The Historical Roots of the Electoral College

In the second class in our series about how the electoral college works, host Cristina Quinn talks to historian Alex Keyssar of the Harvard Kennedy School about the compromises that drove the Founding Fathers to land on a complex, winner-takes-all system rather than a straightforward popular vote. 

Keyssar walks listeners through the evolution of our voting system in the years following the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, and how things like electoral vote ties, the introduction of political parties and the end of slavery eventually led to the version of the voting system we have today. 

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