 we're talking, is somebody recording? Beth, are you? Not yet, but I will be as soon as we're ready. Okay, are we ready to begin? Right? Yes? No? Eddie, I'm going to start recording now. So, Sandy, you can do the intro, okay? Yeah, yes. Hi, Jared. How are you? Okay. Good to see everybody. Who is that? That's, that's Joanne. Joanne and Tim. Yeah. Okay. So, why don't you start, Beth? Okay. Go ahead and do the intro. We're recording. So, we're here tonight with Jared Carter, professor from the Vermont Law School who'll talk to us tonight about the Electoral College, a very important institution in our history, but also in our present. Since the president of the United States, the president elected the United States, Joe Biden has not been confirmed yet because that election that was held a month ago or so now can only be confirmed or denied by the Electoral College. And so Jared is here to talk about the Electoral College, how it works into our elections and into our lives, and talking about the historical, why it was constructed the way it was, and also how it was going to work out in the present election. So, we're going to have Jared and remember Jared, leave a lot of time for questions because it's a very confusing topic. Okay, so Jared, take it away. Yeah, thanks. Great to be back. Good to see lots of familiar faces as always. So, as Sandy said, I'm going to talk a bit about the Electoral College and I know I think there was a Vicki talk on the Electoral College a while ago. So, I'm sort of breaking this up into thirds. The first third is focused on what the Electoral College process is, because I think there's a lot of confusion around that. I don't think I don't know if there's anybody that knows exactly how it works, because there haven't been opportunities for courts to get involved in many instances. So, I'll talk about sort of how it procedurally works in summary and we can get into some of the details maybe if we if there's questions or we want to go there and I can do my best to answer them. Then I want to talk about, so what is it? Where did it come from? I think there's some sort of popular myths about where the Electoral College comes from and why we have it. I want to talk a little bit about that and my views on where it actually comes from and this is why the title was the original sin. So, you might start to guess as to where I think it comes from, why we have it or why we initially created it and then I do want to just chat a little bit about, okay, so where do we go from here? Sort of where where what are the options moving forward if we like or don't like the Electoral College? And yeah, I'll try to be fairly brief and then we can sort of chat and talk about it both from a contemporary perspective and historically or sort of pro prospectively as well. So, the Electoral College itself comes from the essentially from the Constitution and the process by which the executive is elected as we know. There are, I believe, 538 total possible electoral votes and as we know, sort of popularly speaking, we vote on Election Day. Those votes are tabulated at the state level and then what happens from there and this is sort of the process we're in now, at least for another week or so, is that those vote counts at the state level, our personal votes, are tabulated and certified in many states at the county level. So, that's why you see sort of debates over, you know, Dane County or Detroit specific counties because each county and its election officials will certify at the county level and then that goes to the state and the state has to essentially go through and once again certify that those votes were accurate and that has to happen. The exact language is on the and this is sort of bizarre but it's the first, excuse me, it's the, that's for the actual vote itself. But the electors meet at the state capitol on the first Monday after the second Wednesday and that's why I had to read it because it's hard to remember. The electors in all the states have to meet in their respective state capitals on the first Monday after the second Wednesday of December. So, if you do the math, I believe that means December 13th, give or take a day or two, my math, my dates might not be exact. The electors across the entire country will meet in their state capitals and essentially vote their electoral votes, right? One of those 270 that you need to become president of the total of 538. So, here's where it sort of gets complicated in many respects. In 48 of 50 states, the electors are allocated in full, right? Whoever wins a plurality of the popular vote gets all of the electoral votes, right? That happens on December 13th. Maine and Nebraska are the only two states that split their electoral votes. So, that's why you saw, I think in Maine, which I believe has four electoral votes, three for Biden is what they project, one for Trump. I'm not sure where Nebraska felt, whether that was split or not. I don't think it was. But 48 of 50 states in the District of Columbia award all of their votes to the plurality. Then what happens is that consistent with state law in each of the 50 states, those votes are sent to Congress. And so, I think there's some questions out there as to whether or not the electors have to vote with the popular majority in each state. So, in other words, do all the, in Pennsylvania, do all of the electors, if Biden is certified to have won the popular vote, do they all have to go with the popular vote? And in 38 states, the answer is yes. In 38 states, the electors by state law have to vote consistent, I believe it's 38, vote consistent with the popular