this is one of the big changes in the electoral college. we can see alexander hamilton described it in federalist 68. he talked about the electors needing to have wisdom, needing to have discernment, and convened to make a choice. they no longer make a choice because state law binds them to vote for the candidate of the party they represent. they really don't have a choice. it is a mathematical algorithm rather than a truly democratic process. host: i will ask a question, trent. carolyn laid out some of the arguments, some of the challenges we are facing presently. why shouldn't the process be based solely on a popular vote? something carolyn mentioned, someone who is not with one of the major parties, their vote doesn't count? your response? guest: people's votes count. if you vote for governor and your candidate loses, your vote still counts. if you vote for senator and your candidate loses, your vote still counts. if you vote for your state's presidential electors and the other slate of presidential electors wins, your vote still counts.

popular vote gets to vote, statewide senate seats within they have remaining electoral college votes decided by who won the congressional district. so in maine, three electoral votes for the democrat and one for the republican and some discussion. it is a mistake all. one way change for states to adopt in this approach it would be more expected the electoral college and popular vote would think. five times in u.s. history with the winner of the popular vote lost the electoral college but none were in the 20th century so even released to the 19th century or two in the 21st century sell vice president gore hold more than bush in 2000's. in 2016, hillary clinton outpolled donald trump get both cases electoral college votes went to the loser of the popular vote so there's now concerned with how we think of popular vote in electoral votes we don't have these anomalous outcomes. >> by the constitution so the population change in the future, is it a possibility? >> it doesn't is a by the number of electoral college votes, he says each state will have a number of votes equal to the number of

the is the electoral college no other country has such a body, and there have been efforts almost since the beginning of the formatioge the electoral coe process. most recent one was in the late 1960s, early 1970s, an effort proposed and promoted by senator birch five indiana. it came very close to being adopted as an amendment, ultimately failed in the house of representatives. he did not get the necessary approval there. the reason at the time were certain minority groups felt that since they were heavily represented or their constituents were based in the large states, that it was an advantage to have the type of electoral college system that we had been to protect their interest. so it was sort of a narrow self-justification type thing that has left us with this electoral college, and efforts to change in the last 55 years have been ineffective. there is one effort underway now, which takes instead of a direct approach of amending the constitution it's by a side way to create a compact or treaty between states and that basically once enough states that have 270 electoral votes sign

the electoral college. in this century, though, it's happened twice in thousand and 2016, it almost in 2004. if john kerry had won ohio. he would have been chosen as president by the electoral college despite losing the popular vote. and in 2020, if 42,000 votes had been different in, just three states, donald trump become president, even though lost the popular vote by 7 million people because of shifts and partizan realignment. it's quite likely that the electoral college for the foreseeable future has a significant chance of picking as president. the person who lost the popular vote. can i give one more example, please i know you have a lot of the laundry list. take the united states. at the time constitution was written, the defense team, the largest state, virginia and the smallest state, delaware, was 12 to 1 in population. now, the difference between the largest state, california and wyoming, the smallest state is 68 to 1. you can't reconcile the both having to senators they any notion of democracy.

to change the electoral college process. most recent one was in the late 1950s, early 1960s and proposed and promoted by senator birch bayh offending emma and it came close to being adopted as an amendment ultimately failed in the house of representatives because it didn't get the necessary approval there and the reason was certain minority groups felt since they were heavily representative to their constituents were based in a large state that was an advantage to have the type of electoral college system that we had to protect their interests. so it it's sort of a narrow self-justification that has lost this less risk to the electoral college and that is changed in the last 55 years have been ineffective. there is one effort underway now in instead of the direct approach of amending the constitution you could create a compact or treaty between states. basically once enough states that have 270 electoral votes sign on a would agree to vote for whoever gets the majority votes in the popular vote. there lots of questions about

