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Hi there. It's Josh Clark. One half of stuff you should know. And I'm here to present our episode on the Electoral College, a convoluted, flawed system, one that's shown its inherent problems in the last couple of decades. In fact, the Electoral College is frequently cited as the most undemocratic aspect of our democracy. I hope our episode on it gives you a good picture of it and hopefully charges you up to vote, because our ability to vote is not only a right, it's an imperative.

So please vote this November and any time you have a chance to vote, because that's how America moves forward.

Welcome to Stuff You Should Know. A production of pilot radios HowStuffWorks. Hey, and welcome to the podcast, I'm Josh Clark, there's Charles W. Chuck Bright, and you put us to gather a couple of microphones, some cameras. You get some of the stuff you should know. Cameras. Yeah. You're talking about. Oh, yeah, there's nothing here. Everything's very normal.

Just proceed, Chuck. Yes, I'm great.

How are you? What? Your time is nigh. I'm getting over my cold. Yeah. You sound good. Do I. Yeah. Well, you sound better than he did last week.

Yeah, I'll give you that. But I still don't feel like I said 100 percent.

Not 100 percent. But compared to the swimming in snot phase, I will take this and it got really bad, pretty snappy.

I'm not going to go into it here, but. Wow. Yeah, yeah. OK, yes. Election time is nigh. I know. I try to get right to it. Yeah.

And I blocked you. Yeah. So yeah. That's why I wanted to do this one because people perennially ask for the Electoral College and other people say, I don't know what that is but I want to hear about that too.

And then people in other countries just say, you guys do. But yeah, it's kind of depressing. Yeah. Actually, I mean to look up to see what other countries did with their elections. It's all like kings and birthright and stuff. Yeah. No one else votes. No, OK, it's just the USA that does that. Good for us. Yeah. Chuck. Yes. I don't really have much of an intro here. All right, it's more of a can you believe this kind of thing?

OK, how long have you thought that you went to the polls and cast a vote in the vote you were casting was for the candidate that you were casting that vote for that that's who that vote went to every time up until yesterday.

So, like, you didn't have much of an idea about the Electoral College? No, I did. But and I knew sort of how it worked. But until you really get down to it, you don't realize that, wow, I'm voting for a person that's going to vote for a person. Yeah, exactly. You know, yeah. Because in some cases, like, it's not even on the ballot, like the person who you're actually voting for.

OK, so we did what I like to do. We confused everybody and now we're going to go back and explain what we're talking about, OK?

Yeah, I was confused, actually. I'm going to be a shame. Shame myself right out of the gate when it said every four years on the Tuesday following the first Monday of November, I was like, why don't they just call it the first Tuesday in November? But then I realized that I guess if November 1st is a Tuesday. Yeah, then it won't the election won't be till the following Tuesday. Yeah. Because they got to get the money in there.

It gets even crazier than that with the Electoral College. They go the first Monday following the second Wednesday in December.

Yeah. And they everybody had like gout or something like that. They just passed out consumption, right.

Yeah, that's what it was. Uh, so that is when the actual presidency is decided. Yeah. In December. Yes. Although everyone knows. Well, you would think yeah, so OK, so let's talk about this. So the Electoral College, the whole thing, like, why don't we just stick to the popular vote, which is what everybody thinks they're doing anyway? Where did this come from?

I have an answer. OK. Back in the day when our founding fathers and mothers were doing their thing here, they decided, you know, I think I don't trust a regular popular vote. It's reckless. Yeah. As described in this article. And then another camp said, you know what? We sure as heck ain't going to let Congress decide the president. Right. So why don't we come up with a really confusing, wacky system called the Electoral College?

Yeah, because it's a compromise.

Do you want to have a bunch of uninformed rabble rousers who just revolted against the king of England a few years before voting? Or do you want a group of elites voting? It's like Citizens United. You don't want either of them. So, yeah, they just wait and get confusing.

Yeah, I imagine it was more confusing back then than it is today, you think? Or maybe not. Maybe it made more sense because I think it probably did. OK, so OK. So what they come up with was the compromise.

