A few years back, a Canadian magazine called McLean's tried to explain American elections to their readers,

how candidates get nominated, how the field gets winnowed down.

This article calls our system mind-boggling.

It turns out that an election takes four times as long in the U.S. as it does in Canada.

So if you're watching the debate later this week, wondering, are we there yet?

It's not just you. That's real.

The last thing this magazine tries to explain is the Electoral College.

The system our founders set up to prevent voters from directly electing a president.

By this point in the article, the author's tone is weary.

We'll try to explain, she says, but the Electoral college doesn't make a whole lot of sense for modern democracy.

It turns out slates Mark Joseph Stern.

He pretty much agrees with his sentiment.

I asked him to explain the electoral college.

Here's what he said.

It is like a Rube Goldberg device that makes very little sense today

that serves a purpose entirely different from what it was designed to do that mostly works out

just fine, but when it doesn't, the results are catastrophic for presidential legitimacy.

When someone like my kids, friends, tell me, like, your vote doesn't count because of something

like the Electoral College. Are they right?

Pretty much since you live in New York.

Ever since 2016, when Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, but lost the election anyway,

there's been a steady drumbeat of voices saying the

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