vote. So, that means in 12 states, they do not. In some of those 38, there's actually a penalty in which what they call a faithless elector, in other words an elector who was legally required to vote a certain way but doesn't, and it does happen from time to time, there were some in 2016, can be penalized in some way. And in fact, just last year, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the state's ability to penalize folks in some way, financially or otherwise, for not complying with a state requirement that they vote in a particular way based on the popular vote. And so, in most states, that's the way that it has to work. But the either way, the legislature or in some states, the governor certifies the electoral count to Congress. We still don't have a president even at that point. We still don't have an actual elected president consistent with the process. Congress receives all of those, and then after, I believe it's January 6th is when it happens, after the next Congress is seated, which is on January 3rd, the new Congress meets the House and votes essentially to elect the president based on those electoral votes to certify those electoral votes. Is somebody that's not muted? Randy, I think. Randy. Anyway, I just could hear some people. So anyway, so the Congress meets to certify essentially elect the president based on those electoral votes, and it's a majority, a majority wins. So for instance, the votes from Vermont would go to Peter Welch. In other words, he would he would get to vote our electoral votes. No, no, no. We send, so Vermont will send the tabulation of our electorate. I'm not sure who our electors are in Vermont. No, you never know. Yeah, I'm not sure who they are. So that's a fair question. But whoever they are, they will vote. And Vermont is one of the 38 states, I believe, that requires the electors to vote by state law consistent with the majority or the plurality winner in the popular vote. But in any event, when that gets to Congress, then Congress votes and it's a simple majority in order to win. If there is no majority, and this is set forth in law and in federal law, not in the Constitution, so if there is no majority, then Congress essentially calls a special election and the members of Congress vote to elect the president. And that is done by state. So each state gets one vote. It's not by, you know, the houses is allocated, you know, right now the house is controlled overall by the Democrats. But in fact, more states have Republican Congress people than Democrats. And so what could, in theory, happen is those elect those Congress people would vote their state as directed by their state house and you could end up in a situation where Congress could go the opposite direction if it's so desired from even what the electoral college selected. The Senate is responsible for voting the vice president. Obviously, none of this has ever happened. There's a couple instances in history where elections were disputed in some manner, the most recent being obviously the hanging chads of 2000. And the Supreme Court decided, in that case, to stop the vote count, the recount counting. And if you recall, Al Gore then said, I'm not going to push this any farther. He could have, in theory, continued to try to get the state legislatures to do, you know, essentially his bidding and say, you know, switch the electors, or they could have put, he could have petitioned the Congress people to vote differently. But if you recall, he said, I'm not going to push it any further. In other words, he stopped. Right. But that was like a month later too, wasn't it? Yeah, I think it was maybe 21 days or 30 days. I forget the exact 30. I actually thought 37. Yeah, I thought, yeah. So that's how it could play out. And during that, during the, by the way, during the, oops, sorry, during the the discussion over actually essentially certifying the electoral votes in Congress, any Congress person can sort of stand up and object. So it could be a very, normally it's sort of a rubber stamp process, as we know. But there are multiple mechanisms and opportunities for Congress people to get up and object. And I read an article today where an Alabama Congress person, I forget his name, has promised to do that on behalf of Donald Trump, no matter what, whether he actually does it or not, you know, remains to be seen. And that person can't ultimately change the outcome per se, but they can certainly make it, it's essentially the equivalent of a filibuster, but not with the exact same teeth. So I do think that we're going to probably continue to see sort of a bumpy process, to say the least. And that's why that in constant, in connection with the underpinnings of why we have this process, that's why I think it's a terrible process to continue going through for our country, not just because of the all of the legal machinations that any candidate could conceivably try to use to change the outcome, but also I think the basic principles of one person, one vote. And when you look at the historical rationale, which I think is not the one that most people consider, it becomes even more troubling. So that in a nutshell is sort of how the process works, we can certainly go back and visit that again. Now, where did it come from? Why do we have? I wanted to interrupt a bit. Does anybody have any questions about that? Any questions? Okay, so in other words, what you're also arguing, it's not over either. No, absolutely not. I mean, I think, I mean, I have my personal views, I don't, I think in the end politically, that we're not going to see Trump is going to lose the election, and