Well, the compromise is when it comes election time, there are these people called electors who actually decide the presidency and they represent that's equal to to two U.S. senators that every state has. Right. Plus the number of representatives that each state has. Yeah. So that comes to 538 total. Yes. In three of those are part of the twenty Third Amendment from nineteen sixty one that gave three electors to D.C..

Yeah, they figured since everything is based here we might as well toss them a few votes. Right.

Seemed like the right thing. Right. Um and did you say that was the Twenty Third Amendment. Yeah. Okay. So um they actually cast the vote when, when we vote for the president, we are voting for the electors. Right. And like you said, they're not always even on the ballot. Sometimes they are. Sometimes they're not. And like I bet you anything, 90 percent of the people who vote have no idea who their electors are or like how they got to be in that position right there.

Like I'm going to vote for Barack Obama. But who is this Todd winemaker in parentheses next to?

I have no idea who that is. Or in some ballots, they'll you'll go to the end. And it's like county commissioner, dogcatcher and then electors. And then there's a list of people's names by party or like you said, it's just not on there at all. Yeah.

And one thing I was surprised to learn was my our own electorate here in Georgia. I looked him up just because I thought, you know, I might as well know who they are and their addresses are in there. Like, I can go knock on the door indicator like eight blocks from me and say, you, sir, have a great responsibility at your hands.

Are you going to do that now? OK, but I could you could I think maybe you should reconsider.

I'm just surprised. I don't know. I guess. Well, we know the president live, so that's not a big deal, but. Right. I guess I'm surprised at all. That stuff is common knowledge. I thought that would be like secret.

Yeah, I think they want that to go the opposite way.

Well, no, it makes sense now that I figured it out like they do want everything out in the open so everyone knows. But it just seemed a little weird that the guy voting for the president is actually like half a mile from my house. Right. Or one of the guys.

No, I'm with you. All right. So you've got like this group of people who are actually voted in and they meet after the popular election is certified. Yeah, the secretary of state certifies the vote. The governor whips up a certificate saying here are all the votes that each candidate got. And then based on this, the electors go and cast their vote the first Monday following the second Wednesday in December.

That's right. I couldn't find why. Oh, I don't know.

I guess it just falls somewhere in between the election and January 20th, I guess.

And that's what everybody it's like. Wait, wait, wait. Christmas, Christmas.

We've got to make sure we're done in plenty of time. Yeah. And then they cast the vote and then it's unsealed. Right. And red. That's right.

Even though barring any surprises, you pretty much know election night from either exit polls or whatever, you know, Dan Rather tells you or whoever does it these days, you hope because that guy who lives a few miles away from you, blocks or miles, I think I charted him out.

I'm stalking him. It was less than a mile. That's my. Yeah. So that guy you want his name? Yeah. John White. That's his name. So John White, the elector, one of them, yeah, it's perfectly legal for him to say, you know what, supposedly I am supposed to be voting for Barack Obama. Yeah, but I really like the cut of this Mitt Romney's jib. Yeah, that doesn't really happen, though.

It has, but not quite like that.

But in the modern times, I think one of the reasons why they published their addresses is so, you know, a good lynching is throwing you out there like cavemen.

You can vote however you want, but everybody knows where you live. And if you think they get mad about, you know, referees making bad calls.

Faithless elector, that's what they're called. Yeah, which is a great band name, you think faithless elector or the faithless electors? Now, I don't think so.

It's to maybe for like a D.C. law school band.

Right? Faithless electors.

I can see that saying almost grrl.

They have no future whatsoever unless they turn it into something like Scorpion's or something like that. That's right. And actually, faithless electors have no future as electors because one thing you can probably be sure of, if you change your vote, then you're not going to be asked back to be an elector in the future. And you could possibly be fined depending on what state you're in. Yeah. And you're probably going to be kicked out of your party. You're putting a lot on the line.

Yeah.