and this means small states are hugely over represented in the electoral college example. wyoming has one elector for roughly every 142000 voters, texas. if you do, the math has one for around 466000 voters. or what does all of this mean? it means that throughout history, on 5 occasions, candidates who did not win the popular vote have actually ended up carrying the presidency. that includes famously george bush in the 2000 presidential election, who got fewer votes than his rival, l gore. and most recently, donald trump in 2016, became president with fewer votes than hillary clinton. in every close election, the presidency boils down to just a handful of states around the country. there are 244000000 people eligible to vote . yet it is. these 7 yellow states swing states here, only about 18 percent of the total population who ultimately decide to win the system of state by state winter take whole contest where candidates can win the popular vote, but still lose the election is deeply unpopular. more than 6 out of 10 americans want to see a president when is the most national votes, b

and then of course, they lose in the electoral college.what would have to happen first in order to change the system formally, it would take a constitutional amendment, which would have to be approved by two thirds of each chamber of congress. and then three quarters of state legislatures, or state ratifying conventions. so you would basically need to have broad, widespread, probably bipartisan support. there's also been a movement called the national popular vote compact, which seeks to work within the confines of the current electoral college. and this is an interstate agreement. it takes effect when states that have a total of 270 electoral votes, meaning enough votes to determine the outcome of a presidential election, have signed on to it, and under this interstate agreement, all of the members agree to appoint electors based on the outcome of the national popular vote. california, for example, has signed on were the compact to go into effect even though the democratic candidate for president in some future election were to win the st

. >>> electoral college explained. my breakdown of how america elects its president, why the country still uses it. >>> and talking about loss. maybe you have seen this, elmo and actor andrew garfield talking about losing a loved one. >>> we'll start this hour with that race to the white house. election day now just 13 days away. >> vice president kamala harris is in pennsylvania for a town hall. donald trump is campaigning in georgia. vice president harris' running mate walz has voted early today. >> it's comments by former president trump's former white house chief of staff that are getting a lot of attention today. saying that trump would rule like a dictator if he got back into the white house. praised hitler and his generals while in office. >> he commented more than once that "you know, hitler did some good things, too,," of course if you know history, again, i think he's lacking in that, you know what hitler was all about, pretty hard to make an argument he did anything good. >> let's bring in hallie jackson, we

the electoral college was biden's friends, right? because the, because what it does is each state has the number of votes of their representatives . so some of those suite states are smaller, states have a voice, it was the philosophy behind it. but now what, what the democrats are complaining about is that, um, well, 1st of all, couple of harris probably isn't going to win the popular vote. so they need the electoral college and it's going to be a hard run because you have wisconsin, north carolina, pennsylvania, and some of the other states that are swing states like arizona that tend to go for republicans. so you notice that each election cycle a different party has a different view but to kind of 1st us out the few legit at a, you know it's a survey of americans like what their opinion was about. 63 percent did want to abolish deal a toral college. that is the situation to do that. yeah, yeah, i mean, but you know, i was just going to say, i mean it's, it's late days. it's not like they're trying to do it as an early days. it's a

and signed a law to join that basically get rid of the electoral college and go to a populare. that's democracy and popular vote with california and kick at a time how you live. axios reporting how chemos like jamie raskin are talking like they may mott certify trump victory if they win. hypocrisy here, break it down with senior adviser trump campaign tim. what is this case brought against trump? >> it's not surprising at all because a lot of the democrats refuse to vote to certify trump's victory in 2016 but all we've been hearing for the last four years is what a threat to democracy it is and that's off the table because they all have trump derangement syndrome and no way to think straight and the lektorial college mess that tim walz opened up that you're reporting there and if you do that, it absolutely wipes out any political power that any of the so-called fly over states had including seven battleground states that anyone has been talking about and facing so much emphasis on north carolina and pennsylvania and michigan and wisconsin and arizona, and nevada and georgia.

