors to vote against the popular vote in their state means they are being allowed to, again, serve in their parties' best political interest, rather than the citizen's they are claiming to serve. They are entirely voting against what the citizens want and not representing their interests they claim to serve. These two flaws have led us to a dangerous and destructive cycle of playing political football between two parties for DECADES, both of which have proven to have no respect for our natural or constitutional rights. They have also worked together to eliminate any opportunity for third party or independent candidates to be considered by the population. This is especially significant considering that today, statistics show that over A THIRD of US voters dont subscribe or align with either the Democrat OR Republican party. That means a whole third of the nation at the very least considers themselves politically independent from the two parties that have established the duopoly we have today, and their voices arent being heard because other options they might more closely align with are being silenced and suppressed, and voters dont consider voting for other options because they know that in this current system, they have almost no chance of winning. So how do we fix this? Simple: 1. Have electors be chosen at random from a group of able citizens from within the community, much like jury duty, rather than political parties. This ensures that the people's interests are truly being represented and that the electors are unbiased and neutral. 2. Make voting against the popular vote for ANY candidate for your district a federal crime. Eliminating the opportunity for elector bias and personal interest further ensure that the peoples voices are being heard, elections are fair, and that ALL political candidates, no matter if they're aligned with a party or not, have a fair opportunity to be considered for political office. Fixing these two things alone will not only exponentially improve things in the country, it will better persuade politicians to act in the interest of the people they serve rather than the interest of their party, and restore confidence of the American people that elections are more fair and restore hope that truly any citizen has an opportunity to hold political office, regardless of party affiliation.
The problem with the Electoral College lies in that each state has a minimum of three votes. And there's 538 votes. This means that states like Texes will have to give up some votes to smaller states. Making there votes wroth more. In other Nations they simply have 1 vote for X amount of people.
I'm old enough to remember when the Democrats would have taken to the streets for a second Civil War if we tried to replace the Electoral College with the popular vote, and they never stopped complaining about what they called the tyranny of the majority (bet they don't teach you that in school either, right?). But that's when the country as a whole was far more conservative and the schools were just getting started on their program of indoctrination, so we still learned history like this and leftist indoctrination had not yet brainwashed a generation or two. Need I remind you, Ronald Reagan, an arch conservative, was Governor of California and he won that state in two Presidential elections. Won NY too, definitely the second time, not sure about the first?, but the country was so conservative Reagan won 49 of 50 States for reelection, losing only Minnesota, his opponents State (Mondale), and even Minnesota he only lost by the slimmest of margins, that's how conservative America was following the disaster that was Jimmy Carter, and if you even mentioned the idea of exchanging the Electoral Collage for the Popular Vote there would have been riots in the streets, led by Democrats. So all this BS you are hearing from Democrats now, about switching to the Popular Vote, is only because NY and California, the most heavily populated states, have become deep blue.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
I'm afraid they are not teaching this in school any more!
Fred Munkachy ...your right but even more disturbing is what they do teach.
gary schultz mainly how every white man is a bad person
Fred Munkachy Because kids would pay attention
Fred Munkachy They should, but do they? Nope.
Skull Collector 47 I agree, it really is.
I was confused about this and on the surface, it seemed quite unfair. After watching this, It seems our founding fathers knew our country was diverse and did something a bit awkward, but purposeful to preserve the republic. This is DEFINITELY worth the 5 min.
indeed
Death to tyranny Oh shut the hell up. Seek help for your JDS, or not, but keep your cooties to yourself...
Yep and you remember Hillary's not giving a shit about half the country aka her "basket of deplorables"... that's exactly what the founding fathers did it for.
Doug Crowe, this video is just made of pointless assumptions: you cannot win presidency just campaigning in the South, in the Midwest or in big cities as their votes are far from being enough to win, if you check the effective demographical distribution it is clear.
Furthermore, why on earth should we avoid the tyranny of the majority by giving presidency to someone representing a minority?
Protecting minorities is extremely important, indeed, but it happens by making them relevant (this is why the US and most countries are representative democracies or require special procedures to modify the Constitution), not by making them a new majority, because it is a negation of democracy itself; it is treading over the rights of the majority by making them a minority.
It is right to avoid a tyranny of the majority, but a tyranny of the minority is to be avoided as well.
Think about what happened in 2000. Why should 40,978 Republican votes in West Virginia, or 7,221 in New Hampshire, or 573 in Florida count more than HALF A MILLION Democratic votes? Are these people's rights inferior to those who live in a swing state? Are their needs less important? Are they half-citizens?
de da This is not a popularity contest. Trump won *most* of the states, so he wins the presidency. If Hillary won most of the states your mouth would be shut oh so tight. Speaking of her, she knew "the rules" and agreed to play by them by running...that's why she's the ONLY one who wouldn't dare, even with her hutzpah, say one word on it suddenly being "unfair". We all know this representative majority/democracy sysyen will *never* go, but it's always nice to get a civics refresher...
I saw someone else comment this and it's the truth: If Hillary won the Electoral College but lost the popular vote, they would praise our Founding Fathers' system.
I however would not condemn the system no matter who won.
Four times in history the candidate with the popular vote lost the presidential election. And all four of those candidates were Democrats. Of course democrats are more against it, because it's always them getting the short end of the stick ;D
+Gearbot The Constitution has been a guidepost to us for 230 years. why do you condemn it?
Every election (except 2004 because Bush was the sitting president of 911) since 1992, the Democrat won the popular vote. I think that a Republican won't win the popular vote until California and/or New York flip back in about 20-25 years. Even then, Texas expected to turn blue by the 2028 election. We cant have one party rule the executive branch for decades.
And the moment a republican wins the popular vote but loses the electoral college, the entire republican party will rush to abolish the electoral college.
Funny you say that, as we have one party rule the supreme court, one party rule most state legislatures, one party rule congress...
Ask Socrates what he thought about a pure democracy!
I hope you realize that even if we got rid of the electoral college, we would still not be a pure democracy. A pure democracy is when every individual has a vote for every policy and law. If we did not have an electoral college, we would still have an indirect democracy or in our case, a constitutional republic. And yes, most educated people do realize that pure democracy is mob rule. No one is advocating for that.
Sanjana, do you know who Socrates was? Do you know what pure democracy did to him? His only crime was he didn't agree with the state! The founding fathers of my country were very learned that is why they demanded a constitution. @@sanjanamupparaju6637
@@terrencerogan7881 That's exactly what I'm saying. I'm not arguing for a pure democracy. A PURE DEMOCRACY IS NOT GOOD. I agree. I was just saying that that is completely irrelevant to the argument. Even if the electoral college was not a thing, we would still have a indirect democracy since WE ARE NOT DIRECTLY VOTING FOR LAWS AND BIILS- WE HAVE REPS. Therefore, the argument that a pure democracy is not beneficial has nothing to do with the electoral college. No one wants a pure democracy. No one is asking to get rid of represantives and senators.
@@sanjanamupparaju6637 True. I'd say that the electoral college would be better classified as an aristocratic process, in the Aristotelian sense. Namely, it's a hybrid process of democratic and oligarchic nature that results in something with several advantages over either of it's counterparts. These advantages are covered above. That's not to say that any of this changes that we are a democratic republic; as you said, we still elect the members of our legislature, the most powerful and essential part of our government, in a democratic way.
@@sanjanamupparaju6637 I think you started an argument against your own side lol
This skips over the winner-takes-all method, which is the most important aspect.
First of all it blocks any 3rd party from ever breaking through, so you're practically stuck with a two-party system.
More importantly, if in California the outcome is 65% democratic votes and 35% republican votes, then effectively ALL 55 electoral votes go democratic. For all intents and purposes this nullifies 35% of the votes, how can you call that 3:58 "every voter in every state is important"?
It doesn’t nullify their vote anymore than a vote on the losing side of a straight popular vote.
@@jonnyq2323 Here, Here JonnyQ.
@@jonnyq2323 It is actually fundamentally different. Because in a popular vote system at least the people on the losing side have a chance. And when you separate people based on where they live its pretty much the same thing as gerrymandering. Which I think everyone can agree is a terrible thing.
They also conveniently leave out the connections to slavery and I love the idea of the "tyranny of the majority" because the majority is being terrorized by a tyrannical 1% as a result
Jesse G It’s sooo tyrannical that 1% of the population pays 6x more than the bottom 50% in federal taxes while paying that bottom 50% through jobs 😭😭😭
It literally took this video for me to understand the electoral college cause they don’t teach this in school
How can they teach something they don't understand?
I remember going through this in highschool US Government and in US history class, did you drop out before either of these?
They need to bring these classes back.
Since when did they stop teaching US Government? I learned the basic in grade school and the specifics in US government in 1990, high school.
@@southerncross5360 , the problem is that the so-called "teachers" of our public school system are no longer educated in civics, themselves! How can you teach something that you don't even understand? Additionally, the Left has been infiltrating our educational system for DECADES. One of their pillars of success is to spread their message to school children. They have been sneaking in their agenda drip by drip. It's the old "art of boiling a frog."
Yup! The Liberals here in Canada figured out long ago that they only really have to worry about Quebec and Ontario to get a majority government. And right now the Liberal party is pushing through "electoral reform" and from all appearances they are pushing through a system that will favor them for a majority out come even more often because they now hold a majority government. they also refuse to hold a referendum despite roughly 75% of Canadians wanting one.
J. Dana Clark I hate the current liberal government you guys have, but too bad your next election isn't until 2019.
I love Canada dearly, but we really need to redo, and outright get rid of lots of things in the government.
J. Dana Clark Some liberals were even caught driving in a limo, which was paid for by taxpayer funds!
I know! But some of those same liberals who saw no problem with that demanded that a conservative MP be kicked out over a $16 glass of orange juice! And then there was Trudeau's in flight bar tab, and the professional photographers, and the moving bills, and the illegal expenses for a by-election, and the list goes on!