And see, this is the thing that made it all clear to me. Each party has its own electors. So that's why no one's going to turn like the people that are put in the place as electors are like staunch party line people. Right. You know, they're not going to turn and vote. Like the reason they're there is because they know that they're going to vote for either the Republican or Democrat.

They know where their bread is buttered. Exactly.

OK, so let's talk about these people. How are these people elected? What do they have to qualify for? Obviously, everyone has to have at least a juris doctor, if not a Ph.D. in law of some sort, like a juris doctorate, some sort of political science degree. And probably, um, they have to have like several hundred hours of community service under their belt now.

Yes, that is not true. Are you sure? Nice setup, though. Thank you. You're being coy.

There actually are no real strict outlines for the Constitution as to who these people are.

Yeah, they are usually nominated by a state party committee. It says in here, usually as or sometimes to reward many years of service to the party. Yeah. So they could be like big on the campaign trail for you or activists, maybe for your party or like a robo dialer.

Yeah, yeah, I guess so. Like the all time robo dialing.

Um, but they cannot be senators or representatives. Yeah. And I would imagine former to although I didn't see that.

I don't know, I think active is what it is. I really. Yeah.

OK, you can't be a high ranking official in a position of trust or profit. Makes sense. Yeah. And this one I love that they actually had to specify this. He or she cannot be someone who is engaged in insurrection or rebellion.

Well, this is this obviously was put in by the people who are like, we can't just go to a popular vote. These people are crazy.

Yeah. Yeah. Like, I saw Muskett in that guy's hand last week aimed at my office. And now he's an elector, right.

He can't vote. I like that. Is still in there, though. Yeah.

That insurrection or rebellion thing definitely helped form this country.

OK, so you've got people who are active in their in their party who are who have been rewarded. Maybe they're activists. Sometimes they know the president or president elect. Right. Like they met him on the campaign trail. Yeah. And that's really about it. Each state has, I think, probably a different nominating process. But overall, when you when you have a candidate who's running from Green Party, Democrat or Republican. Right. You take your as your party, as your Green Party, you all go down together and you pile into like the the camper and go down and read the one that runs on veggie oil.

Exactly. And you're all very depressed because you don't have a shot at winning, you know, is running for president for the Green Party. Roseanne Barr. Yeah. Really. Yeah. And she's being roasted right now. Don't think that that's not a media play.

Right. So they all go down to the secretary of state's office and say, hey, these are our candidates. There are electors for candidates for electors. Yeah. So when you vote for Roseanne, it should have all those people's names next to hers or on on like by party, it might say, like Green Party electors. Here's all other people or it might not say anything. Right. But when you cast that vote for Roseanne, you are voting those electors.

Yeah, that's who you're voting for. The to the vote goes to, not Roseanne. Right. Goes to John Goodman. That's who I would be. That's who I would have as my elector if I was Roseanne Barr. What about Tom Arnold? No. You know, Tom Arnold had a messy divorce.

He'd be the party prez, though. Well, John Goodman was never married to.

There's just TV, TV marriage, though. That's like sacrosanct. That's just my opinion. OK. All right, well, now we're on the road driving in your truck, why not learn a thing or two from Josh and Chuck it stuff you should know. All right. Hey, everybody, we want to tell you about our friends inaudible the leading provider of spoken word, entertainment and audio books, and every month members get one credit to pick any title and two orrible originals from a monthly selection.

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All right, so where are we we're talking about how the vote goes toward not Rosie and where you want to go right now to promote Tom Arnold or John Goodman, but to Todd winemaker.

Right. And all the other electors. Right. So what's what's going on here? What's this process?

Well, I mean, they literally just make their vote, supposedly in accordance with the people's popular vote. Right. And I think what do they give to the secretary of state?

Right. That seems like it's registered before Election Day. Right. Like your names on the list. Yes. So at the very least, if it's not printed on the ballot, the secretary of state knows who the electors are. Right. And there's two ways to do it. Forty eight states have a winner take all system. I get that one. And then Maine and Nebraska have a district system. I'm just confused by that one. OK, so the district system actually more closely follows the Electoral College system than the winner take all.

