What is the BEST argument for the Electoral College? What is the BEST argument against it? Edit: I made a follow-up video to this one: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/bNGHeZWDzd7cXZc.html

Voting is stupid we should have our candidates fight to the death in a cage match

Wait a minute, you're not Mr. Beast.

I am 100% in support of ranked choice voting. This, along with term limits for Congress, are two of the biggest changes we need to make in our government.

"the founding fathers wanted" is one of the worst arguments not only because of all the existing reasons people cite like "they didnt live in our world today" and "under a lockian social contract theory we have to voluntarily enter into our social contract and determine our own government and laws" but for the simple fact that the founding fathers were a big group of different people who constantly disagreed and bickered. They never wanted a single coherent thing and compromised. You brought this up briefly. I just feel anyone trying to rely on "the founding fathers wanted" should have to be much more specific who? At what time in their life? Did they change their opinion later?

Candidate: **has 38% of the popular vote** Electoral College: *WINS BY A 50 STATE LANDSLIDE VICTORY*

This guy seems like he's still upset about getting kicked out of Weezer before they made it big

From what I remember from my US political history class was that the founders feared someone like Julius Caesar who endangered the republic despite unanimous popularity. In such a situation they wanted the electoral college to have the power to deny such a person a win by vote. I believe they called it "tyranny of the majority?" Personally I think it was adequate gor the early 1800's but after that if such a scenario would happen such a decision by the electoral college would likely result in Civil War. Personally I think the founders fears of which was worse, tyranny of the majority or Tyranny of the minority, actually is demonstrated pretty well when you see how the House of Representatives vs the Senate was set up in how they represented voters.

I totally agree. When I first learned of this in childhood, I thought it was inane and misrepresentative of the people’s votes.

Fun Fact: The Electoral College was almost abolished in the year 1970 with bipartisan support from both Republicans & Democrats. President Richard Nixon even endorsed the amendment to replace the system with a two round vote system. It looked like 3/4ths of the state were going to ratified the amendment and it did pass in the house unanimously; but was filibustered in the Senate by Southern lawmakers who feared that with a direct election for president than African Americans in the south would count equally to white voters.

While we are at it, we should also get rid of gerrymandering. Then the government would truly be brought back to the people.

"Of the 10 people living in the room, 7 wanted the room painted blue and 3 wanted it painted red. But because the 7 people were standing close together we painted the room red." Logic.

Preaching to the choir, my friend. And nice touch the way you included the telltale call of the low information voter: “‘merica’s not a democracy; it’s a republic!“ SMH. Thanks for another great video!

CGP Grey: The electoral college is bad *everyone agrees* Mr. Beat: The electoral college is bad *civil war*

18k likes 11k dislikes Electoral College has determined that the Electoral College is NOT terrible. Thank you for your broad and widespread guidance Electoral College. Edit: Well this comment aged for sure lmfao

I would argue that the electoral college is more an expression of us being Federation than being a republic. It's designed to give each individual state representation rather than the people within those States. It's function is also outdated because it was designed with State politics being primary and the Federal system being secondary to the states. I do think that moving towards congressional districts voting would be more representative however I am in favor of true proportional electorates. As an example in 2016 my home state of Utah loaded for 46% Trump, 27% Hillary, and 22% McMullin so a 4/1/1 split would have been more accurate to what Utahns wanted. It may have even encouraged more people to vote for the 3rd party if more people thought they could show displeasure at both of the national parties' nominations.

I agree with you 100% about electoral college. Keep on educating! Other things I would change about the electoral process (at least for any federal office): 1) each potential candidate must submit an application with a resume and tax documents and finger printed. They will be thoroughly vetted by the FBI, Interpol, IRS. All results reported to the voting public. 2) each candidate will be given a fixed sum of money (I.e. $10K) to spend on campaign ads, etc. No one will take contributions from PACS or any special interest groups. 3) all candidates from any party running for office will not be excluded (marginalized) when events (I.e. debates) are held. I believe these are the type of changes that would level the playing field and elect leaders on merit rather than skin color and wealth.

FUN FACT: the 2nd definition for a republic is 'a country without a king or queen'. According to this defintion, North Korea is a republic while the United Kingdom is not. Talk about a meaningless distinction!

I like how he said there was still a third of people who thought the electoral college is a good system and then exactly a third of the like to dislike ratio was a third

I never want to hear what Steven Crowder thinks about ANYTHING!