We can't afford these baffoons.
J. Dana Clark Exactly.
I learned this when I was a kid in the early 70's...I dont think its taught in school anymore and I heard a teacher a while back, explain the EC wrong, so its possible that they arent educated either
It's not, I'm 15 and I've never been tough this in school
Exactly. Wont dont more people know this?!!!
This isn't taught in school, because this is a mixture of truth an propganda. The main reasons why the founders chose an electoral college system was as a compromise with slave states (a popular vote would've favored the Northen states), and because they were concerned with the education level of the average voter. Many of the founders also wrote later that they felt the electoral college was one of the biggest flaws in the constitution. This video, being the product of a far right propaganda organization omits those facts, bc conservatives recognize that if it weren't for the electoral college, every president since George Bush I would've been a Democrat.
Also - the line about two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner was a socialist critique of capitalism, not democracy. Again, this is not a factual video, it is propaganda.
@@roberte.6892 nice copy paste, you aren't fooling anyone
It's to protect us from ourselves! Thank God for the founding fathers
the point is that the majority is not actually "ourselves".
its more like population reigns supreme if we didn't have the electoral college. so states with large pop counts would likely get their voices heard while leaving small ones like rhode island get left in the dust just for having less people.
This is a made up problem used to justify an obviously unfair system. The large states simply aren't large enough that politicians wouldn't need smaller states to vote for them too.
Karen, if you think the people need to be protected from themselves then why do you move to an authoritarian state?
@@thomaslalonde1532 the founder are smart yo which is why states will bigger population like califonia can't elected a winner presidency. The founder knew some states will have bigger population then the others
I find the whole thing rather complicated. But, now that I understand a little more why it's there, I'm glad it is. This is why Due Process is so important.
This is what every school district SHOULD teach their students. So when some liberal opens their mouth and say, "we should get rid of the electoral college" they should watch this video. This method works both ways not just when the republicans win.
I had to explain it to an 80 year old ex-hippie, lib today.
All that's okay but there's no law which ensures that the electoral voter votes for the party which his state voted for...
@Reuben Purcell you ask why? Because people are sheep. They either subscribe to CNN or Fox news and are never given the facts and allowed to decide for themselves. Instead you have both candidates spewing B.S. and campaigning on promises they never come thru with. Popular vote??? Are you kidding me? Democrats are turning city after city into a dumpster while republicans are entrenched in ideologies that are unsustainable. And what about our elected senate and house of representatives? They can't even get along unless someone is paying them for their vote. At least the electoral college remains constant to an extent. If you hate it that much move out of the U.S. to a better place. Let's see how that works out for you.
The electoral college is bad. My vote matters more in WY than in CA
@Reuben Purcell Huh? Where did you learn such nonsense?
I watched this for the 2016 elections and I’m here again for this years election. I’m sure I’ll be back again in 4 years. I’m a naturalized US citizen and this is always confusing but makes sense
Ah, I recommend watching several different videos on the topic. This video is a conservative viewpoint-based video and only gives one side. If you go the www.archives.gov, there might be a more nuetral explaination of the electoral college. Best of luck, friend.
@@abbyallin1809 this video was more than enough for me.
@@abbyallin1809 how does this only present one side of this topic?
@@abbyallin1809 This video wasn't too biased though. It's mostly just a Constitutional argument for the EC.
It made sense when it was initially used, but today, it is no longer needed. Additionally, to blame Gore's loss on WV instead of what happened in Florida is just factually inaccurate.
Notice the post date. Way before the 2016 election.
John Locke exactly right. Because the same thing happened in the 2000 election. George Bush lost the popular vote. The last time a Republican won the popular vote in a presidential election was 1988.
They know they can’t win without gerrymandering, voter suppression, & the electoral college. That’s why Prager U is SOoOo pro-electoral college.
@@MDNELLEY Republicans won the popular vote in 2004. Democrats also gerrymandered.
John Locke you didn’t pay attention to the video that’s in front of you.🤦🏻♀️
@@MDNELLEY Both sides gerrymander, it isn't just a R or D thing. Also, voter suppression? I'm assuming you are referring to requiring voter ID? If so, then R's are also anti-gun, since buying a gun requires ID.
@@MDNELLEY meh, bad point, george bush lost florida and lost both the electoral college, if you want to talk about 2000 you can blame the supreme court. (this is coming from a republican)
This is missing a few key points. Main one being that the electoral college doesn't have to vote consistent with its state's popular vote.
The Constitution doesn't require electors to vote for the candidate that won the popular vote within their respective states nor does it require states to hold popular elections for Presidential electors. Voting for Presidential electors is a privilege granted by the individual states, not a right.
States may require by law that Presidential electors vote for the candidate that won the popular vote within their state. However, since electors are community leaders and party regulars , they have little or no incentive to change their pledged vote much less vote for a candidate of another party. That likely explains why faithless electors are so rare and none have ever changed the expected outcome of an election.
Tom Cho...you don't change something just because you didn't get the Outcome that you wanted. I love how 'todays' generation think they are smarter than the Founding Fathers of this Country... If you can't figure out why it is setup the way it is , then I'm truly sorry cause you are a lost cause...
@@dsmith9964 how are these Presidential electors chosen by the parties?
@@evanc.2382 Presidential electors are chosen by their parties based on party loyalty and other factors.
3:06 the top 100 biggest cities only take up 13% of the US population
The problem with the electoral college is that unless you live in the swing states, your vote doesn't matter. Democrats in san antonio and Tucson and republicans in san diego are drowned out by the majority in their states. The winner take all system also drowns out 3rd parties and keeps the current 2 in power.
Defenders of the electoral college say that it gives small states more power but in reality, no presidential candidate has ever visited wyoming, vermont, or alaska. The only small states visited were maine and NH.
She *literally* just explained why this was not the case.
Didn't even muss your hair on the way over, huh?
araeshkigal yes, the swing states change (my state is expected to be a tossup this election while previously being slightly red leaning) but San Antonio and Austin are predominantly liberal cities whose votes don't matter because all of the votes go to the republican candidate. There are also 14 republican majority congressional districts but guess what, their votes don't matter because california is a safe democratic state.
Actually it's 19.48% and many metropolitan areas are not included in this number. For example the CITY of Los Angeles is only 3.7 million but metropolitan Los Angeles is nearly 14 million, nearly three times the amount. So that 19.48% is much closer to 40%-50%. Also those that live in large cities tend to be similar in ideals and thoughts they either have lots of money or are extremely poor and rely of government for much of their existence, they have small families and tend not to marry. Where as rural areas have more moderate incomes, larger families, get married and rely much less on government programs. There are two very different demographics. The electoral college makes its much harder for candidates to pander to one or the other.
Why are you against stable government, as well as stable elections, 💩head?!? 😠 If this system didn't exist, American elections would be highly chaotic! Stupid dummy! 😠
Half the population lives in 14 states, and if all those people vote the same way, then whatever happens in the other 36 states won't matter. To change the constitution, you must allow each US citizen to vote on it. Even if the Congressmen in those 36 states vote to make their citizen's votes meaningless, you're dreaming if you think that the citizens in the 36 states will knowingly vote to make their votes worthless.
I appreciate you breaking it down. I finally have a better understanding. The thing is, this need to be taught in school, right along with history. Thank you.
Sadly, schools are becoming left-wing indoctrination camps these days and will keep moaning that the electoral college is so "unfair and outdated." BUT when it benefits them, they'll whine that it's "old but necessary."
it was when i went and im only 36
Cheryl Simmons it is today
In my school, they teach us how it works, give us pros and cons, and then let us decide if we agree with the system or think we should try something new.
"Isn't the election only about the so-called swing states? No, because the swing states are constantly changing." That's a complete non-sequitur. Just because the swing states are 'constantly changing' still means that any given election is about the swing states of that particular election.
I think she meant to say that some states that are safely on one side of the political spectrum can become swing states or shift their political ideology. That's what I think she's trying to say.
Mr. Mxyzptlk it is still meaningless. Because swing states don't Change every cycle you can get an accurate idea of which states are safe by looking at the last cycle and polling the states in question. Besides the need to give some states more weight then others is mathematically inaccurate because the 90 largest cities in America, which are spread thoroughly across the nation, hold only 20 percent of the total population.
+Mr. Mxyzptlk Right. But what I'm saying is that that still isn't a good argument for the electoral college, or one that actually refutes the idea that elections are not about swing states. To say that something constantly changes doesn't mean that the phenomenon isn't significant. You could just as easily say about a sharpshooter with poor precision that the targets he hits are always off, so you never know where he's going to hit next. That still doesn't mean he doesn't have a precision problem.
Lol don't tell me tell her.
+Mr. Mxyzptlk Hahaha I will, I will. What's her email or phone number? I'll call her up and enlighten her. Probably tara.ross@gmail.com or electoralcollegealltheway@gmail.com
3:22: Even if which states are "swing" or "safe" is constantly changing, don't we have a fairly good idea about which ones could realistically be flipped in any given election? Therefore, candidates are wise to ignore the safe 1/2 to 2/3 of the states and focus on the ones which are close in that election. Sure, a party will occasionally lose a state it thought was safe, but that's better than burning money in a state that was definitely not going to flip.
My point is, they're only going to pay attention to Michigan and Wisconsin next cycle _because_ they flipped this cycle. A state inevitably loses the attention of candidates unless it flips frequently enough or looks winnable before an election. As for West Virginia, since it's become increasingly red over the past five cycles, it'll probably start being ignored by both campaigns too.
@@takatamiyagawa5688 > My point is, they're only going to pay attention to Michigan and Wisconsin next cycle because they flipped this cycle
They won't pay attention if polling numbers are 55/45 or more either way. Only if they're less than about 52/48.