once the candidate gets 200 electoral college votes, they went back. t, states in that compact have agreed to award all of their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, regardless of who wins that statewide vote. that means, every single boat across country counts and battleground states would eventually become irrelevant. >> michael: wow. is it true that you wear a diaper on election night? >> let's go back to the interview. >> michael: how often is a president to become president and not wow the national book? >> it's happened five times. >> michael: five. >> the most recent, president trump and president bush. >> michael: republicans overwhelmingly benefit from the electoral college. so why would a republican ever be on board with a national vote initiative? how dumb would they have to be? [laughs] >> i happen to be a republican. [laughter] pretty conservative one too. >> michael: are you sure you are a republican? >> there's lots of republicans who support a national popular vote for president. >> michael: what about you? are you

to abolish the electoral college system? >> thank you for asking that question.i do not want this scenario to play out but maybe it would be better foo teach us the system is outdated by the founding fathers themselves were not happy with the system. and in 1800 we had a tie between thomas jefferson and erin burr it was almost the end of the republic. in 1824 andrew jackson was denied the presidency this way. we have been fortunate it is not been tied since then. this is a system that should be abolished or at least heavily reformed. >> we will leave it there. thank you very much. we will be right back. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ the winter escapes sale is now on. visit sandals.com or call 1-800-sandals. [clears throat] sounds like you need to vaporize that sore throat. vapocool drops? it's sore throat relief with a rush of vicks vapors. ♪ vapocooooool ♪ whoa. vaporize sore throat pain with vicks vapocool drops. it is inevitable. chloe! hey dad. they will grow up. [cheering] silly face, ready? discover who they are. [playing music] what they want from this world. and how they will

so the electors went to electoral college. they cast their votes. and what basically happened is they thought that the top two most expert or knowledgeable or maybe perhaps desired candidates would win. and this was, of course before they had any idea that political parties would emerge. well, they had emerged by 1796 when the first real competitor of election took place and the top two candidates were the federalist candidate, john adams and, the democratic republican candidate, thomas jefferson. and so what happened was that thomas jefferson then became the vice president in this federalist administration. and that's important because later amendments, the 12th amendment in particular, basically removed that loophole and made it impossible for the vice president to essentially be in the same running as the president. but at that time, they hadn't yet made that choice to the constitution and was a real constitutional question about can the vice work if it's from a different party? can the administration work or will it be torn apart from the inside

wisconsin's electoral college - this election? wisconsin's electoral college votes . this election?l college votes will this election? wisconsin's - electoral college votes will be important to the candidate was able to put together the winning majority of electoral votes. because we have the electoral college system it comes down to a handful of states that are not going all for the democratic role for the republican party. wisconsin is possibly the most closely divided state of all of them. the state voted for donald trump in 2016 by 20000 votes and in 20,000 votes got it for joe biden in 2020. and in 20,000 votes got it for joe biden in 2020.— and in 20,000 votes got it for joe biden in 2020. what are the latest polls _ joe biden in 2020. what are the latest polls tell _ joe biden in 2020. what are the latest polls tell us _ joe biden in 2020. what are the latest polls tell us about - latest polls tell us about where these candidates stand? fix, where these candidates stand? new poll is out today, a gold standard pole in the state of wisconsin and it has the candidates in a dead h

. >> he squeaked through in the electoral college and we've had several a. candidates, nominees who have won the popular vote and lost the electoral college. what does that say? it says that anachronism that was designed for another time no longer works if we've moved toward one person, one vote, that's how we the winners that was hillary clinton in 2017 calling for the end of the electoral college, clinton won the popular vote in 2016 by nearly 3 million votes. >> but as we all know, she lost the electoral college to donald trump yesterday, vice presidential candidate tim walz, echoed that sentiment. walz reportedly saying this quote, i think all of us know the electoral college needs to go. we need national popular vote. but that's not the world we live in. the harris campaign looks to clarify some of those comments. they put this out in a statement, quote governor walz believes every vote matters in the electoral college, and he is honored to be traveling the country and battleground states, working to earn support for the harris-walz ticket. he was comme