When I first heard of the electoral college, I thought that it was a needlessly overcomplicated system that's not very transparent to the voters on what actually happens behind the scenes. EDIT: Now that I have found out that by winning the plurality of a state, you win the entire state's electors, the electoral college sounds even more stupid and lacks transparency even more. Seriously, having a proportional system in each state like Maine would do a lot to improve the electoral college. Or bring in MMP voting.

when you realize this channel is actually older than mrbeast

In addition: Without the electoral college, democratic candidates would be forced to campaign in Texas, where half the population votes democratic, while the Republican candidate would be obligated to campaign in California, where there are millions of Republican voters. Both would need to visit small states, because every vote would count. Let's ditch the Electoral College.

"We're not a democracy, we're a constitutional republic." Yeah. Kinda like I don't drive a vehicle, I drive a car.

I always found the electoral college extremely dumb. I am from Cali and I have conservative friends who will always tell me they feel their vote doesn’t matter because cali will always be blue. Think it’s dumb that a ton of citizens don’t feel like their vote matters

"candidates would just ignore the smaller states!" Easy fix for that! Just have every state do what Maine and Nebraska does. Have each Elector chosen by a district, not a state. Instead of winner-take-all for the entire state, each elector represents the 761,000 people of a voting district. In that event, *each district is equally important, no matter where it is in the country*

This video is 19 minutes long. 14 minutes after posting it, it already had 11 dislikes.

I think it makes campaigning more interesting tbh. Going into it idk who will win whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing

Why aren’t smart people like Mr. Beat not in charge in this country? Politicians are so frustrating

half of everyone liked that half of everyone hated that hmm I wonder why

Mr. Beat: *makes the video at the end of 2018 no where near an election on purpose me: watches it 6 days before the 2020 election

With the access to the technology we have today, voting can be done by its people and not these inconsistent and unhelpful representatives

Eventually when 80%+ of the population live in cities and their immediate suburbs the 12 largest will have 270 electoral votes in keeping with Congressional redistricting requirements. You could have the highest ever in history turn-out in the remaining 38 states with record low turn-out in the 12 largest states and it wouldn't matter the 12 largest states would easily prevail. By the way we're already at the point where 80% of Americans live in cities or the nearby towns. Once either Texas or Florida flip to the Democrats as both states have fallen to less than 5% Republican advantage, the path to 270 would require that Republicans flip three Democrat states to make up for the 28 or 38 electoral votes. Republicans are going to be absolutely HATING the electoral college in a few years.

Hey look, this video is 100% liked according to the electoral college!

-be me -sees video title -puts on hazmat suit -enters comment section

I am only halfway through and I am wanting to know if there is anything legally stopping anyone not associated with D.C. political parties from being on the Presidential ballots? I have always wanted to know if you actually had to be nominated by a party or if they are just yanking everyone's chain.

Election loser: "See, this is exactly why the electoral college needs to be abolished!" Election winner: "No, this is exactly why the elector college needs to be preserved!"

“Democracy is cringe, read some Aristotle” -John Doyle 2020

I think we should change it from winner takes all to proportional

Thanks for your KZfaq show!

Having grown up in northern Virginia (DC metro area), it used to surprise me that Virginia used to be a swing state. Having gone to college not near a big city in Virginia for the last four years, it no longer surprises me.

This is why we should start teaching civics again...

Holy moly. Mr. Beat is a fellow Kansan. I’ve watched a ton of the vids and never knew. That’s pretty cool

Thank you for this video! I've been arguing against the EC for a while now and one thing to consider that I didn't see in your video is that maybe it wasn't such a bad idea when representatives were still being added to the House to maintain consistent representation. In fact, many times I hear the argument that the EC was established to protect the smaller states, but that was NEVER the case... What is happening is that people are confusing the EC with the 5/8th rule, that WAS deigned to give smaller states more sway by allowing their citizens to count each of their slaves as 5/8ths of a person in the census that determines how many representatives a state gets. Of course the 14th Amendment made that obsolete. Leaving us with a more honest account of our representation. But then I *think* it was in 1910 - Congress decided to stop adding seats and the number froze at 435. THEN the problem started as the population surged in urban regions, forcing the citizens to share one representative with an ever increasing number of constituents. I think it's important to know this because it exposes the fact that it's not a static problem. It will actually get worse if urban regions continue to grow and rural region continue to stagnate.