> ignore the safe 1/2 to 2/3 of the states
It's a LOT more than just 2/3. Florida got more visits than the bottom 46 states, for instance! Only about 5 states got more than 3 visits, and Florida and Pennsylvania often got 3 visits a weekend.
That's not true either. Let's take example of CA. Everyone knows it will go blue, but what matters is by what margin. The more voters of either party come out and vote, the better the chances of winning congressional seat. GOP might lose CA by 15 points or 25 points. But if they focus on CA and their issues then they might only lose CA by 15 points and win more seats in house when compared to losing by 25 points. But yes, this doesn't work in states like Wyoming or Vermont where we only have 1 seat
Exactly and if your state was once solid blue but is now solid red (or vise versa), it still doesn't matter because it's not a swing state.
Wonderful, concise explanation. Thank you.
If you actually believed what they said, you're a sheep and you're a part of the problem.
***** Alright, I already displayed how ridiculously stupid you are in the other comment (please change your name). Firstly, you don't know me and if I *didn't (blindly) believe what she said*, I'M the sheep?! What is wrong with you? Seriously. You're absolutely ridiculous.
+Kenny Lam That video is a joke! Grey is basing his argument on the false assumptions that the US is or should be a so called 'fair democracy' and the equally false assumption that the President is a direct representative of the people. Grey then further lies and distorts facts like saying that small states somehow 'steal' electoral votes from large states while ignoring both the 10th and 14th Amendment. Grey needs to go back to school and take a 7th grade Civics and Government class because he knows nothing about how the federal character of the nation works nor does he understand how Presidential campaigns are ran.
Look at who founded and funded the University the video is linked to - it is a Conservative piece of propaganda
Got to love the example used. "Two wolves and a lamb voting on what's for dinner" 🤣
Yeah it's nonsense
Except it doesn't really work in this scenario. The electoral college is an institution surrounding the process of voting for president. Even if we made the presidential voting process a simple popular vote, it would still be the three branches making the decisions, not the public directly voting on them. The difference would be that the president we elect would simply be more likely to be the one whom most Americans voted for. If we got rid of the electoral college, the president would be more likely to represent a majority of Americans.
@@mitchellrovit2010 well a plurality of Americans, we should have a popular vote with a runoff for President like what a lot of European countries do imo.
@@mitchellrovit2010 you could easily rig popular vote, but not electoral college. I think its fair
Thank you PragerU. for help me undeslrtand how pretty much everything works, I am an inmigrant Naturalized American Citizen just on August of this year. I learn a lot from my citizenship test, now I want to keep learning from you. It help me to take an informed decision when I cast for first time my vote in this country. I applaud your effort. Extremely educational videos.
It's educational if you don't care about the bias.
watch the other side against the electoral college on cgp grey's channel.
He made a very argument against the electoral college
Lol, yes a channel that divides people simply into "left" and "right" is only propagating truth.
***** Anyone believes in "sides" doesn't understand the meaning of truth.
***** You will never see truth looking through the colored lenses of "left" and "right."
Ok, so i'm super thankful we have this, I understand it better now and it can save rural america as we have seen.
YEP
*****
no you miss them point
i agree as i believe the 2 earlier elections were tampered with, i believed that even before this was uncovered on camera recently and stopped.. still it takes vigilance.
Eric Smith so basically you believe elections are tampered with unless the republican candidate wins?
no i don't believe i mentioned rebublicans nor do i blindy subscribe to any party. Evidence was presented that voter fraud has taken place and a foolish notion was pressed that you shouldn't have to show a picture ID to vote.. but you need one for everything else... that alone leaves no room for argument rationally.
This was very informative. I always felt that the EC was better than a direct vote; now I have a better understanding as to why. Thank you.
James Collins
James Collins watch cgp grey UA-cam videos about the problem of electoral college and how you can win with only 22% of the popular vote
There is also a map of how few metropolitan counties you need to win the popular vote.
You mean dirt doesn't get a vote? That's riveting info, bro.
+Remi Mieses
In theory.
But a theoretical anecdote that hasn't ever happened in real life isn't really a good argument against the system.
The college professors need to be taught about the Electoral College and then teach it to the students.
I expect many college professors DO know about the Electoral college. They want it dumped in favor of "mob rule" Tyranny. This is the Marxist way. Heartland America will be made voiceless.
@@Cjmclaughlin1 Exactly.
@@Cjmclaughlin1 Marxism wouldn't have voting. It wouldn't even have politicians.
@John Locke Most of those swing states like Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa and Colorado ARE indeed in Americas heartland!
@John Locke The interests of the heartland states are already heard at the state level before the first votes are even cast. That is why many states are solidly in one column or the other.
"Pure democracies do not work"
Prager.
+Aguila701 But same time since when majority knew the best? After all, we all think that most people are idiots.
+Martin Menendez I totally see where you are coming from. What you have to realize is that America is not actually a democracy, it is a democratic republic. That is a common misconception, so I understand why that might sound funny to you.
+Jace Holt
And there is no democracy in a republic?
I always find that an absurd argument. Oh and please give me an example of a major democracy which isn't a republic!?
In the US (unlike Germany for example) you can change every part of the constitution with a 2/3 majority. So it is still the rule of the majority! (Just a bigger majority)
And due to the electoral college, you can become president with 22% of the popular votes! Get a super majority in the senate (67 senators) with 34% (67*50.1%) and in the house (the number is between 22% % for a super majority I think but note sure).
So in theory with 34% of the popular vote, you could change the constitution!
So the electoral college actually provides a tool, for the rule of the minority over the majority.
I haven't said whether it is good or bad. You bring up some points that are definitely worth talking about. I agree with you there is absolutely a form of democracy in our republic. In fact its in the definition. however, you don't go to the voting booth every week and vote on 15 different laws. That is what an actual democracy is. A republic is where you vote in representatives to go vote on the laws for you. You do not have representatives in a true democracy, so it is impossible to give you a major democracy that is a republic because true democracies do not have reps.
+Jace Holt
sorry but I have to say, that I might have projected something into your statement which you didn't say, but many using that argument do.
Also I think you have a misconception about the meaning of republic and democracy. (At least in detail)
I might be wrong there aswell, but as I remember:
- a democracy is the rule of the majority (51% decide)
A: In a "direct democracy" (like Switzerland is in many ways) the people vote directly on issues (like legalizing pot in Alaska)
B: In a "representative democracy" ppl elect representatives who vote on issues (US congress)
- a republic is mostly B, BUT has basic rules protecting the minority, with some document, like the US constitution, German basic law, or the magna carter.
For example in a republic:
Only a super majority (2/3) can change the US constitution.
In Germany after WW2 they changed this, that some parts of the basic law (like human dignity,social state principle,...) can't be altered (not even with a 99% majority)
"Bare majorities can easily tyrannize the minority." She has just described why Gerrymandering is bad.
With the electoral collegde you can even become president by only 22% of the popular vote.
ua-cam.com/video/7wC42HgLA4k/v-deo.html
@@fredphlogiston4620 Only on paper. The scenario that is presented in that ridiculous video is nothing more than a cute little math exercise and it is intended to confuse and confound the uneducated and ignorant.
@@dsmith9964 The electoral college has many flaws. One of them is that the outcome of the popular vote can be different. Another is that a lot of people living in deep red or deep blue states find it obsolete to go to vote. The next is that the electoral college makes it easier for big money to concentrate mostly on battleground states. That you don't show any concern about that shows merely that you have closed your mind.
@@fredphlogiston4620 My mind is open to fact, not biased propaganda like CGP Grey.
If you open up your mind and set your biases aside, you might learn something.
First of all, the President IS NOT intended to represent the people directly. There is absolutely no Constitutional provision for popular election of Presidential electors. The Constitution is clear that the states elect the President, not the people.
Some states are solid Republican or solid Democratic because the platforms of those parties appeal to a solid majority of the voters in those states. As the parties change and evolve, the loyalties of the states also change. States that voted Republican 20 or so years ago are now voting Democratic. States that voted Democratic 20 years ago now vote Republican. Got it now?
Swing states are such because the loyalties to the major parties are evenly split. The average voter in the swing state is typically more politically moderate than the average voter in the solid Democratic leaning or Republican leaning states. Therefore, the swing voters in the swing states will actually listen to the candidates and party platforms and they make a more informed decision when they cast their ballots.
Now answer this question. Would you want a President that was chosen by people that actually listened to the candidates up close and made an informed decision or would you rather have a President that was elected by whichever group of partisans shouts the loudest?
@@dsmith9964 Are people in swing states really better informed? Most people shut down by being bombarded by political adds at best. The worst are those who "get informed" through this. If the popular vote would determine who gets president the people where better informed by average.
One thing you miss out is that the fact that swing states may change over time has no value for the actual election where candidates concentrate on the swing states of the actual election.
What was intended in the constitution is not an argument to keep it that way until the end of times. The constitution is a secular document and not send by god. It is designed by itself to be changed. Which has been done only three years after it's ratification by ten amendments (bill of rights)
The whole population is more moderate that most single states. With the popular vote you can see the whole country as one big swing state.
For you baseball fans. Let's say Team A & Team B make it to the World Series. Team A wins the 1st game. Team B wins the 2nd game with 39 runs! But team A wins the next 3 games. The "popular vote" concept with give the WS trophy to team B for having the most runs, even though they lost the most games! The Electoral College protects YOUR state's sovereignty! Trust me, you don't want to lose that.
This is a terrible analogy. Also, there are soccer matches in Europe which count the total goals across 2 or 3 games to determine a winner...
It's across two games and they place greater emphasis on goals scored away. The soccer analogy actually gives more credence to the OP argument
The aggregate only comes into play if the two teams have each won a game or if they tied both games. Regardless, this would still be an argument "for" the electoral college
simgarfu How? If the rules going in are most goals across the matches, then those are the rules. The original argument makes no sense because it assumes that winning more games is a better indicator of the better team. However, it would completely change the way the games were played if total runs were the deciding factor. When a baseball team is losing by several runs in a game, they'll often just put their worst relievers on the mound to eat up innings, not caring if they give up a bunch more runs. However, if most runs was the deciding criteria in a series of games, they wouldn't do that.