Joe Biden's going to get inaugurated on January 20th, consistent with the Constitution. But I do think that President Trump will continue to try these different levers that are out there that exist as a result of the Electoral College, you know, I have personally serious questions as to whether he legitimately believes these are are going to be successful, or if it's more about creating an atmosphere we can, where he can raise another 170 million dollars to use for his pack. Yeah, I mean, I get solicitations every day still, multiple solicitations from him. Okay, Sally has a question, but I think Jared was just going to go into that anyway. But Joanne, which is where, why was it established in the first place? I think that's the second part, but I think that Jared will talk about that in a minute. Where, somebody else had a question. Joanne? No, I was just saying that I think he was, he's only trying to get enough money either. I mean, that's why it's continuing. Right, I don't raise a hundred and thirty million dollars. I think he's going to try every legal shenanigans, every legal. I'm not going to call it a shenanigan because it is the process. He has a right to do it. People who's kind of getting him to concede are crazy. He's not going to concede. He's going to do every legal angle, and he has the right to do it. But anyway, so Sally had the question, Jared. Go ahead. I think Robin has one too, maybe. Robin, Robin. Yeah, I was just wondering, does anyone know who our three electors are and why kept so obscure? Why don't we know? I think because they don't want you to know. Simple, they don't want you to know. Isn't it publicly announced somewhere? I'm sure we could find it out. I mean, I'd be, if somebody wants to google it while we're, while we're chatting. I can't google it. I did, I did at one point, and this is what I learned. Yeah. I learned that they are appointed by the legislative body, and that usually is quite partisan. For instance, there's three Republican electors and three Democrats, and then the, whichever way the state goes, those three are the ones. And they would cast their votes. That's normally how it works. Right. Yeah, that is, yeah. But the Supreme Court has said, actually they said in sort of superfluous language, but they said it nonetheless in the Bush v. Gore case, they intimated that states could actually change midstream. So in other words, if Vermont wanted to change its rules right now and say, actually the electors have to vote for the loser, even after the fact, the Vermont, the U.S. Supreme Court intimated that they could probably do that, or they could potentially do that. Let's put it that way, maybe probably is too strong. In other words, the legislatures, the states retain ultimate authority for determining how their electors are assigned and how those electors should vote. And that's part of this history that I'll talk about in a moment. But is there reality? Yeah. Can I interrupt for one moment? Yeah, of course. I think the Constitution or the Supreme Court has established that the state's legislature are in charge of the process that you, but not that they can switch at the last minute. There was some case I read about, some I don't know how long ago, in which it becomes a legal issue and a governor could then veto what the legislature does. The legislative act, it's not extraneous from the normal process of passing laws. So a governor could veto a change in the slate of the electorate. That's why I'm... I think there's, I think, so obviously none of this has ever happened. And so I think, you know, we don't, I think you're right in the sense that we don't know what the outcome of that would be. But there were serious concerns that that could happen, that the legislature would send its slate, the governor would send its slate, and then Congress still has that ultimate authority to decide which slate do we take. But yes. And I think there's another question that's sort of tangential or somewhat connected to what you're getting at, Tim. But if the legislature, let's say the legislature decided that we're no longer gonna, we're no longer gonna follow a process whereby electors are required to vote with the popular vote in the state. If they were gonna change that rule, would that require the governor's signature the way a normal law does? And if so, then could the governor veto it? And we'd be even in more limbo. What about the 17 states that have signed on to committing their electors to a popular vote? There are 17 states. Yes, yes, yes, 196 electoral votes in total that have signed on to that. That passed, right? Well, so you gotta get to 200. So what, yeah, so I was gonna talk about that. At the end, we talk about the future, but I mean, it's perfectly fine to chat now. So yeah, so there's, it's the national popular vote compact. And it essentially, as you said, says that since states retain the authority to decide how their electors are ultimately required to vote, states could pass a law at the state level to say our electors must vote consistent with the national popular vote, not with our state vote, but with the national popular vote. And what that would do is it once they, once the equivalent of 270 electoral votes, states have joined that, that equal the number of 270 or more, that would essentially mean that the popular vote would always win. And you'd never end up in a situation where the popular vote lost, but the electoral college went for the other person. That's kind of an end run around the constitution about constitutional amendment. Absolutely. And I think there's definitely questions. I