Now, is this so to vote for the elector only? No, that's what confused me, I think.

So let's say you have a let's do the winner take all system, OK, which is so easy. But think about it.

So let's say you are in Arizona. All right. Oh, it's hot, right. And you decided to stay. You're not moving. Yeah, that wouldn't happen. You got like you have ten.

There's ten. Well, in twenty eight. And I believe it's the same in 2012. There's ten electoral votes. Yes. Right. So the Green Party candidate, Roseanne should have 10 electors associated with her. Yeah. Right. Yeah. The Barack Obama should have 10 electors. Yeah. Mitt Romney should have 10 electors. So when when that person wins the popular vote and that's certified, then those electors are the ones those 10 associated with that candidate are the one that should go down to the state capitol on the first Monday after the second Wednesday of December and cast their vote.

OK, I get that. And also, we should point out that in this system, that is the reason why sometimes the name isn't even on the ballot, because there's something something somewhere in their state constitution that says a vote for Barack Obama is a vote for these ten people. You don't need to know who they are. Just trust us. Right, exactly. OK, that's the that's the winner take all system. So the other system in Maine and Nebraska is the district system.

Right. So the winner take all system, that's a lot like a popular vote. Yeah. In the district system, you get two votes.

The guy who won the guy or the lady or the general gender neutral president, depending on when you listen to this episode, they whoever got the most popular votes in the state gets two electoral votes, the two associated with the Senate. Right. Then the other electoral votes that are divvied up by congressional districts. Whoever won that congressional district gets that vote. Yeah, I get that. And I looked I looked it up a little further and saw that there are scenarios in Maine and Nebraska where you could have three different votes cast for three different candidates, but they said it's never happened.

Yeah, it's just theoretically possible. Mathematically, statistically possible. All three.

OK, I don't know. It just seems like everyone should just be all on the same system. But but it makes sense to me. A socialist, you're. But but think about it like the whole reason you have the Electoral College or one of the big reasons is to prevent one region or one one part of the state from wielding enough power. Right. To vote for everybody else. And I think that's what the district system is is set up to prevent to it's kind of like came in.

You had you you voted for this. Right. This this person. And we want you to have your say in the Electoral College. I think it's smarter. Oh, yeah, I think so. Well, in 92, you swayed me. Could be said to sway John White.

I've got his number.

You know, he could use this as evidence one day for what I know what's going to happen. What are you going to do? I'm not gonna do anything, OK?

But if something happened, then everyone would point their fingers at me. Yeah, it's like we heard him say it. So on his podcast. Yeah. All right. I won't testify against you that. I appreciate that. Should we talk about some of the hinkie results over the years? Yeah, when things don't go quite as planned or go exactly as planned.

Very tricky thing. That's a teaser.

Um, there have been four presidents, um, Perdis for Poultices Podi that have won, um, their their post with without the popular vote.

Yeah. I mean that's happened four times in this country and all the ones up until 2000 we weren't as concerned with because you're like who cares. They're all old timey, they're all wearing knickers.

They were just working it out back in 1824. Yeah.

When John Adams son, John Quincy, the Q the Q, he received thirty eight thousand fewer votes. And Andrew Jackson, this one was definitely hinky because neither one of them won the Electoral College. So if that happens, you defer to what the Twelfth Amendment and that's when the House of Representatives decides who the president is. Yeah. Which would be really weird these days. Yeah. Don't you think? I think there'd be a lot of that just be bad news.

Yeah, that would be bad news. But at the same time, this is 1824 and there were still a lot of insurrection, rebellious people. Yeah. So I'm sure it was a little nervous back then. Yeah. Um so who won JQ. JQ yeah. 1876 Rutherford B. Hayes. Um, he apparently this is the first time and I think the only time that small states actually swung the election. Yeah. Hayes carried a bunch of small states, um and basically combined with their combined electoral votes, gave him the the electoral vote.