what is tim walz saying about the electoral college? lauren: he called for the limitation of the electoral college during a fundraiser in california at gavin newsom's home in sacramento. tim walz the saying i think all of us know the electoral college needs to go. we need a national popular vote but that's not the world we live in. this was a move democrats have advocated for in the past after what you were talking about, hillary clinton popular vote versus electoral college vote, but the harris/walls campaign were quick to correct or saying to fox news digital, quote, governor tim walz believes every vote matters in the electoral college and he is honored to be traveling the country and battleground states working to earn support for the harris tim walz ticket. a little history, the electoral college was created by the founding fathers in an effort to make sure large states didn't dominate smaller ones in presidential elections and we'll too much power. we when you need a constitutional amendment, change the constitution. thanks very m

there is an electoral college rope up for grabs in a closely divided district and people try to get it. since the system was changed in 1991 there have been eight residential elections and insects the same person that carried the state as a whole carried the second congressional district and that was for the republicans. but in 2008, barack obama won this omaha area in the second district and in 2020, joe biden won. this bill passed in spite of the fact that republicans donated the legislature in half. it is truly i partisan or used to be. when the bill passed, it passed with a sprinkling of republican votes though it arguably would disadvantage them by creating a contested electoral college district. an interesting side note is that when it was being advanced through the legislature, there was one day when the republican speaker of the legislature voted with the democratic sponsor or cosponsor of the legislation because, as a gesture of congeniality, where one of her republican can -- colleagues that had supported her was missing that day so someone stood up to vote for it. >> what ar

538 electoral college votes. and in order to be elected, you have to have a majority, which is. 270. and in seven states total there are 84 elected for all college votes. so those seven states, if they went the other would have resulted in trump. the president or remaining as president biden would have lost lost the election. i don't remember why. what the question was that nbc discussed, but that's all right. we're we're always about cheese, bro. but we're i mean, i think we're we're to the next character who's interesting from our perspective because we're sitting here in chester county and there was chester county connection as well, a pennsylvania one. but it's stephanie lambert and hall. we're all in tampering with the elections which she did in arizona, georgia, michigan and pennsylvania. so. okay well there in department of justice against trump, the one that's so heavily in the news now that covers the period from before the election. to january 7th. so it doesn't cover all of the information that's come o

so it came time for the electoral college to vote each electoral gets two votes.or president and one for vice president so they voted as such they cast one belt for thomas jefferson the other ballot for his running mate erin burr which resulted in a tied vote. the election was not resolved until after 36 votes in the house of representatives which is where an election goes when no candidates the majority electoral college i. so, they realized after this afe selection of the tie vote that was going to continue to keep happening if candidates ran as a party ticket they keep tying like that. so just in time for the next election 1804 the 12th of memo to the constitution was ratified and tweak the voting a little bit in the electoral college so that each had to specify which of theirsi votes was for presidt which of the roads was for vice president doing so they ensured there would not be a tie vote again and this would not happen and that has worked. >> host: from the c-span archives a tour of the national archives looking at the 12th amendment. historian lindsay che

and this means small states are hugely over represented in the electoral college example. wyoming has one elector for roughly every 142000 voters. texas, if you do, the math has one for around 466000 voters. what does all of this mean? it means that throughout history, on 5 occasions, candidates who did not win the popular vote have actually ended up carrying the presidency. that includes famously george bush in the 2000 presidential election, who got fewer votes than his rival, al gore. and most recently, donald trump in 2016 became president with fewer votes than hillary clinton. in every close election, the presidency boils down to just a handful of states around the country. there are 244000000 people eligible to vote, yet it is. these 7 yellow states swing states here, only about 18 percent of the total population who ultimately decide to win the system of state by state winter take or contest where candidate can win the popular vote but still lose the election is deeply unpopular. more than 6 out of 10 americans want to see a president, when's the most national votes? but that w