mean, again, hasn't been tested. There is a, there's both the constitution and there's also something called the, well, it actually comes from the constitution, but the state compact law that Congress passed that says when states enter into compacts, normally they have to get congressional sort of blessing to enter into a compact that's enforceable. Now, again, there's sort of a question here because the constitution explicitly provides that the states retain the authority over their electoral process. And so there's a big question, I think whether that Congress, that compact law actually applies because the constitution says the states are the ones that get to decide this and the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore and elsewhere has affirmed that. So I think there's certainly, I mean, if I had to read the tea leaves, I would say that the national popular vote compact would be constitutional and legal if it were to be adopted by the 270, by the 270 electors or more. But it's an open question that I'm sure would end up at the US Supreme Court if and when another couple of states sign on to it. Okay, well, why don't we go into Sally's question about why, why this, and why we called this title of this talk also, the original saying institutional racism. Okay. Yeah, so I mean, look, there's competing views over this, over the origins of the electoral college. And there's certainly evidence that folks can pull to support different views. I think the one that we're sort of popularly taught about the electoral college and why it exists, at least what I was taught sort of in grade school and high school, maybe even in college civics classes, do they do still teach civics in high school? No. In grade school, I don't know. But they, but the idea was that the electoral college would prevent big populist states from sort of dominating the election of the president because votes would be distributed and the president candidates would have to have geographically diverse constituencies in order to get to the 270 electoral votes. That was sort of the idea that was sort of popularly taught. And I suppose there is some validity to that. On the other hand, if that was the goal, where do the presidential candidates go now? Michigan, Wisconsin, maybe they spend some time in Ohio still, Florida, I mean, the swing states are still the states where they focus. So it hasn't really in any material respect changed the fact that most of the energy is focused on a small number of states. But if you look at the congressional, the convention and some of the Federalist papers that the founders wrote under fake names, of course, but that they wrote, I think what becomes clear is that the electoral college actually comes from our original sin and that slavery and the power play dynamics between the North and the South at the time. Here's why. So I'm sure probably many of you have heard of the three-fifths clause that was in the original Constitution until we fought a civil war and got the 14th, 15th Amendment, 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. And that three-fifths clause was essentially this compromise that says we are going to count, they didn't say slaves, but I think they said other people or all those other people not accounted for as three-fifths a person. The South wanted that because obviously when you're allocating congressional seats based on population, the South wants to get more seats, but they don't want to let at the time African slaves vote. So they came up with this compromise that says for the purposes of counting congressional seats, enslaved Africans will be three-fifths of a person. And that had the impact of increasing the number of congressional seats that the South got. And that was this compromise to allow the Constitution to move forward because you needed to get Southern states to sign on. And without that, they weren't going to do it. And so that was this great compromise, this three-fifths clause. On its face, it has absolutely nothing to do with the Electoral College except that it essentially becomes part of the Electoral College like this. And Madison acknowledged this, if you look back at Federalist 68, the Federalist paper number 68, and the Constitutional Convention, the same dispute arose with respect to how do we elect the president. And at the time, and this is what Madison points out at the Constitutional Convention, at the time voting laws were much more diffuse and liberal in the North. In other words, there were a lot more voters in the North, not just because of enslaved Africans who obviously couldn't vote at the time, but the voting laws in the North were much more liberal and so many more people could vote. And so the South was very concerned that if we have a popular vote, the North will be able to elect their president every single time. And that's going to threaten our peculiar institution of slavery. And so Madison points this out, and the compromise became, in many respects, the Electoral College because what that did is the same way the three-fifths clause allocated how many seats one state gets in Congress, it also allocated how many electoral votes a state got, right? Because obviously the South didn't want to allow Black people to vote in a presidential election, but they wanted them to count for the purposes of their Electoral College votes. And so they followed that same three-fifths model in allocating Electoral College votes in the South and the North. And that was what allowed them to move forward with the parts of the Constitution that dealt with the executive and how the executive would be elected. It