“The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.” -Donald J. Trump, November 6, 2012

A quote from Benjamin Franklin as he left the secret confab which hammered out the U.S. Constitution. A woman asked what kind of government had been decided upon - a republic or a monarchy - Franklin replied, “A republic, Madam, if you can keep it.”

I really hate the electoral college. Having the college supreses anny attempt for a 3rd party or 5th to break out.

Roughly one third of the us voting population adhere to one of the three major parties, Dem, Rep, and Independent. Combined with modern communications and travel, it is far past time the EC was eliminated. I have been advocating for this ever since I became politically active in the early 1980's.

Maine has implemented Ranked Choice Voting!

All states should vote by congressional districts like Main and Nebraska.

Something I tell people when they say if we got rid of the electoral college then california would choose the president. Well, in 2020 the Republican candidate got more votes then the entire populations of the smallest 30 states... The Republican candidate got more votes in CA then in ANY other state. Yea, more people voted for the Democrate candidate but it's not a winner takes all with the popular vote. 6 million votes in CA just became completely useless. I don't know about you but I like to feel like my vote mattered and with the current, winner take all system, my vote doesn't matter in my state...

1 vote should always equal 1 vote

A republic is essentially a representative democracy.

America: communism is dangerous because there just just one almighty party Also America: *has only 2 parties that actually choose themselves*

Best argument for electoral college: it allows the two party duopoly to reign.

I enjoyed the video, and while I respect your opinion, I disagree with it; or at least most of it. It is possible I could be convinced of some Electoral College (EC) reforms, such as more careful selection of the actual electors, and perhaps splitting delegates based on the proportion of congressional districts won such as that used by Maine, but never it's abolishment. You suggest that Hillary should have won because she won the popular vote. In this, you make the mistake of discounting the other voters in the election: The States. These are sovereign entities with the same responsibilities and demands as an individual. The EC ensures states have proper representation in the election; similar to the way the Senate ensures this in the Legislature. You further suggest that 70% of Americans support abolishing the EC. I'm not convinced 70% of Americans understand the EC as initially envisioned and the arguments for its existence. This video, in my opinion, is an example of the misinformation and misrepresentation that surrounds the College. You brushed over the difference between a democracy and a republic. While you are correct in what you stated, I think you purposefully misunderstand what is being related. Conservatives are saying that our system of government is a representative republic and not a direct democracy (more accurately still, a Constitutional Federal Republic). For those interested, Madison explains why this form of government was preferred in Federalist # 10. I do agree with Mr. Beat that the current two party system negates some of the benefits of the republican system, but I would disagree with him that doing away with the EC would improve it. I contend it would do more damage. Hamilton, in Federalist #68, argues that the people must be confident in the electors and that those electors should be persons whom the people themselves select. So former party members or influential community leaders is not only expected but desired. Another important goal of the EC was to spread the votes among the many states so that no one region can exercise undue influence over another when selecting the executive. An argument can be made that this happens already, but I suggest the EC is not the reason for this condition. The two-party system, with the addition of a biased media (both 'right' and 'left'), conspires to inflate the polarization of the electorate such that there are large numbers of people who will vote for their party regardless of who is running. This leaves the undecided voters making the decisions for most of the elections, and that is why swing states are swing states. In the 2016 election, Donald Trump won because he chose to campaign in both the blue and the red states. He understood that he had to convince areas of the country not considered his base that they should vote for him. So in fact, in this case, the EC extracted from Trump precisely the kind of transregional attention Hamilton predicted. In contrast, Hillary Clinton ignored important blue regions because she was convinced those votes were hers. Let me also reply to the notion of 'winning the popular vote.' In the 2016 election, more people voted against both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump than voted for them (68.5 million and 71.5 million against, respectively. Those third party voters do matter. I voted for neither, for example, because I view both Trump and Clinton unfit for office, albeit for different reasons). So yes, Clinton won more individuals than Trump; but Trump won more states than Hillary. Both of these constituencies require a campaigns attention; Trump provided that attention, and he was rewarded for doing so. But the fact that either candidate was opposed by more people than they were supported is a much bigger problem than the EC (Those figures above are the rounded up numbers of Democrat, Republican and third-party votes cast). One last reason why I think leaving the EC alone is a simple one; the system is working despite all the arguments to the contrary. We peacefully transfer power every 8 years (though on occasion we have a one-term president) and very rarely is that transfer to a member of the outgoing president's party, and we have done this since the republic was founded. This means the electorate isn't hostage to either money or ideology. That is my opinion. There is so much more than could be argued on this point, but I've probably already lost most of the folks reading this, so I guess I'll end here.