Yeah. Um, although he lost the popular vote by a lot by like uh one hundred and nine thousand No. Two hundred and sixty four thousand votes. He lost the popular vote.

Yeah. We almost had a president. Samuel Tilden. Yeah. Sammy Tilden to have a haymaker.

His nickname. Really. I feel bad for the haymaker all the sudden. Yeah. Yeah.

Well I mean everybody liked him a lot more, but yeah, he's cobbled together a win from small states and Colorado had just been right. And this is the hinky part. And they didn't have any popular vote. There was no vote whatsoever. They just did some electoral voting. Yeah. And it went all to Hayes. So he put it together with Colorado. So with very little popular vote and then in one state, no popular vote in that crazy.

And he won and he went on to be the greatest president this country's ever seen. I mean, Colorado, I guess they were just like, we don't even have pens and pencils. Can you give us, like, just get a buffer?

We're just like we're all boxes over here. Yeah, we haven't even started unpacking. Exactly.

So they said, oh, well, let's just give it to let's just give it to Hayes. Yeah. Good on you.

Yeah. Well, you got next 1888, Benji Harrison lost the popular vote by more than ninety five thousand votes to Grover Cleveland. Yeah. Won the electoral vote by sixty five. And this is one of the cases where they say it worked exactly like the plan. Yeah.

Like we planned it to with the Electoral College because you can't just overwhelm someone in one region. Yeah. And get the presidency. That's what happened. So in six states in the south, so the whole campaign pretty much was based on we want the turf, we don't want the turf. Well, the north that everybody else wanted the tariff, right. South didn't want the tariff. So Grover Cleveland was like no tariff whatsoever. And the South voted as a block.

They had a bunch of people.

He won the popular vote by like 65 percent. Huge number. Yeah. But in the other 32 states, he lost by four hundred and twenty five thousand votes. No, no, no.

He lost by three hundred thousand. He had four hundred twenty five.

OK, so 32 states were against him combined. Six states were for him. And the Electoral College steps in and prevents the South from picking the president for the rest of the country. That's right.

Flawless and then not flawless. Let's go to the year 2000. Yeah. So Bush v. Gore. Yeah, I was driving across country, moving to Los Angeles during this election. And I made a self-made video of my journey, which most of which was me singing along to songs on the radio in my U-Haul. Yeah.

And I've still got this. I should like get it digitized and posted it at some point. It's pretty funny, but I remember very specifically one part in the thing. I woke up in New Mexico and I'm going to tell them I'm sleepy and you don't remember going to sleep.

I remember going to sleep, but I woke up and I said, yeah, you know, here I am in New Mexico. It's weird. I woke up this morning and they don't know who the president is. Yeah. And it's like captured in time this moment where I realized I was sleep in my eyes. Like, that's weird. Yeah. I went to bed expecting because, you know, that night everybody was going toward Gore. Well, everyone I think it was called a couple of different ways, a couple of different times.

It went back and forth. But when everybody went to bed, it was like Gore all the way. He'd won the popular vote. They knew it was close, but everybody had called Gore. And then they woke up and they're like, yeah.

And then a huge, huge mess. Kluster ensued. Yeah. Afterward, which involved the court system, it involved hanging chads.

Well, not only that, you remember like there was this one county where, like, their votes just got lost for a little while. Yeah. On the way to be counted, they were just vanished and then reappeared later on, like that kind of stuff. You should just basically be like the whole state. Everybody has to wait. The whole state has to start over and vote again. Yeah, that might have been a good move.

There were like accusations of disenfranchisement of black voters, black in black areas. Yeah, there were also I mean, both sides had a lot of arguments, like when you really start peeling back the layers and researching this, it'll look like it will make you cry.

And there are just like dozens and dozens of factors that many people never even saw on the nightly news. Yeah. You know, like military votes or disenfranchised voters in poor counties. And then I think Gore asked for a recount in only four counties when people are saying he should have asked for a hand recount in all the counties and in the end. Protest was decided for the country by less than like less than 400 votes. Is that what it came down to?