was a compromise to appease Southern slaveholders and Madison and others talk about this explicitly in those terms. And I think, yeah. It seems to me though that within that Constitutional Convention there were two positions put forward to establish the population of the United States at the time in the census. The North argued only count free people, correct? Only count in the census free people. Yeah, I'm not sure about the census. Free people. That was for the census. It wasn't for who gets to vote. It was for the census, okay? So the North said count every person who is free, which might have even included some free Blacks, because there were free Blacks in the North. In the North. In the North. And the South argued count every person, correct? I'm not sure about for the census purpose. I'm not sure. Well, because the census determines the population which determines the number of people in Congress. Right. Correct? Correct. No, and I'll tell you, I'll say why it does not include Native Americans. But anyway, so there was an argument the three-fifths compromise came out of that because the South said if you don't go our way we're going to secede. Right. Or not join. We're not going to join. We won't join because the Constitution was a compact. So they said if you don't go our way we're out of here. The North said we can't have that because then we'll be taken over again by England. We had to keep the South. And so that was the three-fifths rule. But the South still got to control Congress in the three-fifths rule because it still gave them more population which gave them still more control over the Electoral College. And Grant asked an interesting question. Would they have counted Native Americans? No, because Native Americans were not in the jurisdiction of the United States. The Native Americans always argued that they had their separate nations. Well, in fact, I'll get the exact language with the Constitution until the 14th Amendment explicitly excluded Native Americans not taxed, I believe was the language it used. Right. I could get you the exact language but it excluded them from that process. They didn't want to be included anyway because they thought of themselves as did the United States at the time as having their separate nations. They were not included in the nation that was being born of the United States. Yeah. And there's still, I mean, the reservations are still quasi-sovereign in some respects. Yeah, but they're not. They're not. I mean, they are citizens of the United States now. Yeah, and the 14th Amendment, that was all part of that as well. And they got rid of all of that language in the initial Constitution through the 14th Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause. But so, yeah, absolutely, Sandy, that's exactly right. So the three-fifths clause not only set, well, set the census and thereby set the number that each state would have in Congress, how many reps at the initial phase and thereby set the number of electoral votes at each state. Right. So it really, it really runs through all of these things. Ask Sally. Does that clear that up, Sally? Sally? I can't, we can't, I can't hear you. Anyway, okay, go ahead, Jared. Yes. Yeah. Are there other questions about that? There's a brilliant book on this whole subject and it's rather short. It's called The Negro President by the historian Gary Wills. And he explains how slavery worked itself into the initial Constitution and into the Electoral College in a really short, really brilliant way. And it was really, they called the Negro President, the Federalist, called Thomas Jefferson was the first Negro President because he was elected in the Electoral College based on the three-fifths rule. And it's interesting because they also said things like he had fathered so many slaves that he was really the president that had created so much population in the South by himself, but that's how he won. Yeah. Well, and it had an immediate effect because I think it was the election of 1800. If only three people had been counted, John Adams would have defeated Thomas Jefferson. But obviously he didn't and it was as a result of the additional votes that the South got through that three-fifths provision. I have another question, Jared. In 1800, I don't believe there was even a popular vote at all. I mean, when was there anything other than the Electoral College? When did it was instituted a popular vote at all? Well, the Electoral College is from, I mean, that's from the founding. I'm not certain it was ever based on the vote of the general population at all. Yeah. When did we get a general election? Yeah, a good question. I'm not sure when we, I mean, initially there was concerns too with respect to why they wanted to adopt the Electoral College because we have this vast country. How are we going to be able to communicate the results across all of this space? And so if we have electors, it'll avoid that problem. But I do think from the founding, I believe that every state had a pot. You got to vote for the president, even if that wasn't, yeah, I'm pretty sure. I just don't know. I'd like to know that. And but there's another reason for the Electoral College, and it was because the founders, there are a lot of reasons, but the other reason I believe was that they didn't trust the mob. The founding fathers never trusted democracy in the first place or never trusted one man, one vote. So that was the third, I think, reason. But the main reason I think was about slavery. Yeah, because you wanted to vote. Yeah, I think that was a big part of it. But I think, you know, so yeah, there's definitely