10:20 Nevada is also a swing state, hence why Las Vegas gets so much attention during elections

My biggest issue with the Electoral College is faithless electors. I believe that each state should outlaw faithless electors and if any elector attempts to vote for another candidate that they didn’t pledge to vote for, they should immediately be fired and replaced by another elector and that should apply for all 50 states.

Sorry, the goal was for giving smaller states more influence so as not to be voiceless...I am not wanting my state voiceless. Your arguments are better than most I've heard. I live in France with up to 20 candidates which narrows down to 2 after a first vote and then we have to vote again.

Puppet: We live in a Republic Mr. Beat: We live in a Democracy Me: We live in a society

But wait MrBeat, without the electoral college, we wouldn’t have had our lord and savior Rutherford B. Hayes as our 19th President.

I just drove through Kansas for the first time, down 81, its a very nice and quiet place, and the people are very friendly from who I met, and that's a Canadian saying that.

Many state legislatures attempted to emulate the house and senate formula used by the federal government. I am not sure how it was structured but the Supreme court struck it down and required one man-one vote representation in both house chambers in the individual states. One solution would be to not count the senator's 100 votes. Reduce each state's electoral vote by 2 votes.

One way to reform the Electoral College, would be rather than a state giving all their electoral votes, they proportionally represent their state, in other words, states would be able to show their voting pattern which is reflected in the Electoral College. Basically, if California for example distributed its 55 electoral votes to reflect the republican supporting counties and the democrat supporting ones. It would (I word it cautiously), in an ideal world probably better reflect the popular vote

I did the math one time. To win a majority of the population, you'd have to win the top 40 cities and their suburbs. And you can't win them by a simple majority. You have to win them by 100%. There is no city that goes 100% for a candidate let alone suburbs. St. Louis city went 80% for Clinton, but the metropolitan area as a whole went to Trump. Even if you only focused on those 40 metro areas, that covers a wider range geographically than candidates typically do now. You have to keep in mind, there are many metro areas that extend into 2 or even 3 states. I have lived in 2 separate metro areas that extended into 3 states.

Great video. I agree with you whole heartedly the electoral college is outdated, undemocratic and the arguments against reforming it are typically pretty dumb. I had one quick question how did you calculate the proportion between people from Wyoming and California in your voting example? I'm trying to figure it out and come up with cool measures to show how diluted Californians voting power is because of the inclusion of senators in the calculation of the states electoral college votes.

This video just changed my view and opinion of the Electoral College. Thank you Mr. Beat!

I would advocate for reforming the Electoral College, at least to eliminate the winner-take-all rule as an option.

A Republic is a system of government where a series of representatives are voted in by the people to represent them. Some have called this a Representative Democracy, but true democracy is where the popular vote can decide everything.

Thank you for showing the episode of Adam Ruins Everything. I've referenced his show many times. I completely agree with abolishing the Electoral College. Great content.

My 8th grade teacher used the 1960 world series as an analogy for the electoral college. The Yankees outscored the Pirates 55-27 but the Pirates won the World Series 4 games to 3.

I was really hoping you would talk about ranked choice as a solution. Ranked with runoffs seem to be our best chance at better representation

It's really simple. Those folks are pissed you took away their great grandparents' slaves

Broke: We live in a society Woke: We live in a republic

The "faithless elector" problem is the easiest to solve. Simply change from flesh-and-blood electors to virtual electors determined solely by vote count in the state in question. That is, if the Rhode Island election is won by candidate B, then the electoral college votes automatically get tallied for candidate B. Having all states use the Maine/Nebraska method is a really good idea if the EC is to be kept. A more complicated adjustment would involve removing the 435 representative limit while also redefining the necessary population for a district. For example, set district size as 1 per 1 million votes (rounded to nearest million, with a minimum of 1 per state). This would actually decrease the number of representatives from 435 to (currently) 332. Another change would be to reduce the senate from 2 senators per state to 1 per state. Pretty much all of these would need a constitutional amendment.

Keep going hard Mr. Beat. Just came across your channel, you got some good content 🔥

I think the electoral college should be split proportionally, so for example if you win 40% of the popular vote in California, you win 40% of the state's electoral votes (22 out of 55).