Well, I mean, it depends because all the different factors like do we count these votes? What about these these people meant to vote for Gore or Bush? And it was cloudy. What about these hanging chads? So there's all different kinds of numbers. But I've seen one. I've seen one that said it was less than one hundred votes was the deciding factor. So, OK, so it came down to one hundred votes. But Florida's winner take all.

Yeah. So that means that those 100 votes since Bush got those hundred votes, he got all twenty five votes in the Electoral College for Florida. Yeah. Which just so happened to put them at exactly the amount of electoral votes he needed to win the presidency, which was 270. One is crazy. I mean, I've seen I've looked as many people have since then, like the independent studies they did afterward. And it just depends on which ones you want to read.

Like I saw today, I saw like 10 independent studies and six of them showed that Gore was the definite winner. Four of them showed that Bush was. So it's just confusing and disheartening. Yeah, but what it did was shed light on a pretty flawed system and how we cast our votes, how they're counted. And it gave us the hanging chad, I guess, the hanging chads.

OK, well, now you're on the road driving in your truck. Why not learn a thing or two from George Bush and it stuff you should know. All right.

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So there was also a bit of awkwardness that came out of that just a bit. Well, in one instance there is a kind of an overlooked bit of awkwardness. The when the votes or the electoral votes are unsealed, they're unsealed by the president of the Senate. President of the Senate is the vice president. So in 2000, the 2000 election, remember, Al Gore was vice president of the Senate. So we had to read his own defeated Electoral College votes that year.

Yeah, yeah.

And there was like something of an insurrection and a rebellion among black congressional members who were protesting the vote, protesting, including Florida's vote in the count. And he had to basically be like, it's over. It's done right for the good of the country. Let's move on. But he there was no emotion, even the emotion you just had. It wasn't that there was less than that for the good of the country. Let's move on.

You know, Gore always got tagged as the robot, the Robotron. But there was a video I might have talked about before that Spike Jones made of Gore that never was released, a campaign video that I think would have won him the election. Oh, it is like his tie loosened now, man.

He was like way funnier and cooler than you would think.

He was on 30 Rock. He did a good job. Yeah, but that was later. But this was before when he had the like the bad rap is like a robot. But this like he let him inside his home and it was very casual, very laid back. And, you know, like you saw him as a dude for the first time, like cracking jokes and hanging out with his family. And it was like very endearing. Yeah.

And he he was like, do not release this. Yeah, I'm sure. And he lost the election.

Did you ever see that Simpsons where Lisa buys Al Gore's one of his books now and like the information is transmitted and somebody runs into the to the with the vice president's office is called the trapezoid office. Yeah. And it's like, Mr. Vice President, someone just bought your book and he goes, well, this calls for a celebration.

And he turns he turns on the record player and puts on Kool and the Gang celebrate, uh, and it's like celebrate good times. Come on.

And he goes, I will. It's perfect. They nailed it. Oh, poor guy. Yeah. So that's Gore.

Yeah, that's Gore. So I guess on both sides of the coin here, um. We have people thinking this is a great thing still and people saying this is not a great idea for each instance, even the one we were saying, like the Electoral College worked perfectly. There are people who are like, no, it's all messed up. Like he he clearly won the popular vote, however you want to put it. Yeah.

Like in other people to say, like, calm down. Right. Let's all just calm down.

Well, one of the knocks against it is some say it discourages voter turnout because unless you're in a swing state or a battleground state, it's quote unquote pre decided. Yeah.

But then again, so is like the two party system we're in like a very, very red state. So give me a say on that. If we, you know, word of not vote red. Yeah.

We like we could make a case that our votes would be thrown away now and that could dissuade voters from turning out to and the people for it say, no, this is exactly what we need, because the waed system, the states that have the most the states that should have the most influence are the states that are the most populated.

Yeah, well, that's how it's how it's divided up. Like Alaska is great. We love all that land.

But land shouldn't be deciding who the president is, you know.

Yeah, right. Yeah. OK, no, I'm with its people. It's people that counts, not mountains. People not mountain people, not mountains. What do we want.

