Abolish the Electoral College with Jesse Wegman

Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes Podcast

MS NOW, Chris Hayes

Msnbc, The Chris Hayes Podcast, Government, Politics, Chris Hayes, Why Is This Happening?, Withpod, Versant, Ms Now, News, Society & Culture, Versant Media

4.6 • 9.1K Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2020

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Who thought the Electoral College was a good idea? In two of the last five presidential elections, the candidate who lost the popular vote still managed to win the White House. So why are we still electing the most powerful position this way and what are the alternatives? Jesse Wegman, author of the new book “Let the People Pick the President”, gives amazing insight into the slapdash construction of the Electoral College. Hear him make the case that the institution we ended up with is divisive and undemocratic and ought to be done away with once and for all. Let the People Pick the President: The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College by Jesse Wegman Intelligence Squared U.S.

Transcript

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0:00.0	early on election night 2012 as the exit polls were starting to come in and early vote
0:05.8	counts were starting to come in.
0:07.1	It briefly looked like Mitt Romney could win the popular vote and yet lose the electoral
0:11.9	college to Barack Obama.
0:12.9	Now, we know that didn't end up happening.
0:14.6	It looked like it for a moment.
0:16.5	Donald Trump and I'm sure many other Republicans freaked out and for good reason.
0:21.8	Yes.
0:22.8	It's not fair.
0:23.8	It's not fair in a modern constitutional democracy for the person who gets fewer votes
0:30.3	to win and for the person who gets more votes to lose.
0:36.3	Hello and welcome to Wise is happening with me your host Chris A's.
0:44.7	You can probably tell from the audio sound or the quality on this microphone that I
0:48.5	am once again coming to you from the quarantine closet where we do wise is
0:52.4	happening in the covid days, but today we're doing a little time traveling, which is a
0:57.2	little weird.
0:58.4	It's the last wise is happening podcast recorded in studio in which the guests and I were
1:03.5	sitting in the same room next to each other.
1:06.8	Tiffany champion was sitting in there as well.
1:08.8	If I'm not mistaken and maybe another person, I don't know who maybe the audio engineer,
1:15.3	all that seems weird and kind of dangerous these days like yikes.
1:19.1	We were all just together like it's like in the same room.
	...

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