In recent months, we've seen a lot of republicans
come out trying to defend the electoral college
is more and more Democrats come out saying
that we need to get rid of this archaic system
that is clearly rigged to benefit one party
over the other, and according to a new study
by the University of Texas at Austin, that
is 100% the case researchers at the University
of Texas at Austin went through polling data
and created for the last 30 years of elections,
all sorts of different hypothetical match-ups
and races, elections and outcomes multiple
for every single possible scenario.
And what they found in each and every one
of these scenarios is that when the election
is close, the electoral college always gives
the advantage to the Republicans.
Here is how slate explains some of the findings
from this report.
A Republican who earned 49% of the two party
popular vote could expect to win the Electoral
College about 27% of the time.
A Democrat with that share of the vote would
have just an 11% chance of winning at 49 and
a half percent of the popular vote.
A Republican would have enjoyed a 46% probability
of walking away with the presidency versus
a 21% chance for the Democrat in a photo finish
where the two parties split the vote, about
50 50 Republican would have had a 65% chance
of spending the next four years in the Oval
Office.
So even when it's neck and neck, if the vote
totals were relatively even, even though the
Democrats would have a slight edge on the
popular vote, the electoral college would
do what researchers call inversion and give
the election, give the White House to the
loser of the popular vote.
Which in these instances was the Republicans.
Three Republicans have won the presidency
since the year 2000 George W. Bush was two
of them.
Donald Trump was one of them and only one
of those elections did that Republican win
the popular vote.
So there's only been one legitimate republican
president in the 21st century, but that's
only because he was the incumbent after the
electoral college installed him in the year
2000 the 2000 election.
The electoral college is absolute garbage
and unfortunately this is the kind of thing
that was designed to do, not to protect us
necessarily from people like Donald Trump.
Sure.
On paper, that's, that's what it means, but
what it was really done or why it was really
created was to prevent slaves and former slaves
from rising up growing too populous and electing
the person they felt would protect them rather
than the interests of, well, a white, wealthy
landowners that that's why this thing exists.
Folks, go back and look at the history.
Look at what some of the smartest people in
this country have written about and how they've
explained it and that is exactly what you're
going to find and yet still we have republicans
out there and some really stupid centrist
Democrat commentators out there trying to
defend this thing saying, oh, this is nonsense.
If we get rid of the electoral college, candidates
are going to ignore certain states.
Um, I don't know if you guys are smart enough
to do research.
I assume you're not, but how about your Google
state's not visited by presidential candidates
and then type in the election year after that?
It's gonna shock you because I've done it,
unfortunately, I can't remember off the top
of my head, which states were not visited
in 2016 but I know it was at least three or
four of them, maybe even five.
So the argument that, oh, they'll just ignore
certain states.
They're doing that now.
Idiots.
They're doing it now.
They're ignoring certain states.
And that's ridiculous.
Oh, suddenly, 200,000 people in Wyoming, instead
of being worth only three electoral college
votes, they're worth 200,000 popular votes.
That's what abolishing the electoral college
does.
It makes Wyoming in play.
It makes California in play for Republicans.
It makes Texas in play for the Democrats.
And maybe just maybe it stops Florida from
being the biggest swing state in the country.
If it's always about even right.
Instead of buying over 27 votes, you're splitting
each right couple million here, a couple million
there, and then you move on.
We get rid of the entire swing state idea
and we put it back to the people and it's
very hard to get rid of the electoral college.
Obviously.
That's the way this is designed.
We are not a true democracy.
We are a democratic republic, and that's just
kind of stupid, but we can't change that yet.
Maybe someday we will.
Maybe someday, maybe when the first Democrat
in modern times gets elected without the popular
vote, but with the electoral vote, Oh, you
can bet your ass that Republicans will be
working on abolishing the electoral college
the very next day.