Me: Coming up with the greatest possible solution to the Electoral College. Me: Realizing that Maine and Nebraska already do it.

here in Brazil, we solved the problem of "being elected with less than 50% of the votes" a long time ago... we call it the "2º turn". If no candidate has more than 50% of the votes, we have another turn of voting, with just the 2 candidates with more votes. so the winner will have to make more than 50% of the votes and are just 2 to choose. all problems solved. In the first turn, you don't need to make a "utility choice" (to the candidate that has more chance against the guy you don't want to be elected) because every vote that is not to the favorite helps to lead the election to the 2º turn. so if a candidate has 40% of the votes but 60% don't want him elected, people don't need to change their votes to the second place to win, people can vote to their favorite and the election will have a 2 turn. the candidate with 40% in the first turn will loose in the second, even if he was the candidate with more votes in the 1º turn. it's a more simple (to the voters, it's harder to make the structure of the election twice) way than ranked-choice voting. and our election it's on Sundays, not Tuesdays. and it's a holiday for those that have to work on Sundays. and all votes are equal. and all votes are electronic (and very very safe, it has a prize of millions for anyone who can hack an election. true, if you prove you can change the results of the election, the government will pay you a fortune. no one ever won), so 2 hours after the votes stop (in the majority of the country, we have two time zones, so 1 hour after the votes stop in the late time zone) we already have the results. in municipal elections, the majority of cities have the results less than a half-hour after the votes stop.

People only care about this issue one way or another if it helps or hurts them.

I've always found the language of "a republic not a democracy" bizarre. It's like saying Britain isn't an island, it's a union of 3 nations. The two things are not exclusive.

More people need to be made aware of ranked choice voting, no matter what your political view is ranked choice voting seems the most fair system I am aware of.

I'd never understood the argument "The founding fathers wanted this" The Founding Fathers are dead! They died 200 years ago! Democracy isn't a religion, you should not have to follow the words of a guy who died before your grand father was born XD

my personal political beliefs have never really lined up with either of the 2 major parties so honestly never felt like my vote mattered. living in a state where majority is against me, i normally just dont vote.

Besides getting rid of the electoral college, the U.S. also needs to pass a law banning corporate campaign "donations" (i.e. legalized bribes) so that politicians stop serving corporate interests and CEOs and start serving the people who voted for them. That would end the current state of plutocratic, oligarchic corporatocracy, and turn the U.S. into a democracy.

You should debate Crowder.

So is the part that was not said that each party has electors on "standby" waiting to see which party will win that state?

"Why should people living in big cities choose the president for people living in rural areas!? That's why we need to electoral college!" Why should people in rural areas get to pick the president for people living in cities? They shouldn't! Let the person who gets the most votes from the most voters become the president. Our current systems enable terrible people to hold power. Not just the electoral college, but paywalls existing as barriers to political candidacy. It costs $5k to run for president or for congress. Who's got that much money to throw at a job they might not get, and skip working for the better part of a year to promote themselves as a candidate? The US has 300M people. I guarantee you that George Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden are the best and brightest (certainly not the most ethical) our country has to offer.

We should reform the electoral college to make an odd number of votes. WHY even have the POSSIBILITY of ties broken by undemocratic means???

Democracy is the "how" and the Republic is the "what." We exercise our right to elect our representatives via voting, which is the how. The government structure is the "what."

Thank you for your informational video. Loved it.

5:14 You leave out that after the Treaty of Paris was signed ending the Revolutionary War there was not ONE country called the United States of America. According to the Treaty there were thirteen individual colonies. Five years later the thirteen states decided that they needed some type of Federal Government. So, the Federal Government came out of the states, not the other way around. Each of the fifty states is entitled to a say in each federal election. There is a popular vote for the president, and it is in each state.

“Ranked choice voting would solve this problem” yep! Agreed

Crowder meant “America has never been a [direct] democracy”, that is pretty clear

To be fair, in California police will often pick up homeless people and bring them to cities. Homeless people in areas like El Dorado Hills are constantly moved to Sacramento. Some people are forced into cities.

The geometro and PT cruiser joke made me laugh out loud lmao

Popular vote: everyone's vote is equal Electoral college: some people's vote some worth more than others Inexplicably still a lot of people in the US: the electoral college allows everyone to have a voice

Nobody really points out the real problem if rural America is ignored in Presidential elections. If it becomes a problem for us, sure, maybe 15%-20% of the US population may live here... but have you considered the ramifications if we decide to peacefully protest? All trucking crosses our Interstates and 80% of all US food is grown here.

holy crap i've never heard or thought about rank-based voting, but that sounds amazing. I love that idea.

This is even better than I expected.