language that gets to your point. I think I was just looking at an article that ostensibly quotes George Mason. And his quote is, it would be unnatural to refer the choice of the proper candidate for the chief magistrate to the people, as it would be to refer a trial of colors to a blind man. So certainly there was the idea that you can't trust the people in a certain way. And certainly, I think, I see people nodding and smiling. And I mean, I think it, there's only been a few instances where there's been a split. But obviously we've had quite, and I don't know if this is a representation of the division in our country, but it always strikes me as odd that we've had two of those instances in the past, you know, 15, 16 years. In other words, the popular vote going one way and the electoral college going the other way. When I think there was only one other instance, standing with more than one, where in our history, where that's happened otherwise. Most important one, though, was 1876. Yeah. Do you know about that? Was the election between Rutherford v. Hayes, who was a Republican and Samuel Tilden, who was a Democrat. And at that time, of course, 1876 was the end of Reconstruction. And this is why this is the most, again, tied to race and racism, because there was a tie vote, pretty much, in Florida. And so there was a special commission selected to decide who had won. And there was a deal made between Rutherford v. Hayes won that vote and the compromise. And in a way, good because he was a Republican and of course the Republicans were the anti-slave party. But the deal was that if he was given the vote, then he would withdraw union troops out of the South and let the South go its own way. Its own way became Jim Crow. Essentially ending Reconstruction. And ended Reconstruction, so led to Jim Crow apartheid. And how many years until the Civil Rights Movement in the... Overnor called it Redemption. Well, yes, it was called the Redemption. As opposed to Reconstruction. Correct. And so they could be enslaved. Right. Right. It was Redemption. Right. For the whites. Yeah. Of course. And it was the birth too of the KKK. That's why the South lost the war but won the peace. They did for a while. For a while. No, no, that's what I'll do. Yeah. Well, slavery no longer have slavery. That's for sure. Yeah, good. I mean, and yet we still have... I mean, I think I keep coming back to this idea that if you look at all sort of these major turning points so many times in our history, like the central driving force has been based on some sort of racial issue. And that seems to continue and continue. And we never seem to be able to... And maybe it's because it's poisoned at the start. I don't know. But we never seem to be able to deal with that in a way that puts it to rest. Why do we call it the original sin? I mean, that is really the original... I don't know how you... Well, I do think there's been progress made, frankly. Yeah. But it sticks with us. You're right. Right. Right. But I mean, as you pointed out, the Samuel Tilden, Ruthiefer Hayes, I mean, that ended up... That whole thing turned on race. The founding, certainly. I mean, there were other issues, perhaps, but I think a big part of adopting the electoral college, the census, all of these things that were at our very core of how we go about choosing leaders in this country there was a racial compromise there. Oh, right. And maybe that's it. Maybe there's some element of this. We continue to compromise something that really is uncompromisable. And so we never really deal with it. I don't know. That was one time we didn't compromise. That was called the Civil War, right? Yeah. There was no compromise about that. Lincoln made that clear. I mean, that's true, but there were compromises around the 14th Amendment. Right. And should it apply only to the governments or should it apply to private actors as well? Yeah, right. You know, so I don't know. It's a good question. So yeah, I mean, that's essentially the extent of my prepared, prepared comments, you know, as disjointed as maybe they were. So I'm happy to sort of continue the conversation either about the future. I mean, so if the other option, somebody brought up the national popular vote compact, which if constitutional would be fairly simple, the other option and the reason folks have pursued the popular vote compact, the other option is to amend the constitution to eliminate the electoral college and make it a popular vote. But that, as you probably recall, requires a two thirds vote in Congress and then three quarters of the states have to ratify it before it goes into effect. And we've only done that 27 times in 250 years. It has happened. And certainly it does. Why is it, why has not that happened? Why have people, mainly our leaders, hung on, both parties, have hung on to the electoral college? Why? I read something Sandy about George W. When he was president, he came close to saying, yes, let's have a popular vote. Which one? W. W. That's okay. Well, because of Bush v. Gore, that was a very hotly contested situation also. And maybe he had the, I don't know, I don't know why he would have, because of course he won through the electoral college. That's what gives him the credibility to do it. Maybe, but he didn't do it. He didn't do it. Yeah, I mean, I think, to my mind, I always feel like there's a, because you'd think, I mean you, and there is some, there has been different efforts over the years and they've sort of waxed and waned. I mean, after Bush v. Gore, there was outrage about the electoral college. After 2016, I don't, that wasn't the narrative, even