Prototype Atheist greater emphasis is on away goals so that a team can't simply load up at the "home" game and call it a day. It was more that it helps the argument for the electoral college in that there are controls put in place to ensure that both games are important. Similar to how the electoral college (supposedly) keeps candidates focused on the nation as a whole and not just the most densely populated cities.
I don’t think southerners consider Maryland and Delaware the South.
@Crimson lol
Well, MD is definitely south of the Mason-Dixon line.
People fail to realize that the electors have the exact same weight as individual states have in Congress. The number of electors in each state matches the number of representatives each state has. Plus 3 from D.C. representing two Senators and one House member. So the popular vote from each state, as it applies to the presidency, is a better representation of the entire population of that state, not simply the voters who showed up. Trump won 60% of the states to Hillary's 40%. Hillary won 48% of the popular vote to Trump's 47%. So do we give the presidency to the majority of the states (which Trump won by a landslide) or the majority of the people (which Hillary narrowly won). The Electoral Congress takes both into consideration. If we consider the number of seats in Congress (435 in the House and 100 in the Senate) and consider that the popular vote represents the number of seats in the house and the state majority represents the number of Senators, we can see that the popular vote counts for only about 81% of the final results while state majority accounts for about 19%. If we use those numbers for our calculations, Hillary ends up with about 48% and Trump ends up with right at 52% of the electors. The system works.
good job nørskie.
Trump won the majority of states -- 3 out of 5. I never said he won the electoral vote by a landslide. But I absolutely agree about the winner-take-all situation. If we want to base the electoral process on the same wieghted system we do for Congress, then the winner of each state should get the two electors that correspond to the number of Senators each state has and the remaining electors should be distributed based on percentage won in that state (representing seats in the House). You still have the additional weight of a majority of states, plus the popular vote is more accurately represented. So for instance in Michigan, Trump should win two votes for taking the state (in the same way each state gets two Senators), but the other 14 should be split 50/50. Trump would net 9 to Hillary's 7. In California, Hillary would automatically take 2 for winning the state. The remaining 53 would be split among Hillary (33), Trump (17) and Johnson (1). So based on winning the majority of states, Trump would have 60 votes to Hillary's 42. The remaining 432 electors should be split accordingly based on popular vote in each state, not nationwide, so it represents the entire population like the House, not just those who voted that day.
Don't let the handle fool you.
Olaf Jernskjegg Altough splitting the vote based on how much of population voted for seems fair, it ultimately comes back to who has the majority of popular votes. Smaller states would have a smaller say. We could go back and look at which candidate won what state. Trump won the majority of states, but had less popular votes. That would mean that Hillary's states with bigger populations would ultimately steal the election from the others because they have a bigger population or more votes.
In this election, by aligning the votes with a winner take two system and distributing the remainder based on popular vote, Trump still wins with 263. Clinton is closer with 254 (as you would expect with a tight popular race). Third party candidates would win 21 Electoral votes.
This is the BEST Electoral Video Explanation out there. We do NEED this system. Majority Rule is a bad thing.
Don't think of it as so much Majority as it would be "mob rule" which is what a "pure democracy" is. The U.S. is NOT that. We are a Federal Republic that borrows from Plato's idea of a democracy. James Madison knew this.
That is exactly what I am saying. The Majority would be a MOB persay, running a Tyranny.
+Jerry Gomez If is popular vote it will get more people to vote.....people dont vote bcs they know that their state will mever turn blue or red.....like cali and texas.....
Watch the video
Thats stupid, They should at least vote for the legislative and judicial areas. Not everything is about the presidency. Those people are unfortunately ignorant.
its sad ive had ro share this freaking fourth grade civis lesson w so many "educated" people these last two days
They don't teach it anymore, not even in middle school civics classes. They certainly don't teach it in fourth grade. I have two children in elementary school and in elementary school, they teach the children about their state's history and a little about state government, but how much they teach or even if they teach it at all, varies greatly from school district to school district. That's one reason we have one of are children in a magnet school and another on the list for next year. They get a much better education and it's still public. Many of our regular public schools even the "good" ones are struggling due to Bush's, "no child left behind" program. It sounds great but it's produced three things that are not helping any child's education. First, many teachers must teach to the standard of the slowest learners, although they are getting away from that. Second, teachers must teach to the standardized tests, to the exclusion of almost everything else, because the percentage of students that do well on the tests determines the "grade" that school will get and that grade determines how much money that school receives, the A's of course getting the most money. Third, The F schools receive little to nothing when those schools need money the most.They're children are not doing well because they don't know have the facilities, computers etc. that they need to be taught more effectively and they attract the least effective or the newest teachers with the least experience so the F and D schools and students fall farther and farther behind, although they can opt to go to an A school, which often means busing small children large distances. I think, and it's just my opinion, if a school get's an F or D two years in a row, I think they should shut those schools down, therefore saving maintenance on failing schools, sell the land, therefore getting more money for the school district, sending the students and the best teachers to the A, B or C school closest to them. Most of our elementary A schools have up to 20 portable classrooms anyway. The money they would gain could go to expanding the schools who would be taking the children. It's just my opinion, but something needs to be done, because more children are being left behind, not less.
Kathleen Warner are you kidding me? no wonder this new generation has the mental capacity of tapioca pudding
+Kathleen Warner great comment.
WOW!!!! I'll never eat Tapioca pudding again without remembering this comment :(
what an ass.. seriously.?
Quick note at 3:10. Those states highlighted account for 256 electoral votes. If a candidate wins one more state, say New Jersey, they just won the electoral college with only 11 states, regardless of how the rest of the country voted. If we used a national ranked voting system (you rank candidates based on preference and the election has instant run offs until a candidate has won 50% of the vote through coalitions) then a candidate could still campaign in these big states and be popular their, but unless they campaign in other parts of the country to build their coalition, a candidate focusing on some of those states and other more rural states will pick up the pieces in the run offs and ultimately win the election.
"You can't win the Electoral vote with only the South or the Midwest."
You actually can't win the popular vote like that either.
"A candidate could focus only on the biggest states" while they highlight almost all eleven of the states you can win the electoral college by.
mikewalker678 welp, you can. if you focus only on the east and west coast
mikewalker678 well, we were working with hypothetheticals, and who knows, in the future they might agree.
John Isaac Felipe In the future,51% of the people in all the smallest states might agree: enabling a candidate to win with just 21% of the vote. Check out CGP Grey's video on the Electoral College.
Besides, if over 50% of the country agrees on someone... maybe that person should be President. Just food for thought.
mikewalker678 and what if those 50% was only at the east coast? would that be fair for the rest of the states?
you could even go as far as to say that we can have a president that only has 1% of the total population's support. because in this country, we give people the liberty to not cast a vote if they don't want to. So that warrants the possibility of a president voted into office through 1% of the vote.
I see a large number of people in the comments section who didn't even watch the video before commenting
Civics used to be taught in the USA. It disappeared about the same time common sense disappeared.
The founders were brilliant men! They knew the desperate and wicket hearts of man that lusts for power.
1. If that were the case then why is this method not used for mayors, governors etc.?
2. This is not about cricket either 💁♂️
That's ironic because the wicked men who lusted for power are the very people who murdered others and stole land oh that's the so-called founders & nothing can be founded if people already occupy the land, history is an entire falsehood told by the Victor's of war all of these teachings should be thrown out of school they're full of shit and lies I'm talking history itself.
BS they were snobs who thought dumb farmers didn't know what was best for them. The EC has corrupted our republic into two party rule.
Elliot Ness they founded America not the land they founded the government also if you can’t defend your land you don’t deserve it, (although now we try to peacefully gain land note on the word try)
Dag Koj people who voted for trump arnt stupid they where smart for not choosing Hillary
I used to think the electoral college was “rigged” simply because I didn’t understand it. You did a great job explaining it.
It is rigged. Regardless of which way you want to defend this system, the Republicans need much fewer votes to win the presidency than the Democrats. There needs to be some balance.
It's still rigged. A State could vote 49% Reps and 51% Dems and all of the votes from Reps are now nullified because Winner of the State takes all, that makes a huge difference.
Pierro Losapio - I agree. This too is unfair. There needs to be a balance - fair for both sides, to ensure that they campaign all over the country.
People the only reason the US has two parties instead of many more like in Europe is because we have a winner take all system. In the US if you get 51% you win any less you get squat. But, in Europe if you get 49% you dont strait up lose but you get an equal representation of the population. That is why Europe can have many parties but in America having more than two may lead to chaos in the electorate
lieutenantbears The USA actually have more than two parties but they are systematically and criminally obstructed, mainly through vote fraud in the computerized voting systems, and the two big parties often act as one monolithic party, the Repubmocrats. That is also why you get presidents like G H W Bush, his son and The long-legged mack daddy.
If that is true then why does Europe Have more that 2 parties? shouldn't it be similar?
lieutenantbears Btw are you talking about the european union or the majority of elections in european countries?
Magnus Johansson Finally, someone who isn't swallowed into the false arguments of the left-right paradigm proliferated by the Republican-Democratic system.
lieutenantbears Are you sure there's only two Parties? I count seven at least. If you want to count ones that draw enough votes to actually matter, I suppose we could say three.
I am 75 years old in schools we all had a civics class. I don't believe it is taught anymore that is a mistake. Frank Capra movies put a civics class in some of his movies to help the uneducated learn how our government works. This is a terrific video.