. >> the electoral college is a vestige. >> you need electoral college which is much tougher than theote. >> the electoral college is a system where americans to not vote directly for a presidential candidate. rather each state get as number of electors appointed by political parties. electors choose their states winning candidate. quick history lesson. in 48 states and dc, the candidate winning the state's popular vote gets all the states electoral votes. the number of electors for each state matches the sum of its senators and representatives. >> each state shall have an equal vote. >> it started as a compromise between our founding fathers in 1787. >> there was the fear that democracy could lead to mob rocksy and that you would have what some people would call majority tyranny. >> then there was slavery. >> you saw slave states trying to not count slaves as people but then trying to have it both ways by having them partially count sod they could increase their population numbers. >> the founding fathers gave states the power to appoint electors. >> the office of presidential electo

reporter: would congress be willing to change the electoral college system smuggling axios contacted number of senate democratic candidates and and axios didn't get a single answer and this colonoscopy has come up before and in 2016, former president trump won the electoral college and 306 electoral votes and lost the popular vote by close to 3 million and this discussion came back up bacterin. stu. >> i think the vibe is a concern and it's not great and there's a plethora of polls that all say something slightly different so stuart:aled out. i'm joined by katie mcgee white. harris made her campaign about vibes but i don't think it's working. what say you? hillary clinton made in 016 and this time at least stopping donald trump and their priority and it's not enough to not beat trump and they want solutioning ands want their problems to be heard in the first place and their voices to be recognized. stuart: trump seems to have real momentum. does that carry through to the election and that's going three weeks away. >> certainly seems to and important to recognize that trump is polling

so you have three total members in the electoral college.s if your california to make senators plus 55 members in the house. you have 57 members of the electoral college. that gives you the total. i'll explain how we got to the number 538 right now in a little bit, but that was the original conception of the framers of the constitution and it was a concern about direct democracy, that they wanted this to be a a democratic country but they were nervous about getting too much power to the voter. so they had these informal processes they created like the electoral college. the second indirect process was the election of senators. so under the constitution senators were elected by not the people but by state legislature. and that continued until 1913. and the members of the house, the number of seats each state e had, was determined based on how many people live in the country. some of you may have heard a so-called three-fifths compromise where the southern states, which were mainly the slaveholding states were allowed to count for purposes of

that was the purposeful design of the electoral college. without the electoral college, donald trump would have vanished from our politics in november of 2016. but, thanks to the electoral college, the person bob woodward calls "the most reckless and impulsive president in american history," is still with us. today, howard stern asked vice president harris about the big breaking news of the day. >> bob woodward was saying that trump was sending covid tests to putin and putin said don't let anyone know. i mean, this is, what is going on? what do you make of that? >> i actually said it even in the debate, i believe that donald trump is, has this desire to be a dictator. he a strong man and he gets played by them because he thinks that they are his friends and they are manipulating him full-time. manipulating him by flattery and with favor. so, in the and midst, to your point, as reported by bob woodward, in the height of the pandemic you remember, your listeners will remember, people were dying by the hundreds. everybody was scrambling to get

is a simple majority of the house and senate that can enact that and strike a state from the electoral collegess in 2022, in something called the electoral count reform act try to modify this event. they did a good job, but there is a industry of the strategist trying to and that act and eliminate protections. >> neil, georgia is, to my knowledge, the only swing state that has a republican governor. i just wonder if you could talk us through a little bit, where your concerns are around kind of this path to not accepting the election results that would involve fake electors. is it a state legislator that would be responsible for essentially throwing out democratic results? for example in georgia, the governor of georgia, kemp has said, he plans to stand up for democracy. what exactly does that pathway look like? is it state legislators where your area of most concern is? >> state legislators is certainly a part. remember, donald trump in 2020 try to use state legislators for fake slates of electors. eve had two good things to happen since the year 2020, one of the supreme court case called moor

and you're out saying, well, maybe we ought to get rid of the electoral college. i look, i think this is an indication of just how far the democrats are straying from our norms. they want to pack the supreme court walz himself wants restrictions on the first amendment. he's trying to throw out the electoral college they want to eliminate the filibuster in the u.s senate, nor harm after norm after norm, apparently means nothing to this ticket. i think people ought to take notice. >> i mean, you're going to talk about yeah, overthrow the election on january where i sick. so there's a lot of norms. >> think wants to acknowledge that, right? >> activate it, not just talked about, i'm just saying there's normal. i also think about norms and they're trying know that electoral college should be banned and should be abolished because i think that it doesn't allow for an accurate representation. when we know the history of the electoral college, it actually has racial undertones. it was put in play. i mean, it's true and so we are a country that can change, our rules and c