Time travel. When do we want it. It's relevant. All right. I like that sign. So it was that sign. I don't know. It's just some random guy I posted on the Facebook page. Everyone thought it was me, though, I guess because he had facial hair. Yeah. It's like there's more than me. I see mustaches out there. Yeah. I mean, they're all over the place.

So over the past 200 years, over 700 proposals have been introduced to reform or eliminate this process. Is that right? Yep. The most proposals for any constitutional amendment.

I could see that. Yeah, I could see that. I think it's probably because executive executive orders aren't in the Constitution and therefore can't be repealed.

Maybe I know that attorneys, by and large, are against it. The American Bar Association polled at seventy percent in favor of abolishing it, whereas political scientists have generally supported it. And then there I could find three popular polls, opinion polls over the years in 1967. Fifty eight percent of Americans said they don't like it in 1968. Eighty one percent late 60s. They are just like, what is it, government? I don't want it. Oh, yeah.

And then that in 1981, that declined to 75 percent. But by and large, the people are saying or at least up until nineteen eighty one, like we don't like this process. Don't make us incorrect. Yeah. Whoever has the most votes should win is what many Americans believe. Yeah. Did we talk about I can safely say that the two elections that were decided by the House of Representatives because their ties in the electorate.

Well we talked about the one I don't think we mentioned the other. Oh yeah. But you. Yeah, but Burr and Adams or Jefferson. Yeah. Eighty one. Right. Yeah. There was a tie in the Electoral College and it took thirty one votes in the House of Representatives to decide who was the president. And it turned out to be Thomas Jefferson. And then Aaron Burr was shot. That's right. That's the sad end of that story.

No. Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton. That's right at the end of that story, right, and that's the Senate into Electoral College. Yeah, you don't vote people. That's all we have to say. Even if you if you live in California and you're a Democrat and you think, hey, we're going to lock up this 55 votes, even if I sleep in and go see my medical marijuana, Dr.. Get out. But anyway, yeah, or if you're in a state like Georgia and you're a Republican and you think, hey, we're going to carry this, you get out and vote, too.

It's pretty much the the fable of the rabbit and the hare that you're talking about. Who's the hare?

I guess the hare is the person who visits their medical marijuana doctor and oversleeping rather than voting that day.

And how do you oversleep? You mean like sleep until Wednesday night? Get up on Tuesday.

That's happened. Yeah. Have you heard about Ohio? Well, that's a swing state.

Yeah, but have you heard what's going on there?

Uh, no, dude, the secretary of state, a Republican, has decreed that there that counties that are typically blue, generally blue, blue counties are not going to have weekend voting and their early voting hours are going to be short compared to red counties that are going to have weekend voting and longer early voting hours. And like there's no explanation for this whatsoever. See, that's my problem is like I know you probably can't do a nationwide everything's the same, but within the state, every district should have the exact same procedure, the same machines, the same like all of that should be the same.

I can't believe there's districts that have like here you do a punch card in here, you scribble with the number two pencil right here.

You just say it quietly into a booth and there's someone on the other side or you blow out a candle, one of two candles.

Yeah, there's another Simpsons.

It's pretty messed up, though. I think at the very least, we should be allowed to tar and feather elected officials who decide stuff like that. Anybody who's responsible for voter disenfranchisement, tarred and feathered, I guess. And that makes you an insurrectionist. Yeah. All right.

I always knew it was, uh. OK, well, if you want to know more about this weird process we have in the United States called the Electoral College. Yeah, you can type those words into the search bar at HowStuffWorks dot com. It'll bring up a handy and out of date, um, graph of how the votes were distributed in 2008. Is it out of date? 2008 was four years ago. Yeah, but. And it's still the same.

Well, then it's a snapshot of a moment in time though. It is. Anyway, it's still a good article. Electoral College, Hainey Search Bar, HowStuffWorks dot com. And it's hopeless for me.

