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Demystifying the Electoral College

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“The Odds of an Electoral College-Popular Vote Split Are Increasing.” That headline comes from Nate Silver, who this morning posted it on the influential political website FiveThirtyEight.com. Fluctuations in state voting trends reported by pollsters who cover the presidential election can feel like a roller coaster ride, but the outcome of the election does not lie directly with we the people, actually, but rather with the electoral college. KSFR's Mary Lou Cooper illuminates this 200-year-old system’s mysteries.

Mary Lou Cooper reports on consumer issues for KSFR as well as on politics and elder affairs. She has worked for the U.S. Congress as well as for the Nevada and Tennessee legislatures, and remains a political junkie. She worked many years for an association of Western state legislatures and was a contributor to “Capitol Ideas,” a national magazine about state government. In 2016 Cooper received a public service award from the New Mexico Broadcasting Association for her KSFR story on Internet romance scams. She has received journalism awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and from the National Federation of Press Women. She grew up in Oak Ridge, TN and received her BA from Emory University in Atlanta and her MA from the University of Texas Austin. She also holds fiction and screenwriting certificates from the University of Washington.