, they hate the electoral college, they have deep contempt for it, they will look down on the senate as being unrepresentative, as being some kind of form of inequality that disenfranchises, because the whole point of the senate is that it includes equal representation of all the states. even if you amended it so that each state had a different number of senators, instead of two, article five of the constitution, which governs the amendment process, would stop you, it's patently unconstitutional, you can't change the principle of equal representation, they hate that, why, because many of their voters are concentrated in a handful of states, densely populated urban centers, they think extreme... it's possible, but it would require two consecutive constitutional amendments: first the part that prohibits amendments, and then you 'd have to actually make the change. amending the constitution to abolish the electoral college or change the equal representation in the senate doesn't have the support you need right now to make those changes, but now i'm really worried, we have one maj

so here goes, there are $538.00 electors for electoral college motors representing all 50 us states plus washington dc. these are people that are appointed by the political parties. a candidate needs house of that plus one to win the presidency. that's 270 electoral votes. that is the key number. what americans are really voting for is their state electors. the group of people who will vote for the presidents on their behalf. states have electors based on their population size. so look at this, take a big state like california this year. it has 54 boats in the electoral college, texas as 40. remember you need to 70 to win. so that's a big chunk of small states. on the other hand, like wyoming, like vermont, have just 3 votes each. most states have a winner take all policy. electors are chosen based on who wins the states popular vote. and let's take an example. let's take texas huge state big population in 2025 point 8000000 voters. chose donald trump. more than 5200000 people chose job. i'd because texas is winter takes all those millions of votes provide, did not matter. trump, on all

you have to win the overall electoral college. this was still here with liberty and justice for all. >> i was going back through my nancy pelosi moments. i just keep, and i'm looking at them all. there was a moment to me that really speaks to the art of power, without saying a word. in that moment, for a lot of us watching, the fear, the pain, the anger, it all came out. i wish i was standing with her, to tear it up. i know it started with the snubbing of the handshake. it was not a planned moment, it was in the spur of the moment. -- to impeach him. >> let's not talk about him all night. okay? the fact is, i didn't go to that state of the union address to tear up the speech. i thought my staff was not going to like this too much. it was different. when you start to speak, he was lying. i made a little bit of a tear saying that we light on this page. and then the next page, and then the next page, and then the next page. this is a manifesto of misrepresentations. it got to the end. i had the impulse to tear up the speech. the spee

we certainly would not be objecting to the count of the electoral college, but the electoral college, it's tough. you can win the popular vote. hillary clinton won the popular, but you have to win the electoral college. so we have to make sure the flag is still there with liberty and justice for all. so i was going back through looking at kind of my nancy pelosi moments because, i do have a folder about you where i just an eye mark them off. there was moment to me that speaks to the art of without saying a word, which was the moment when you tore up the speech that i mean, that that and because in that moment for a lot of us watching and the fear the pain the anger that all came out, i was like that's what i would have. i wish i was standing with her to tear it up, but i know what really started with the snubbing of the handshake and it was not a planned moment. it was in the spur of the moment. so can you talk about just that moment because this is also someone you said i gave him every opportunity to work together and he gave me no other choice but to impeach him. yeah. well, let's

sprinkling of republican votes though it arguably would disadvantage them by creating a contested electoral college district. an interesting side note is that when it was being advanced through the legislature, there was one day when the republican speaker of the legislature voted with the democratic sponsor or cosponsor of the legislation because, as a gesture of congeniality, where one of her republican can -- colleagues that had supported her was missing that day so someone stood up to vote for it. >> what are the demographics of nebraska's second district? fred knapp: 70% white but it also contains the largest concentration in the state of black and hispanic voters making them almost 30% of the electorate. and politically, it is pretty evenly divided. 38% approximately of the registered voters are republicans, 35% are democrats and the rest are either independent or third-party. >> what are the most important issues for voters in nebraska, the second district? fred knapp: as in many places, the economy is on people's minds and there are several issues that have drawn extra attention because the