I got asked about this by a Canadian friend this Friday.

[camwyn]

Since:

a) Canada's just had their election;
b) Canada Day is Thursday;
c) Independence Day for the US is Sunday;
d) I'm gonna be out of the country on Independence Day;

I thought I should do something patriotic now. Or at least something a civics teacher would be proud of.

Presenting:

THE ELECTION OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, IN FIVE HUNDRED WORDS

CANDIDATES: Hi!
VOTERS: Hi!
CANDIDATES: Where do you live?
VOTERS: Nebraska?
CANDIDATES: Eh. How about you guys?
SOME VOTERS: New York!
OTHER VOTERS: California!
STILL OTHER VOTERS: Iowa!
CANDIDATES: Okay, cool. Let's boogie.
NEBRASKA VOTERS, ALONG WITH A LOT OF OTHERS: Buh?
CANDIDATES: You don't have the electoral votes. Sorry.
NEBRASKA AND COMPANY: Augh!
CANDIDATES: Next census, maybe.
NEBRASKA AND COMPANY: Fine, whatever. *votes*
EVERYONE ELSE: *also votes*
BOARDS: Okay, who won?
VOTERS: Dunno, you tell us.
BOARDS: *count votes*
VOTERS: So who's president?
BOARDS: No one yet.
VOTERS: But- but-
ELECTORS: Hi! We're your representatives.
VOTERS: To WHAT?
ELECTORS: The Electoral College.
VOTERS: Buh?
ELECTORS: It's in the Constitution. Article Two, Section One.
VOTERS: . . .
BOARDS: Here's the results. Promise you'll do what the voters in your state want?
ELECTORS: Sure.
BOARDS: Great. Can you guys chill until the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December?
ELECTORS: No problemo.
VOTERS: WTF? What's going on?
AMERICAN HISTORY TEACHERS (THE ONES YOU NEVER LISTENED TO): Look, back when they wrote the Constitution, communication wasn't very reliable. So the men who wrote it said that after the elections, everybody would wait until electors from all the states could get together and have their votes counted at one go.
VOTERS: But, but, the number of electors per state is why?
TEACHERS: As many electors as your state has Senators and Representatives. So if you've got a lot of people, you get a lot of Representatives, and you get a lot of electors. And if you don't have a lot of people-
NEBRASKA AND COMPANY: You're probably us.
VOTERS: But why do we use electors at ALL?
TEACHERS: A lot of the Founding Fathers didn't trust the general populace. They wanted people to vote for electors with sense, so that only people with sense would select the president.
VOTERS: So-
TEACHERS: The Founding Fathers would think you were dangerous rabble.
VOTERS: . . .
TEACHERS: You can change it, you know. You just have to get a Constitutional amendment passed.
VOTERS: Augh!
ELECTORS: *check calendar* December!
VOTERS: You're gonna vote the way we said, RIGHT?
ELECTORS: Yeah.
VOTERS: Good, because we'd hate to have to show you what happens to, ah. . . 'faithless' electors. *crack knuckles*
ELECTORS: You don't have the slightest idea, do you?
VOTERS: . . . no.
ELECTORS: *vote*
PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE: *counts votes*
ENTIRE UNITED STATES SENATE: *witnesses count*
ENTIRE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: *also witnesses count*
PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE: We have a winnah!
VOTERS: They announced that back in November!
PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE: Yes, but now it's official! Yay!
THE WINNAH: Is it January 20th yet?
DISGRUNTLED SUPER BOWL FANS: Yes, dammit.
THE WINNAH: Cool. I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
WASHINGTON, DC: *throws party*
NEBRASKA AND COMPANY: *write to Congressional representatives*

Comments

More like:

[avram]

SOME VOTERS: New York!
OTHER VOTERS: California!
CANDIDATES: Eh, my pollsters tell me you’ve already made up your minds.
STILL OTHER VOTERS: Pennsylvania! Florida!
CANDIDATES: Cool, swing states! Here, have some special interest legislation, like steel tariffs and new Medicare rules and stupid policies about Cuba.

Also:

VOTERS: But, but, the number of electors per state is why?
TEACHERS: As many electors as your state has Senators and Representatives. So if you've got a lot of people, you get a lot of Representatives, and you get a lot of electors. And if you don't have a lot of people you get a disproportionately large degree of influence over the election. For example, in 2000, California had a population of over 35 million people, and 54 electoral votes, over 600,000 people per vote. Montana had fewer than one million people, and three electoral votes, for about 300,000 people per vote. Each Montanan had about twice as much influence over the election as each Californian.
VOTERS: But why do we use electors at ALL?
TEACHERS: The Founders argued at the Constitutional Convention about how to elect the executive. They didn’t want him appointed by Congress, because that would wreck the separation of powers they were building into the Constitution. Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut proposed having electors appointed by the state legislators, with the number of electors based directly on population. James Madison of Virginia argued for having direct popular election, but worried that this would put the slave-holding states at a disadvantage, since slaves wouldn’t be allowed to vote. Since the Convention had already agreed on the three-fifths compromise (counting slaves as three-fifth of a person for the purposes of determining representation in the House of Representatives), they combined the two ideas. Basing the electors on congressional representation gave the slave-holding states extra influence because of their slaves, essentially giving bonus voting weight to slave-holders.

Re: More like:

[camwyn]

True enough, but given the fact that my poor friend was staring at me (when my explanation was even simpler than this) and saying, "That makes no sense at all," well... The swing states thing, yeah, that could be fit in without causing eyeball glazing. The rest of it would cause heads to explode, I think.

Re: More like:

[(Anonymous)]

And the electoral process down here doesn't already cause heads to explode?

Re: More like:

[feonixrift.livejournal.com]

Only those who understand what it is.
To a lot of people, it's more like:

Donkey!!
Oliphant!!!
DONK!!
PHANT!!!
!!DONK RUL3Z
!!FANT ++ RUL3Z

Re: More like:

[camwyn]

Not so much explode as swell and throb in tremendous amounts of migraine-style pain, really. From what I was reading last night when I looked up the date of the College's meeting, there have been somewhere close to seven hundred Congressional attempts to reform the electoral system. So not quite 'splodey, just more of an OW OW OW OW OW, really.

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

You know, on my son's Schoolhouse Rock DVD, there is a song called 'I'm Gonna Send Your Vote to Collge' that was written a couple of years ago to try to explain the electorial voting system to children. And it still boggles me.

This helped though.

[hangingfire.livejournal.com]

That's excellent. Mind if I link it on my LJ? It's one of the more useful things I've seen in explaining our (very weird, when you look at it this way) election process.

[camwyn]

Sure, go ahead! It's not the most detailed, as agrumer pointed out, but I think it covers all the major points of theory.

[batyatoon]

You're getting really good at this whole nutshell thing.

What're you gonna boil down next?

[camwyn]

Not sure. Possibly heading back to literature next- I could use an excuse to reread Outlaws of the Marsh. And I do need to restart my Chinese history lecture series, but the next one I have to do for that is Qin Shihuangdi, and that's a different style of summarization. More Larry Gonick than Dave Barry.

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

"Firefly" in 500 words, maybe? :-)

INARA AND MINISTER: *kiss*
JAYNE: I'll be in my bunk.
ZOE: Jayne, grab your weapon.

[almeda.livejournal.com]

Sorry, but the image I got from your question was not of, say, something NICE that's boiled down (like demiglace sauces, or desalinating water), but instead of head cheese.

It's like the 'For Dummies' books, right? 'Chinese History Head Cheese!''US Election Head Cheese!' 'Silmarillion Head Cheese!'

*slinks away in shame*

[ahmeemee.livejournal.com]

God bless America.

[kali921.livejournal.com]

Y'know, just saw Farenheit 9/11 last night, and watched the footage of Gore banging his gavel in dismay, presiding as President of the Senate right after the Supreme Court decided to give Shrub a slice of bundt cake and the title of President. Was excited, because you never get to see the President of the Senate actually do anything on TV. Then I read this. Might I link to it from my LJ, for all of my confused, embittered and angry European friends, so that I might empiricually demonstrate how unlike Parliamentary and Civil democracies can truly sometimes be?

[camwyn]

Sure, go ahead. That's the basic idea of the thing, after all.

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

I just diaried the whole thing over at Daily Kos (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/24/10575/485). If that's a problem, I'll be happy to repost with only a teaser excerpt. Thanks again for creating this. :-)

[camwyn]

Nope, I'm good with it!