Electoral College

Civics 101

NHPR

Education, History, Supreme Court, American History, Elections, Democracy, Society & Culture, Government, Civics, Politics, Social Studies

4.6 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 5 November 2019

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When we vote for a president, we're not really voting for a president. Today in our episode on the Electoral College, we explore the rationale of the framers in creating it, its workings, its celebrations, its critiques, and its potential future. This episode features the voices of Northwestern Professor of political science Alvin Tillery, University of Texas Professor of political science Rebecca Deen, and former 'faithless elector' Christopher Suprun.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Civics 101 is supported in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
0:05.7	CBS now estimates because of victories in California, Washington, Oregon, and Hawaii.
0:12.0	And for us then by CNN right now is moving our earlier declaration of Florida back to the
0:20.9	too close to Colossal.
0:22.4	He just has to carry one more state in that brain to 270 electrical.
0:27.8	Right. And statistically in terms of the polls overnight.
0:30.8	I've loved it since I was a little kid. Staying up late, watching those states get colored in.
0:37.4	But today I want to talk about the real presidential election.
0:42.4	Elections I should say. 51 of them held on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December.
0:49.4	We gather to follow through on the mandate given by the people on the first Tuesday
0:54.2	after the first Monday in November.
0:58.6	Welcome, electors, guests and students from around the state who are in attendance this
1:12.0	time is an honor to greet our three electors.
1:17.3	And also for you electors who may be moving about the chamber, please be mindful of the uneven
1:24.0	flooring at various levels officially appoint the alternate elections.
1:29.2	The votes are 10 votes Donald J. Trump.
1:37.7	Well the the framers were very skeptical of democracy.
1:44.8	And so this is why they created this buffer. They didn't believe that the average person could
1:51.0	get the job done in the voting booth. That's Alvin Tillery, political science professor at
1:55.3	Northwestern University. And I'm Nick Kappa, DJ. And I'm Hannah McCarthy. And this is Civics 101,
2:00.4	the podcast refresher course on the basics of how our democracy works. And we don't always
2:04.9	mention that tagline Hannah, but today I have to. It is not to address whether we are a democracy
	...

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