though it was essentially the same thing that happened in terms of Bush v. Gore, with the popular vote going one way and the electoral vote going the other way. And so I always sort of fall back on, I kind of feel like that both parties are scarder of the unknown. Like the known bad is better than the unknown possible good. There's a phrase that's something like that. I'm totally getting it wrong, but you know that phrase. We're like, you don't, the unknown is worse. And so we know what happens the way it's set up now, even if we don't necessarily like it. And we don't know what happens. We don't know what's going to happen within the next month. Well, no, I'm saying the parties, they understand it. They understand it. And there's a fear of what, how does the power balance shift if we had a popular vote? Well, I think in the current situation right now, Republicans know that they would be defeated regularly. And so they are, of course, adamant against any kind of amendment doing electoral college. The Democrats aren't going to amend it either. When they've had the power, they haven't done it either. Right. You had, you had how, I guess you had Reagan and Bush won, but Bush won was the last time a Republican presidential candidate won the popular vote. And I don't remember what Bush, that was the Ross Perot days, maybe, or I don't know, when did Bush won win? He beat who? Michael DeCoccas. Bush won? Yes, he beat Michael DeCoccas. Michael DeCoccas. Yeah, Michael DeCoccas. DeCoccas, yeah, right, Deca. But he lost based on race, too. Well, and you, and so you've got, either way, you've got, you've got to get, even if you get Congress to go for it, you've got, you've got to get three quarters of the states. Right. So that's why I think you're seeing this, I mean, my, I would predict that I would be surprised if we don't at some point end up with 270 votes on that compact. We got 196. Then it's going to go to the Supreme Court. And if they were, again, sort of reading tea leaves, but if they're going to follow their dicta in Bush v. Gore, that states retain the authority to determine how they award their electors, then they, I think they'd have to say it's constitutional for them to do it based on the national popular vote. That would be the argument I'd make if I was the lawyer on, you know, on behalf of states that want this, you know, but that remains to be seen. Any other questions or thoughts about this great institution? But you'll notice, you know, with all the talks about institutional racism that are going on right now, including in our own city, there are very few discussions about the electoral college because honestly, because people do not understand it. They don't understand where it came from or how it operates. I mean, how many of us knew it, you know? Did anybody know how it had happened in the first place? Or I think, I know people generally have an idea, but I think sometimes how the different levers can be pulled and how that can muck the whole thing up. I mean, this is the first time we're seeing that in, you know, our lifetimes happening where, you know, what the president's doing is legal, but very problematic from the perspective of history. And so I think, you know, this is our first sort of experience with what that can look like. Well, we saw it in Bush v. Gore. We saw it in Bush v. Gore too, but nobody kind of figured it out because Gore conceded. Right. I mean, that's the only reason we didn't see it play out totally is because he conceded. So we can thank Trump for a history lesson in a... Yeah, thank you very much. I have a question. I just wondered, Jared, could you go over the end run way that you could get at rather than having to make this change through the legislature and all of the states? How could the individual states do the end run? Yeah. To basically get rid of the electoral... Yeah. So the U.S. Constitution says you've got to get a majority of the electoral votes to be the president. Right. So that's right now 270. You've got to get it. The states can't change that because the Constitution says that's what you've got to get. But the Constitution also says the states can decide how they award their electors. So if 270 electoral votes worth of states decide we're going to award our electors based on the national popular vote, then you'd still have the electoral college, but it would essentially become meaningless because whoever won the national popular vote would get automatically those 270 votes required to win. So how many now? I think it's 196, I think. No, but I think the most question is how many states are linked to the popular vote? 17, I think. He said, I thought Jared said 38. And then 17 or not. 38 was the... In 38 states, the electors right now are legally obligated to vote consistent with the state popular vote. Yeah, so how many are not? 17, right? 12. I guess 12 or not. But that's different than the popular vote compact. Did you say, Brett? Okay, Google it. I don't know how many. Tim, I think you said 13. You said, or 16? I thought you said 17, which sounds like me. Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh wait a minute. Okay, so Jared, what Grant is saying is this correct? That... Go ahead. Yeah, okay, which is... Okay, I can tell you exactly how many here in just a minute, how many have signed on to it. Ha, doesn't say. There are... These states represent... As it would have been done. 15 states and the District of Columbia have signed on that totals. 