Lawrence Lessig Quotes

Al Gore won the popular vote and didn't get elected president, so I'm not going to sit here and kill myself over not winning Defensive Player of the Year.

I have never seen a poll elect anyone

The popular choice, by more than 2 million votes, is a completely qualified candidate for president.

If we didn't have the Electoral College there would have been no George W. Bush presidency. Algore would have been elected. The Democrats have not gotten over that, and they never will get over the recount, the aftermath of that election in 2000. They are still animated by it today. It is a significant portion of the rage and anger they carry around with them every day, so they want to get rid of it.

People don't vote for vice president, they vote for president.

I think the American people should express their preferences, and we'll accept their choice.

Most people don't understand the Electoral College; they don't know why it exists.

Last I looked - and I'm not a candidate - but last time I checked reading about the Constitution, the Electoral College has nothing to do with parties, has absolutely nothing to do with parties. It's most states are winners take all.

A lot of people criticize the primaries, but I think they are absolutely essential to the education of the President of the United States.

If the Election be made by the People in large Districts, there will be no danger of Demagogues.

In a democracy, you can be right and still lose power.

It's not opinion polls that determine the outcome of elections, it's votes in ballot boxes.

The people participate in votes in their states to choose electors to elect the president, but the people don't elect the president. We are not a democracy; we are a democratic republic. We have a representation system of government.

Our nation is not a fully representative democracy if we do not have a one-person, one-vote method of directly electing our president. It disproportionately tilts favor to smaller states with smaller populations.

What is the purpose of the electoral college? It has a few purposes. One, it's to restrain pure democracy. Very good, very important, that's a wonderful thing.

Donald Trump went through the process, he earned the vote, and I am not in support of overturning the will of the voters.

And remember, this was a president (George W. Bush) who was selected by the Supreme Court rather than the people.

How do we get from electrons to elections and from protons to presidents?

I would've easily won the popular vote, much easier, in my opinion, than winning the electoral college.

There's no reason for the electors to overrule the popular choice.

Al Gore in 2000. He got a half a million more votes than George Bush and lost. How can that be? It's ridiculous. It's an elitist system. It's so they pick your President. You don't - the people - and it needs to be abolished.

The presidential campaign was oriented toward the way we elect the presidency, Electoral College, not the popular vote. The popular vote doesn't matter. This is not a direct democracy. We have a representative republic, and the popular vote doesn't matter and it never has, by design.

Choice by the people themselves is not generally distinguished for its wisdom.

I hope Donald Trump doesn't become president of the United States and I expect the people of the United States will have the good sense not to elect him.

Presidents are elected not by direct popular vote but by 538 members of the Electoral College.