I'm going to call this an Englishman, the Englishman who went up a hill and came down and more came down a more Deere's Chuck, Josh and Jerry and then parentheses. He actually says small high, I guess. Producer Matt. Oh, nice. A small high. Not don't not a full.

Hello, my name is Jack Mead and I'm an avid fan from England. Just started listening in October of 2011, just started in 2011. And tonight I just finished the 450 second podcast. I wish we had to be the sound maker. Um, the haymaker from gasoline with Josh and Chris Polet parentheses terrible Pritch update, uh, to the most recent shark attack episodes. It's been a wild and exciting ride. You guys have come a long way. I just listen to the first one to see the difference.

And not only is it missing the sweet dulcet tones of Charles W. Bryant, but Joshua's voice sounds very weird.

Yeah. And it sounded like we were recording in a canyon. Yeah. And I was really aggressive. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like, hey, what do you think? Huh? Huh. Oh, I can't even listen to you. Yeah. You poked me once. Yeah. Once. Anyway, I just want you guys to know your podcast has become a huge part of my life. Catching up with them has left me both a sense of achievement, but also great sadness.

See, I listen to the podcast pretty much any time when I'm not engaging with other human beings I've listened to over nine days worth of your voices in the space of ten months. I probably heard you two speaking more than my own fiancee's voice. I was thinking, man, what a lonely guy. But he's engaged.

Yeah, like, dude, you should prioritize here as parts going from that amount of awesomeness to just two episodes a week is making me feel confused and frightened. It's OK, Jack.

You know, it's strange. It's like this is a pretty frequent report we hear. Yeah. It's like a condition. Well, I like to bulk up you bulk list and then all of a sudden you have to wait like everybody else, like a Ashmont. I just did the Firefly Marathon. Yeah, it's good to think how I feel. You watch fourteen episodes of that in the movie and then you're cut off after four days. Yeah. There's not another one come in every week.

Yeah. So I'm just like looking at the walls now, wondering where Captain Taipans is. Is that what's. Yeah. I'm like sad. I'm trying to figure it out. Everyone else I've talked to. Oh yeah. More in Firefly years ago like everyone else. But we know you're paying. I'll be in my bunk. You don't have a bunk. I'd like to think that I'm your biggest fan in England, but I guess that is statistically improbable, very much enjoyed Chuck's terrible attempts at an English accent and your attempts at pronouncing our place names.

I've been wanting to email you guys since I got into the podcast, but want to catch up first in what you do is truly amazing and genuinely enjoy life. More with the podcast as a soundtrack when I'm crazy. I know you guys must get hundreds of emails a day. That's not true. So I don't expect a reply, but I'm just glad to know that you will read this. I look forward to the day that I can contribute information and maybe give an even get on this mail here.

So if I may make a quick suggestion, I would love a special podcast hosted by Emily and Yumi. I have no idea how to spell your wife's names, but he actually nailed it. Did he really? Yeah. Wow. And really. Wow.

And then he wants to hear a podcast how Chuck and Josh were my wives. He said it's a long shot, but you never know.

Know it's a pretty lonely call that the longest of shots, but a fine idea. Nevertheless, it is a good idea. Emily, be like get your beep button ready. All right.

Let me tell you a thing or two. Yeah, exactly. Well, who is that from? Jack Meade. Thanks, Jack. Well, it's a pretty awesome British name, isn't it? Jack Me makes you want to put on boxing gloves.

Yeah. So if you are a fan who is going through, why should we call this condition, I don't know, withdrawal.

Oh yeah.

Withdrawal. Yeah. I guess what it is. Yeah. You're going to stuff you should know.

Addiction, withdrawal. You need help. We will look into forming some sort of support group for you.

Let's do that degree. Any ideas on how to create such a support group, especially one that would have to be international and global and instantaneous? We're open to that. So we need to hear from you via Twitter as as podcasts, Facebook, dot com slash stuff. You should know or you can send us an email to stuff podcast that HowStuffWorks Dotcom.

Stuff you should know is a production of radios HowStuffWorks for more podcasts, my radio, is it the radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows?