Is the Electoral College Broken?: Crash Course US Government #5
Channel: CrashCourse
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Duration: PT871S
Read a transcript preview of “Is the Electoral College Broken?: Crash Course US Government 5” from CrashCourse, uploaded on 2026-10-20.
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Language: American English (original, creator captions)
[0:00] In the year 2000,
[0:01] George W. Bush won the presidency,
[0:03] even though over half a million fewer people
[0:06] voted for him than for Al Gore.
[0:09] The same thing happened in 2016,
[0:11] when Donald Trump won—
[0:12] even though 2.9 million fewer people voted for him
[0:16] than for Hillary Clinton.
[0:18] In fact, in five different presidential elections
[0:21] in U.S. history,
[0:23] the winner of the most votes lost the election as a whole.
[0:28] It sounds like upside-down math,
[0:30] but it’s actually caused by something that
[0:32] goes all the way back to the constitution:
[0:34] the Electoral College.
[0:36] So, what’s the deal?
[0:37] Is the Electoral College broken?
[0:39] Or could it be that it’s actually working
[0:42] exactly how the Founding Fathers intended it to?
[0:46] Hi! I'm Kousha Navidar, this is Crash Course,
[0:48] and we’re answering Big Questions on U.S. Government.
[0:52] [THEME MUSIC]
[0:56] We love to debate about the Electoral College,
[0:58] but what actually is it in the first place?
[1:01] In simplest terms,
[1:02] the Electoral College is the group of people
[1:05] who actually cast their votes for president.
[1:07] They represent the will of their given state’s voters.
[1:10] And while the U.S. isn’t the only country
[1:12] where people elect their leader indirectly,
[1:14] no one else does it quite like us.
[1:16] And the Electoral College isn’t a recent invention.
[1:19] Let’s check in with Buff, our resident historian,
[1:22] who’s almost as handsome as me,
[1:24] for how this started.
[1:26] [BUFF] Hi, Kousha! You’re glowing.
[1:29] Alright, let’s get into it
[1:30] and stop history from being a mystery.
[1:34] So, the year was 1787.
[1:37] The drafters were writing the Constitution,
[1:39] and they f