[Drums] What is the electoral college?
Is it a place?
Nope. The electoral college is the process we use to choose a president.
But wait! Aren't we a democracy?
Isn't voting how we choose a president?
The United States is an indirect democracy.
Okay - let's break it down.
In a direct democracy,
you cast your vote for president,
and the candidate with the most votes nationwide becomes president.
This is also known as the popular vote.
But the United States is an indirect democracy
So there's an extra step: the electoral college.
Each state is assigned a certain number of
electoral college votes equal to the number of U.S. senators
and congressional representatives it has.
When you cast your vote for president, the candidate who gets the most votes
in your state wins
all that states electoral college votes.
In all but two states,
it doesn't matter if a candidate wins the popular vote by a slim margin
or in a landslide.
Winner takes all the electoral college votes.
For example, in California,
even a candidate who wins the popular vote by one
gets all 55 of the state's electoral college votes.
To become president, a candidate has to win enough states to earn
at least 270 electoral college votes.
So, why do we need an extra step?
And whose idea was this anyway?
Well, when the nation's founders were writing the Constitution,
they couldn't agree on how to elect a president.
Some wanted a direct democracy with the president chosen by popular vote.
But others wanted Congress to choose the president.
Because they feared that a straight popular vote
would give large states with more people an advantage
over smaller states.
The compromise was the electoral college system.
Has it worked?
Sure.
91 percent of the time.
In 53 out of 58 presidential elections, the winner of the
popular vote has been the same person who won the electoral college vote.
But five times, including in 2000 and 2016,
the winner of the popular vote nationally didn't become president.
So, does my vote really count?
Yes.
Your vote counts. Just in a different way depending on the election.
Go vote.
