But seriously, why on earth do we have the Electoral College? Something about having to travel in carriages?
It’s a question a lot of people are asking after an election with a pretty big gap between the popular vote and the outcome.
So why on earth does it exist? What’s the point? Is it fulfilling its purpose? What alternatives are there, and how would we get to them?
Learn all this and more, including why you don’t kill your admirals, on today’s episode!
Sources
- Election results http://edition.cnn.com/election/results/president
- Faithless electors: http://www.fairvote.org/faithless_electors
- Federalist no 68: https://www.congress.gov/resources/display/content/The+Federalist+Papers#TheFederalistPapers-68
- Federalist no 10: https://www.congress.gov/resources/display/content/The+Federalist+Papers#TheFederalistPapers-10
- Tocqueville, Democracy in America, vol 1, chapter 25: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/detoc/1_ch15.htm
- 5th Article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Five_of_the_United_States_Constitution
- 2 electors voting against Clinton, Trump http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/electoral-college-effort-stop-trump-231350
- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/30/faithless-electors-electoral-college-donald-trump
http://www.factcheck.org/2016/11/could-electoral-college-elect-clinton/
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