I am now 40, I had to go to a "continuation" High school here in California because I was what most would consider a F up at that age (ditching school, not doing assignments and just generally hanging out with what my father called a ruff crowd) Government class that was mandatory at this High School for screw ups that taught me how our government works and how genius our founding fathers really were. Ironically at that 17 year old age I actually thought that Socialism was a good idea until my former punk rocker/Anarchist government teacher and I had a few talks, it was then ai realized that I was a pretty far right consevitive and how much of a hard core pro Constitution / Bill of Rights supporter I was.
I will never forget my government teacher for opening my eyes and it is that man who decided to get educated on our government that as a teen he was so agianst that influenced me to make educated voting...
In short I absolutely agree with you that a civics/government class or two should be taught in school, one semester specializing in our government and perhaps maybe another semester specializing in other government systems that are used currently around the world so you could really get an idea of how special our society really is. I find it odd to this day how this is not mandatory in our nation.
It is still taught
In their map at 3:10 where they say you can’t focus on the biggest states to win, if a candidate were to win every orange state they highlight, plus New Jersey (the next biggest state), they would win the election under the current electoral college system. So in their illustration of what can’t be allowed to happen, they showed something that already can. Furthermore, why is focusing on swing states any better than focusing on cities? Neither is enough to win the election on their own (top 15 cities account for 1/6 of the US population, and Any one party only wins around 60% of the urban vote). This video makes a total of zero good points.
It is not perfect but its better than popular vote. I do think each state should not have things rammed down their throat by large cities. Personally I don't like the popular vote because it hurts third parties even more. I have voted Third party the last 3 elections because I am not in a swing state, had it been popular vote I would be voting for someone whom my values do not align with. I also think Popular vote encourages fraud with regards to each states reporting.
VOGELTRON wow!!! Nothing hurts third parties and much as the electoral college. I am independent. The electoral college keeps it a two party system by giving all electoral votes to one candidate. Neglecting other parties.
Anthony Sanchez I would disagree.
Anthony Sanchez I think the biggest factor hurting third parties is hedge funds and superPACs. the two major candidates get all the funding and the third parties can barely get their names out. In this case Trump was largely self-funded but that's besides the point
If you really want to help third parties push for ranked-choice voting.
The big cities make far from a majority of the country. 21% of the population live in big cities, and their suburbs are completely independent of that, as can be seen in the 2016 election.
The United States is a nation of laws, not men. My individual rights are protected by the Bill of Rights in the Constitution. It doesn't matter if the "majority" likes it or not.
The Electoral College serves a similar function. It protects the States by giving them all an equal voice regardless of their size or population, so that a handful of States cannot lord over the rest. This protects and preserves our Federalist system.
The Founding Fathers were well versed in history and knew that for the Republic to endure it needed to be carefully created with checks and balances to avoid the fate of others in the past.
Youre absolutely correct! ! Thank you for speaking the truth!!
Your post is the most sensible I've ever read.
"It protects the States by giving them all and equal voice regardless of their size or population"
BS. If this is true, why does an individual Californian's vote equal 1/3 of a Wyomingite's vote?
No other democracy uses this system, and look how they turn out. Not tyrannical, chaos states. They are as prosperous as the good ol' USA, without the terrible presidential voting system.
You are incorrectly conflating the individual right to vote with the Electoral College. It doesn't matter what your individual right to vote is worth compared to that of someone else in another State. Each State counts in citizen's vote separately and assigns its Electors according to their own results.
Also, no other republic is as large as ours with so many different States. The USA isn't a democracy, and never was.
Peridolin I never said it wasn't a democracy. Technically, we are a republic, yes. But, our government is very much run democratically. I do think that we should change or abolish the college. bBecause as it stands, we're pretty much a democracy of a country already, since states cant leave the union.
the direct democracy argument is really bad. No country except for switzerland has anything close to direct democracy. I do think that making sure a president is supported throughout the country is important. But the electoral college is severely rigged and should be changed. It makes it possible for a minority to control the majority, which is just unexcusible. Why not just remove the winner takes all system? This would make all states equally important because then getting a large minority vote is actually more important than getting a small minority vote.
Also, the electoral college destroys coalition building. It greatly incourages the two party system. Without the electoral college, parties like the greens and libertarians could get house seats. Which would make it possible that neither democrats or republicans have a majority. THIS encourages coalition building.
Ward Huyskes if you take away Los Angeles County alone Trump wins..If you take away NYC and Los Angeles County Trump wins by 3.5 million votes..Now why should 2 major cities who often have an elitist attitude towards other parts of the country be,able to dictate a whole country?
David Winkler why do you people label places as if they have political power? places do not have political power, people have. And there are a lot of people in NY and CA that are really underrepesented. Your argument is basically saying: why should wyoming, vermont, north dakota, south dakota, montana and alaska have so much power together?
The electoral college was created at a time where in most states women were not allowed to vote and in many places you had to be a white male who owned land to vote. The Founders were not worrying about the minority ruling the majority. Minorities ruling majorities were normal in politics.
The Founders were _really_ concerned with a tyranny of the majority and the delegations of states with small population did not want the presidential election to be decided in the states with the largest population only.
It's also important to understand that the delegations that decided on the electoral college were not representing the country as a whole but _their_ states especially. The delegation from Rhode Island did not want the state of Virginia to have too much power and the delegation from Georgia didn't want to yield their voice in decision making to Pennsylvania. Back then, Rhode Island and Georgia had very few voters and Virginia and Pennsylvania had the most.
The reason we haven't done away with the electoral college is that we have the same problem the founders had. You suggest the winner-takes-all has to go but proportional representation has its problems too. In Spain they had an election in December of last year. The results were inconclusive and they still haven't been able to form a government.
Ward Huyskes switzerland doesn't even have direct democracy, it works under a republican system as well wherein repsentatives from the different cantons are voted i n to make legislation.
John Isaac Felipe
I know. That's why I said: "...anything close to a direct democracy..."
I’m a little frustrated. I’m a “Deplorable” who lives in a blue state! 🙁
Your vote is worthless then. Especially if you live in a blue congressional district. Your representative represents you, whether you want them to or not.
@@calvinunroe2312 and that's why the electoral college sucks
Exactly.
SELL AND MOVE. MY WIFE AND I DID. BEST DECISION EVER!! 😃
Pure democracies aren't perfect, but getting rid of the Electoral College would not make it one. With the Electoral College, a candidate can win with only 22% of the popular vote. Candidates already don't care about small states. Plus, swing states are good, a whole state shouldn't be so gerrymandered that the vote will be the same every year. Also, if the tyranny of the majority is bad, the tyranny of the minority is worse.
UpperJeans Even if the popular vote was the law of the land, it's not a "pure democracy", because we still have a constitution limiting the power of the gonvernment elected. Calling the popular a "pure democracy" is misleading. It is simply another form of a democratically elected Republic.
Parroting CGPGrey propaganda without doing proper research looks pretty foolish.
great video,ive always understood we live in arepublic and had agood grasp on the electoral college but this was the best representation I've seen about the electoral college,and this should be taught at all schools instead of common core crap they teach or kids
jimmys511 a lot of these arguments are very debated among. And they honestly have quite a few holes. I’m not saying the position is wrong, it’s just got problems to deal with
This is propaganda
Thank you PragerU for making all these videos.
Medastep This is the dumbest video supporting the dumbest system.
+Yames Yamesbond. Please explain why you feel that way. Did your 7th grade Civics teacher flunk you for sleeping in class?
This is the best blog on the internet which explains the electoral college in it's simplest terms thank you
totally agree, gonna try and get everyone I know to watch this
Personally, I still think it's a travesty that Americans vote directly for their senators these days. Talk about a constitutional amendment that was enacted with good intentions but that had bad outcomes. The income tax and prohibition amendments beat it in that arena, but it's definitely up there.
antoyal notice how the income tax, federal reserve, and direct vote for senators all happened around the same time...
a little too coincidental if you ask me
antoyal This thought was foremost in my mind when watching this video, as well!
antoyal Yea we probably should go back to letting the state legislature's pick the senators. Divide power up as much as possible.
antoyal I was reading about a defence of the House of Lords in England in which a Lord was defending the Lords because they are not beholden to the mob/populace, and at the same time they are not overawed by the King. That it was important that there be a second house that was selected by a different method to that of the Commons. Leaving aside the rights and wrongs of the Lords as an elite in Britain, as a general theory a second chamber selected by different means has merit on its own. And I suddenly remembered the US Constitution, and I realised "Oh, my God. They started the American system with the same idea,, but then they just threw it away!" The feeling in 1913 seemed to be that State Legislatures were more likely to be corrupt and to entrench unchallengeable incumbents. But I think the main problem was that it was just assumed - and probably is to this day - that the senate ought to be popularly elected because democracy is the best possible system.
antoyal I'm not so sure the intentions were all that good. It could only have the effect of making people more disinterested in state and local politics and more interested in national politics, which foments a political culture in society of deference to the federal government.
that's because founders were smarter than today's Democratz.
now go figure.
they were also smarter than today’s republicans
@@danielcarvalho1453
you are still talking day and night.
being not smart is 1 thing
being dumb is another.
u choose.
@@danielcarvalho1453 They were smarter than all of us.
@@вечная_мерзлота the founding fathers disagreed on many things before establishing the government model. today’s democratic and republican presidential candidates can’t have a debate without acting like children. so yeah, both parties are stupid.
Well the democrats are smart enough to rig the election so they can't be that stupid
Hmmm, just a question. This December election, after November, which you must have at least 275 electoral colleges, does it mean the election cycle is still going?
I got confused and I apologize for such, just wanted to understand how all this works. Cheers!
I see. Oh well, hopefully Josef Stalin's quote about 'the ones deciding the votes is all that it takes' or something along these lines won't come into play.
I think the protesters would possibly disagree with you, because they have now decided to contribute. LOL
Patrick Gainher all you need is 270 not 275. Trump will roughly get around 305 votes
Oh, I see. Thanks!
Trump will have 306 to be exact!