196 electoral votes. It's 73% of the 270 it would need to have legal force. Wow. So that's okay. So it's still possible. I mean, I know in the Bush v. Court case, for instance, the Florida legislature was going to make a decision before there was a thorough recount. They said if you guys... They stopped the recount. And so basically they said, we have the power to stop the recount and go the way we want to go, right? Yeah, yes, under the federal constitution, they stopped the recount. But they still said, and I'm going to get the dictative wrong, but they essentially said that the state legislatures have the authority, and I could find the exact language, but they implied that state legislatures retain so much authority that they could actually change the way that they're awarded midstream or after the popular vote, which would obviously create all sorts of political havoc and therefore is unlikely, I think, to happen. But the Supreme Court implied that it's at least possible. And I think that's why eventually that Biden will be inaugurated because I don't think that even the Supreme Court wants the total chaos that would happen if all of a sudden Trump is selected by the Electoral College. I mean, can you imagine? We said the war. Yeah, I don't think there's any... I don't think so either. There were big hearings in Nevada today. Did anybody watch it? Were those official hearings? Yeah, they were in the court. They were in a court, yes. Because Giuliani has been establishing these kind of circuses where there are supposed testimony taken, but it's all... They were taking testimony today. I watched them. They were taking testimony today in the Nevada court that was presided over by a judge. Okay, yeah, we... Okay, so we have another couple weeks to, I guess, hear about all this stuff and be hanging on our fingernails to see what happens, right? So, Jared, what's your take on it? What do you think's gonna happen? Oh, I mean, my personal... Back in 2016, maybe folks remember that the Donald came to Burlington and spoke at the Flynn, right? And I had a bunch of hats. In fact, they probably still have some here. Hold on a minute. I had a bunch of these made up for a different purpose. This is make Burlington great again. But my dad and I decided we were gonna go try to get tickets to go to this thing. I did, too. I did, too. And they say you could sign up and get tickets. And then, of course, none of the tickets really existed and it was classic Trump. None of the tickets really existed. There was only really like 100 tickets and he gave out 20,000 or something. Anyway, as a result of that sort of humorous, let's go see what this is about. I'm on his mailing list. So, I get daily emails from Eric, Donald Jr., Ivanka, Laura. I mean, I'm like pals with them. And sometimes I reply to them and they never email me back. I don't know why. They keep calling me friend. A friend. We have an important election fundraising deadline. I'm like, an election happened a month ago. What deadline are you possibly raising money for? Electoral college is what they're talking about. Here's my theory on it. I think Trump knows he's done. He's not gonna get, no court has found any fraud. Bill Barr said there wasn't any widespread fraud yesterday or today. I think Trump is a lot of things. I don't think he's a complete idiot. I think he knows he's lost the election. He's not gonna be the next president. I think what he's doing, and it's based on the fact that I get emails asking him for money, seven of them a day from his entire family. He knows if he can continue to make it seem like there's something going on, and they've got all these lawsuits going, people will keep giving him money. And they've in fact raised $170 million since election day. What is she? And we can use that because it's a pack. He can use that money on basically, I mean, he can pay for his plane rides around the country, meals, staff, whatever he really wants. So it's kind of a slush fund. I mean, these packs are slush funds. I have a different theory. I have a different theory, which is that he's gonna announce his candidacy for 2024. Oh yeah. No, but I'm saying, I think you're probably right. I think you're probably right, but he'll use this $170 million to go all around the country campaigning and doing whatever he's gonna do for the next year. And he's following his first rally in Georgia on Saturday. Right, yeah. There was talk about him holding his declaration for 2024 on inauguration. Yes. Hey, by the way, it's legal, you guys. What's legal? So don't get all in a... What do you do? You're all about it. I don't want to snip about it being unethical, whether it's illegal or not. Not unethical to announce that you're running for president. I could do it too. Is that unethical? What's unethical about it? As the sitting president, I think... No, no, he'll do it on inauguration day. How about tacky? What? Tacky, yeah, tacky. Very interesting. Thank you, Jared. Yeah, good to see you. Thanks for all the great conversation and questions. This is our last session for this season, but we're beginning again in January. And we have already two scheduled events, which are not basically tied to the law so much, but one, Professor Andrew Buchanan, who's a historian at UBM, will be here to talk about China today, tomorrow, the world, I guess. And then the second one that we've booked already is Jane Nodell, who will be here to talk about whether or not the United States can continue to print money and what that means. So we'll be announcing the sessions soon. Okay, thank you all for being here tonight. Thank you. Hey, everybody be well. I hope to see you guys in person at some point. Good to see you. Okay, bye. Bye. See you, everybody. Bye. Bye. Bye, everybody.