At 3:40 you missed a perfect opportunity to rhyme "Florida" with "sorta"
That's not a rhyme
"California voted safely republican in 1988," 1. 51% is not "safely" - that's the smallest majority one could possibly have. 40/50 states were red in 1988; you're not invalidating the concept of "swing states" by saying that california was red by a 1% majority twenty-eight years ago
Because in this system you don't need majority, only the largest number of votes, 51% is not really the smallest percentage of vote. Just as well 21% can be enough if there are 5 candidates.
Many people here are viewing the presidential election and EC in isolation of the rest of the US government. The American system of government is split into three main branches: The Executive, the Judicial, and the Legislative. The EC is used only in the election of the executive branch of government. The Legislative branch--the one that actually has the power of to make laws of the land--is split up in two houses: the House of Representatives and the Senate. Each state has representatives elected in proportion to its population, and each state has two senators. These elections are purely popular democratically elected. The system is a lot more complex and well-designed for many reasons. Presidents, after all, are not monarchs. They cannot decide the rules alone.
3:10 in the current system you can win with the top 12.
What's easier: Getting 100% of the votes in 10 states or 50.01% of the votes in 12 states
I think its actually just the top 11, which is even crazier. Basically the question regarding the EC is would you rather a minority of the people choose, or a minority of the states choose. So, do you think people are more important than states. If people matter more, then having a minority of the states decide the election doesnt matter. If states matter more, than having a minority of the people decide the election doesnt matter.
You will never get 100% of the vote in the top 12 with a popular vote system, but you sure can get 100% of the electors with only 51% of the vote in those states
Jack: what should we do for kyle’s birthday?
Steve: làser tag.
Mortimer: Jump him.
Jack: Well since mortimer’s vote has 45% More worth than Steve’s, we will jump kyle.
what
@@Grodycell the EC is dumb and no arguments in this video actually stand up to the smallest amount of critique
@@Smalljose6912 like what? Follow your own advice
I suggest all the states follow the example of Maine and Kansas, and award electoral votes by congressional district, with the two at large EV's going to the winner of the state wide popular vote.
That would be Maine and Nebraska.
@@EthanEskenazi You're right. Thank you. I always get those two confused.
so pretty much just let the winner of the house take president too?
@@yoloking777 It would be closer to that than with the winner take all stakes. The two at large EV's from each state can still be the final determiner, in a very close race. Also, infrequently a district can split the ticket, between a congressional race and the presidency.
It's 2019 and I'll be 21 soon. I haven't voted due to my misunderstanding of how voting works. This Video is one of the best explanations of how it works. Thank you.
Bruh literally same. I've never been taught this and I'm teaching myself through YT
If you live in a state where you're in a political minority, feel free to vote for other offices, but your presidential vote is meaningless.
This is taught in school. My urban studies professor linked us to this video to watch.
I went to a left leaning public school and then a right leaning charter school, both around the 2016 election. My public school actually had an explanation more like this and the charter one had a more modern explanation (we watched Adam Ruins Everything)
this ain't an informative channel this is big oil and republican advertising
@@giannagerster4431 Adsm Ruins Everything is little more than mind warping propaganda.
@@hald-matalongos true
This Woman explained it very clearly and professionally..thank you !
This is only half the story. And is partially even debunked. With the electoral colledge you can even become president by only 22% of the popular vote.
ua-cam.com/video/7wC42HgLA4k/v-deo.html
@@fredphlogiston4620 That 22% scenario is not realistic at all. Do you see it possible that the same candidate could win both solid red Wyoming AND win solid blue Vermont AND lose every single voter in California, New York, Texas, Florida and Illinois? Of course not!
The whole 22% scenario is nothing more than a cute little math exercise that is intended to confuse and confound the uneducated and uninformed.
@@dsmith9964 well it's technically possible, but unlikely. It is a good way to show the faults of this system in their extreme. But seeing a president which wins the presidency with 10% difference. Hillary had 4.5% more votes than Trump. This is odd energy.
@@fredphlogiston4620 The so called 'national popular vote' totals are irrelevant. They are irrelevant because the President is not..I repeat IS NOT intended to be representative of or responsive to the people. The President IS representative of and responsive to our union of states and is therefore elected by the states.
It does not matter if a candidate gets 40% 50% or 60% of the 'popular vote' as long as that support is broadly distributed nationwide. The electoral college encourages candidates to seek broad support instead of a few densely populated urban areas.
@@dsmith9964 You wont go far with only the support of some "densely populated urban areas" in the united states. The video I linked is debunking that.
I've been a huge prager u fan for a while... when I opened this link we were supposed to watch for my AP gov class, I got super happy when I saw it was prager u! I'm glad my teacher is showing both sides
See? American teachers are not all communists corrupting our children. Yay! Good teachers!
Scott Brumley I would say most aren’t lol
Just because the swing states are "constantly changing" doesn't mean that the election isn't about the given swing states in each election cycle! What she said about swing states does not make logical sense.
N one of this makes logical sense, it's PragerU.
"pure democracys dont work"
america legit only country with a electoral college.
I guess the other democracys of the world just dont work my bad.
Lasse Intemann In Brazil, the president is defined just by the numbers of votes. Thats why we have Bolsonaro as a president, a president that never made in to a college
@@superlivelyrics2463 same here happend in Indonesia. the president just sold everything resource to other country.
No they don’t all in Europe fall apart more times then you can ever imagine and us’ collapsed for only and only once. It works. Believe me it does. I know cause I’m from a 3rd Country and you don’t even have any ideas how things can go wrong with majority.
In Argentina we had an electoral college until 1998 when our constitution was reformed. Now the elections are always determined by what big cities and the province of Buenos Aires votes. Buenos Aires has 50% of the population of the country. The other 2.5 million km2 that make up the country doesn't matter
to politicians
Gerónimo that’s not a good representation of what America is like though. The top 100 cities make up only 20% of the country’s population
This isn’t telling me how someone becomes part of the electoral college?? Or did I miss it?
Lol
@@charlest2858 lmao
I don't know either, but my best guess is that the electors are selected by the legislatures of each state, just like how the representatives and senators are supposed to.
The state level Republican and Democrat parties choose a slate of electors, and whichever party gets the most votes in the election, gets to send their delegation to the electoral college.
goes to show the founding fathers thought of everything.
They predicted California.
I'm surprised of how much foundingfather dick Americans eat. Dude, they were some slaver guys over 200 years ago, do something with your current country
E S hate on America all you want you’re using the internet complaining about America when we created the internet 😂😂
They left the slavery question
There is still one major problem with the Electoral College: if you get enough electors in one state, than all of the states electors have to vote that one way. This is how the Democrats keep winning most elections involving the College. Get a big city with the majority of population, and electors, to vote your way and rest of the state has to follow.
Jacob Sailer Indeed, for the time being. All it'd take to shake up the Democratic victories would be for California to fall into the hands of another party, perhaps the Republicans (not likely) or maybe the Libertarians (a little bit more likely, given how socially liberal California and Libertarians both are). It's not quite as restrictive as you might think. But, it's pretty bad when you get States with inordinate amounts like California and Texas, I grant. It may be better to split those States down into smaller districts for the Electoral College counts, if nothing else.
Well here's what I'm thinking. If one votes Republican, then let them vote Republican. If one votes Democrat, then let them vote Democrat.
Jacob Sailer As it is essentially done, yeah. xD One votes for who they wish to vote for. There isn't exactly guns on you in the voting booths yet.
Yet.
Jacob Sailer Yes, that word was indeed intentional. = P That's why we need to be really careful who we vote for while we still do have the choice.
Another reason the president isn't chosen by a popular vote is because the federal government is supposed to mainly be a representation of the state governments, not the people. That's why we need to stop the popular election of senators.
Correct! The Office of the President is intended to be representative of our union of states. Therefore, the states elect the President, not the people. Likewise, the Senate is intended to represent the individual states interests, not the people. The voice of the people at the federal level is the House of Representatives. Full Stop.
then why have elections even in the House ?
let them be elected by some other reason and not by people! its pointless anyways :P
why have people vote if you want a system where president is elected by states ! stop it :D
or change the whole union to be represented by ppl and not by state :)
this half this half that is clearly not working :(
Actually it does work. The president is supposed to be a representative of the 50 sovereign states, or countries. The senate represents their states in the senate and the house represents the people within those states. The senate was created to be filled by the more affluent and educated in society. Its function is primarily functional, practical and again, representative of the states. The house is more about idealogy and is filled with more people who represent the average joe. The house is supposed to show the desires, feelings and thoughts of the people. These distinctions were put in place to prevent mob rule in a democracy. I polity recommend you read the book The Federalist Papers and in it you will find out that all of the Founding Fathers held democracy with contempt and regarded it as backwards and a system of despotism. Under a popular vote, as you advocate, the current swing states would definitely choose the elections due to their large populations and no other state would ever have the ability to decide the election as they have done numerous times in the past.
shtony2717
then a system based on representation of states, should have no voting of people in the first place at all!
[Under a popular vote, as you advocate, the current swing states would definitely choose the elections due to their large populations]
this is saying lets keep the majority unhappy -.-
either make every state have just 1 electoral vote (and split it based on % of voted of dem repub and 3rd party) - the party that reaches 26 wins, or form coalition to reach that number or re-election!
[to prevent mob rule in a democracy] looks like its gonna crash soon for a system you required in 18th century where the avg joe didnt know!
today more than 50% are informed and make decisions and the rest make it on what is said in MSM, the more the majority is unhappy, the country will not go forward and get such nonsense to run for president!
its like a club of elites who pick themselves - thats all it has transformed into! not like what it stood for :(
im still confused who are the electors of each states. are electors composed of common people elected by qualified and registered voters? or they are the senators and congressman?
Yogi the Bear Senators and representatives are elected by registered civilians to vote on behalf of the people of their specific state. I hope this answers your question (-:
@@pariswerly3778 so electors are the senators and representatives. thanks for your response.
@@rdetorres1607 no. The Presidential electors are elected by the people for the sole purpose of electing the President and Vice President. The electors ARE NOT the Senators and Representatives.
I noticed Republicans and conservatives in general *really* started liking the electoral college around 2000.
Can't for the life of me figure out why.
Blarghalt Probably the same reason the Democrats never had a problem with the electoral college before 2000.
+RetroRobotRadio Great retort xD
Our founders were geniuses
The Founding Fathers were Inspired, in the truest sense of the word.
nospam 1950 absolutely
They did not follow the advice to have the constitution revisited and revised about every 19-20 years and they didn't want the 2 party system that we ended up with. They also built their idea of how our country should be run on the ideas of several different political philosophers. However, I wouldn't say they would totally agree with how we run things now.
The electoral college sucks and it needs to be disposed of
@@squid.com8927 Why would you post such a silly comment?
Your vote only counts in your state. There is no national popular vote, And who ever wins the popular vote in that state gets all of that states electoral votes. Just like you cant vote on other states ballot issues, your vote doesn't count in other states.
TrueReality
for state offices, that makes good sense. our sole national representative deserves a true national vote.
This explanation of the Electorial College is a good description of the "theoritical" function of the College but with so much state controlled gerrymandering of electoral districts and "winner take all" states distorting that theoretical function, does it still actually function in the way intended by the founders ?
I'm glad this is making the rounds on Facebook. I'm shcked how ignorant peope are and this video will hopefully educate them.
The electoral college system was actually created by the framers of our constitution, back in 1787 :)
You need to re watch about 10 times. Open your mind and let it sink in.
The reasons of slavery was a piece of the EC structure, not the reason for its creation. You guys really need to drop that strawman argument and move on. slavery was involved in many aspects of law and politics in the formation of the country.
I gotta say I'm shocked my college directed me to this video. I am 1% less cynical today.
I got a bachelors in political science and went to law school and became an attorney and I STILL cant understand the point of the electoral college because they have no repercussions for voting against their "popular vote" in their state. So in reality, it's not really speaking for the people
Eboni Love not anymore
@@sgd8376 lol ikr! This comment didnt age well
I think I like that chunky SilverTowne bar the best, but it would be really hard to pick. Amazing pickups from your friend in Georgia! Yes, as you can imagine, I'm doing my routine catch-up, but really enjoyed seeing all of those vintage pieces. Fantastic! I didn't think I was away that long, but you put out a bunch of new videos lately....whew! I have a few more to go. I hope all is well...keep stacking!
wtf i love the electoral college now
Silicon Cake ikr
The US is not a democracy. The US is a Constitutional federal republic. Democracy is governed by majority rule. Our republic is governed by a Rule of Law.
D Smith
Amen
LONG LIVE THE REPUBLIC!
+Silicon Cake Thank you! Those that bash and criticize the electoral college are likely to not understand how the federal character of the US works. They don't understand that popular election of the President could lead to demagoguery and extremism. A populist demagogue could easily play on the fears of the people to get elected.
You do know that I can theoretically get 22% of the popular vote and get elected as the president of the united states right? It isn't about big states or small states, the electoral college is a rigged system where electors get to decide the outcome of the elections. 22 states don't require electors to vote for what the state's voters demanded them to. And the combined electoral votes already has a huge impact of swaying elections. The government should be elected by the people in representation of the people. This is not a democracy, this is the basic of a DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC, a system where elected officials hold the highest office in the country. Not to mention the clear lack of representation system where it is literally winners take all in states, al gore won the popular vote and lost the election. And this has happened 4 times. 4 times had the representative of the people denied their right to rule because of a stupid electoral college. This is unacceptable for a republic, let alone a democracy.
And to people who says that it defends against demagogues, no it doesn't. All it does is defend the interest of politicians who are in the electoral college. Not to mention STV and proportional systems are known to be less likely to elect a demagogue. Those who are defending the system are either a benefitter of it, don't know better or don't want to change it.
Wow, I'm an international student and everyone in my school (from teachers to students) told me the electoral college was a bad thing, without telling how the system works. This video really helped me open my eyes.
This video in my opinion is a bit misleading. I don't think the Electoral College is necessarily outdated. However, to take a look at a process that was created 200+ years ago seems reasonable to me. What I have a problem with is gerrymandering that takes place at the state level that directly impacts the Electoral College.
How does this apply to the mail in ballot fraud that may happen this year? Can the system be cheated even with electoral college?
That's exactly what is happening, republican governors are getting rid of hundreds of thousands of ballots in majority democrat counties in states like Iowa and Georgia.
The system could be cheated ... However (and this is not unimportant) the cheating will likely do more to effect elections to the House of Representatives than for POTUS or even the Senate.
@@salamandersaladman8483 and Democrats are counting unverified ballots with no chain of custody, plus many people in Democrat areas are receiving mail in ballots for people who are either dead or don't live there any more.
We now know the answer! No. None of the cases found enough evidence to support any of the claims of voter fraud.
What she doesn't say is when the founders were working on this it was a long fought fight. She also doesn't say the tbe electoral representative can vote any way he or she wants despite who the majority of the voters voted for in a state.
And that's exactly why the electoral college is indeed anti democratic!
I love the two wolves and the lamb metaphor.
Except that it's a bad analogy. In that situation, there's no voting, it's a matter of physical dominance, which is not an election. A better comparison would be if you allowed an entire ecosystem of wolves and sheep to vote on what's for dinner, and the choice with the most votes is what everyone gets. Since there are usually giant flocks of sheep and only a few packs of wolves, the sheep would get to decide. But even this is irrelevant, because electing politicians directly does not give you an actual "pure democracy" - that would be if there were no elected officials at all, and we all just voted on laws and initiatives.
@Sam McIntyre I'm saying that if we're going to compare national election systems, a better analogy would be a whole ecosystem voting on what's for dinner. If we're assuming that the most votes wins, regardless of the predatory abilities of wolves, then wolves probably would lose every time. The sheep probably would lose too, actually. Everyone would live by the will of ants probably. But again, this entire discussion of pure democracy is a distraction because abolishing the electoral college would still give you elected representatives, not mob rule as this video would have you believe.
It's also a terrible metaphor, because no matter what happens, a compromise cannot be struck and the only hope for the sheep is violence or flight. That should never be a person's approach to a discussion
This video only gets half the story right. The Founders ACTUALLY created the Electoral College because not everyone in the Nation at that time was literate, nor were there many newspapers at the time. The only way you could truly be informed was by going to the major cities to watch debates or read the newspapers. They knew that and didn't want the uneducated masses to vote. This is what the video references as the study of history that the did, it was the study of 4th Century Greece and the readings of Plato's Republic that informed their opinions. The Greeks at the time had a very disparaging name for the uneducated masses and the Founders used it, the "Hoi Polloi", it literally means Mob or Rabble.
The Founders did not want the same thing to happen in America, but the problem now is that we have TV, the Internet and so many other avenues for being informed and actually knowing anything about our politicians that we don't need the Electoral College anymore.
Further, the way the Electoral College worked back then is different than how it works now. Back then it was only Electoral Members that voted for the President, they weren't beholden to their constituents at all, a candidate for president just had to get the College members behind them and they became president. Now there are all of these convoluted rules that govern how the Electoral College works that aren't even Laws. For example, after the Popular vote, each state then picks a number of people who worked for the party that won that state and they then become the Electoral College, then they vote. The assumption is that they will vote like their state did, but there is no Law that prevents them from subverting the whole process and just voting for a different candidate to begin with. You see how this system has numerous flaws in it already?
On a second point, the claim that the Electoral College forces National Campaigning is simply not true. Most states are already firmly for one party or another, which makes them not worth visiting. Instead, campaigning is focused on what is called Swing/Battleground States, these are states that can go either way, Ohio is one such example. Usually, there are about 8 Battleground States during any given election, these States are the ones that Candidates spend most of their time campaigning in so they can use them to sway the vote in their favor. Realistically any given candidate only needs about 3-5 of these States in order to win the election. So, the claim that it promotes National Campaigning is simply false. The claim that Swing/Battleground States can't be predicted is laughable, all you have to do to figure out how one State will trend toward is its Districts and the House of Representatives. If a State voted for an overwhelming number of Democrats or Republicans, then it is safe to say it will vote that way in the Presidential election.
Further, her claim that a Candidate will focus all of their attention on the biggest states doesn't make any sense either. If the election was based on a popular vote then you would never know how any vote could go, you would need to visit everywhere in order to get as many people as possible on your side. Going to the biggest cities doesn't make sense either since if you were to do the math you would find that the 100 biggest cities in America make up barely 1% of the ENTIRE population of the Country.
A Candidate would have to go everywhere in order to have a hope of winning. The only thing I can see a Popular vote doing is switching Candidates attention to Battleground Districts instead. Their focus would have to be primarily on what districts can be swayed onto their side, rather than which 3-5 States need to be. That to me means they would have to go to FAR more areas of the countries and to a wider variety of States in order to get Elected.
For my last point, her claim that the Electoral College prevents election rigging doesn't make sense either. It is predicated on the claim that Swing States are impossible to predict, but I presented a method for how that is not true. To make a second claim, history is a good measure as well, how a State voted in the last few elections and by what difference it voted for one candidate over another is a strong indicator to who it will vote for. Her mentioning that California voted Republican in 1988 is ridiculous, that is 30 years ago, things have changed dramatically since then. For a third point, polling data is also a method that ALL parties use to figure out which States to campaign in. This is the single best method, if done correctly, to figure out which States are Swing States and the best part is it can be done in real time. Further, it is even easier to do nowadays with the advancements it technology that we have.
So yeah, every single claim made by this video just doesn't hold up and I would challenge anyone watching this video to do some REAL research into this matter so you can truly inform yourself as to the FACTS.
The Electoral College was a system that made sense once, but it no longer makes sense.
I suspect the literacy rate was as high or higher than it is today. The country was overwhelmingly Christian at this time. People may not of had a formal education. But my informed guess is, well over 90% of people learned to read the Bible.
Great comment here, thanks
I was actually just thinking about how I didn't understand the electoral college, last night. Thanks for explaining!
I think this is the best, most impactful Prager U video!
well, i just learned something new. i had no idea of this. these videos are really good.
they're funded by billionaires
People, who want to get rid of the Electoral College, are also essentially stating that they do not value the U.S. Senate either and would just as easily seek to eliminate the U.S. Senate as well.
Stanton But many Senators want to get rid of it
@@ykalondra Senators don't want anything. They just say shit that they think will make them popular among their constituents.
instead of get rid of it,I will fix it
100k< people:2 seat
100-500k people:3 seat
500k-2 million people:4 seat
2-5 million people:5 seat
5-10 million people:6 seat
10-20 million people:7 seat
20-50 milion people:8 seat
50-100 milion people:9 seat
>100 milion people:10 seat
eliminate the senate unironically or make it representative.
The founding fathers assumed that we WOULDN'T have a two party system. NOR did they think tickets were a good idea (a presidential and VP candidate running together). Whoever made this video should take another look at their federalist's papers before coming to this conclusion.
Excellent. Thank you!
How can every voter be important when the members can choose to vote for whoever they want regardless what the people want?
How are members chosen?
Can they be bribed by a candidate or lobbyist?
THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO KNOW!
pls someone make a vid about your questions!
Thank you for highlighting Oklahoma with the South! We are not Midwest 🙄 The electoral college should absolutely be taught appropriately in every school. Every person demanding that it be abolished is ignorant of the consequence of that decision.
The consequence being that the will of the people would be enacted? No, those of us in favor of abolishing the electoral college are very aware of that. That's why we want to abolish it.
Robert E. God save us from liberals who think they know what the rest of us should have.
@@kalync5948 who are you talking about? Anyone who knows me knows I am NOT a liberal. I am a citizen in a democray entitled to an opinion, and the freedom to express that opinion and to try to convince others that it is correct, though. Or am I confusing this country for Syria?
Robert E. You are confusing our republic for a democracy.
@@kalync5948 our republic IS a democracy. Indirect democracy, representative democracy is STILL a democracy. Do you have the right to vote? I do. Do your friends and neighbors have the right to vote? Are the people for whom you vote accountable to you? This is both a republic AND a democracy, and I cannot for the life of me understand why some Americans refuse to accept that fact.
"If winning were only about getting the most votes, a candidate might concentrate all of his efforts on the biggest cities or the biggest states. Why would that candidate care about what people in West Virginia, or Iowa, or Montana think?"
If this is the rational for the EC, then under the EC, why would a candidate care about what people in California, Texas, or New York think? The EC doesn't erase a problem, it eliminates fairness and creates a new problem in forcing politicians to only focus on swing states.
One only changes the rules when he/she feels on the wrong side of victory or honor
YES!!!! I love this, I wish more people were educated on this before putting down the electoral college
I understand the argument for the electoral college, but I still don't support it.
Matthew why not? It does a great job of balancing the power.
@@kathleenmead769 I disagree. A "balanced" system would guarantee every citizen's vote count equally in an election. With the electoral college, the power of your vote changes depending on which state you live in. And if you're the minority in your state, your vote doesn't count at all because of the winner-take-all system.
Matthew actually it’s the opposite. If it were a completely equal vote, the presidential candidates would only have to campaign in states with the largest populations, specifically California and New York. Then whoever wins those states would win, and anyone living outside of those states wouldn’t have a voice. Instead, the electoral college makes it so that all votes count. Democracy is majority rules over minority. But a republic makes sure that everyone’s voice matters, including the minority. The electoral college makes it so that the candidates have to campaign in all the states to win the vote. Did you watch the video?
@@kathleenmead769 "The electoral college makes it so that the candidates have to campaign in all the states to win the vote"
It does exactly the opposite. Candidates only have to focus on a few swing states to win elections. If, for example, polls indicate 75 percent of voters in a state support a candidate, that candidate has no reason to campaign in that state.
California and New York make up less than 20 percent of the US population, and the biggest 8 -- California, Texas, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, and Georgia -- still only make up 47 percent. But that's assuming _everyone_ in those states votes for for the same candidate, something that has not and will probably never happen. With a national popular vote, candidates would need to appeal to a broad demographic based on political and social ideology rather than gerrymandering their way to presidency.
"the electoral college makes it so that all votes count"
It does exactly the opposite. Like I said before, if a candidate loses in a state, their votes from that state don't count, regardless of the margin they lost by.
Let's play devil's advocate. Let's assume electing the president via a national popular vote _would_ cause candidates to only focus on the most populated states...
What group should determine who becomes president, the majority or the minority? And, if you answered minority, who decides who counts as part of the minority?
I’m STILL confused 🤯
Aight so states get a set number depending on their population, like Colorado gets 9. If Trump wins 4 and Biden wins 5, Biden wins and gets all 9 votes.
I live in a complete functioning democratic system in the Netherlands and I really can t understand why Americans can accept this out of date type of pseudodemocracy. In our system there are 15 partys. So there will never ever be a tyranny of the majority.
The point of coalition building is hilarious, i don t know where to start the debunking.
And the discouriging of voterfraud... this system was designed to rigg the will to the wishes of an elite.
If prager university is representive for the level of education in the USA, then America is a laughingstock. What a ridiculous video. Take a look outside of the USA to see if i am wrong or right
Mee eens. Laat ze alleen niet horen wat de rol van het koningshuis is binnen de Nederlandse regelgeving.
How did it turn out in covid? The majority tyrannised the minority with forced vaccinations and lockdowns right?
The Electoral College is vital to preserving fairness in elections, but there's the 2 fatal flaws in our current system that's led to the toxic duopoly that's trampling on our rights today:
1. The voters are choosing multiple electors that vote for political parties rather than individual candidates. This is what almost single handedly led to the divisive and exclusionary political climate we have today. This makes elections unfair and biased because it encourages mob mentality when voting, instead of voting for each candidate's individual platform and values. Say for example the majority of a state likes a Republican candidate for president, but also likes a more central or democratic candidate for vice president. Today, if the Republican presidential candidate wins the popular vote, then the republican electors in that state will almost always vote a straight Republican ticket to serve the best interest of their party, rather than the best interest of their people.
2. Electors are legally permitted to vote against the popular vote in their state if they choose. Now this may not be the case in all states, but it's enough to make a huge difference. Allowing electors to vote against the popular vote in their state means they are being allowed to, again, serve in their parties' best political interest, rather than the citizen's they are claiming to serve. They are entirely voting against what the citizens want and not representing their interests they claim to serve.
These two flaws have led us to a dangerous and destructive cycle of playing political football between two parties for DECADES, both of which have proven to have no respect for our natural or constitutional rights. They have also worked together to eliminate any opportunity for third party or independent candidates to be considered by the population. This is especially significant considering that today, statistics show that over A THIRD of US voters dont subscribe or align with either the Democrat OR Republican party. That means a whole third of the nation at the very least considers themselves politically independent from the two parties that have established the duopoly we have today, and their voices arent being heard because other options they might more closely align with are being silenced and suppressed, and voters dont consider voting for other options because they know that in this current system, they have almost no chance of winning.
So how do we fix this? Simple:
1. Have electors be chosen at random from a group of able citizens from within the community, much like jury duty, rather than political parties. This ensures that the people's interests are truly being represented and that the electors are unbiased and neutral.
2. Make voting against the popular vote for ANY candidate for your district a federal crime. Eliminating the opportunity for elector bias and personal interest further ensure that the peoples voices are being heard, elections are fair, and that ALL political candidates, no matter if they're aligned with a party or not, have a fair opportunity to be considered for political office.
Fixing these two things alone will not only exponentially improve things in the country, it will better persuade politicians to act in the interest of the people they serve rather than the interest of their party, and restore confidence of the American people that elections are more fair and restore hope that truly any citizen has an opportunity to hold political office, regardless of party affiliation.
Which other Democratic country uses this system?
None. Because the electoral college is really bad.
But if a "pure democracy vote" is bad or unworkable, what makes it work in other countries and impossible in the USA? Help, I don't get it?
The problem with the Electoral College lies in that each state has a minimum of three votes.
And there's 538 votes. This means that states like Texes will have to give up some votes to smaller states. Making there votes wroth more.
In other Nations they simply have 1 vote for X amount of people.
If the majority votes one way or the other in a free pure democracy, how is that "tyranny"?
It's not.
I'm old enough to remember when the Democrats would have taken to the streets for a second Civil War if we tried to replace the Electoral College with the popular vote, and they never stopped complaining about what they called the tyranny of the majority (bet they don't teach you that in school either, right?). But that's when the country as a whole was far more conservative and the schools were just getting started on their program of indoctrination, so we still learned history like this and leftist indoctrination had not yet brainwashed a generation or two. Need I remind you, Ronald Reagan, an arch conservative, was Governor of California and he won that state in two Presidential elections. Won NY too, definitely the second time, not sure about the first?, but the country was so conservative Reagan won 49 of 50 States for reelection, losing only Minnesota, his opponents State (Mondale), and even Minnesota he only lost by the slimmest of margins, that's how conservative America was following the disaster that was Jimmy Carter, and if you even mentioned the idea of exchanging the Electoral Collage for the Popular Vote there would have been riots in the streets, led by Democrats. So all this BS you are hearing from Democrats now, about switching to the Popular Vote, is only because NY and California, the most heavily populated states, have become deep blue.
dannng this was uploaded before the 2016 election. mad respect.
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