Kamala Harris’s running mate urges popular vote system but campaign says issue is not part of Democrats’ agenda
Tim Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, has called for the electoral college system of electing US presidents to be abolished and replaced with a popular vote principle, as operates in most democracies.
His comments – to an audience of party fundraisers – chime with the sentiments of a majority of American voters but risk destabilising the campaign of Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, who has not adopted a position on the matter, despite having previously voiced similar views.
“I think all of us know, the electoral college needs to go,” Walz told donors at a gathering at the home of the California governor, Gavin Newsom. “We need a national popular vote. We need to be able to go into York, Pennsylvania, and win. We need to be in western Wisconsin and win. We need to be in Reno, Nevada, and win.”
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The electoral college is good for one thing and one thing only: boosting confidence that election fraud in one place won’t impact the result of the election.
Winner takes all was always stupid and needs to be replaced with proportional allocation, preferably with a more direct ratio to the actual population of votes. Basically, everyone doing what Nebraska and Maine do.
It’s also really good for making sure that whoever wins the most acres of land gets a huge electoral boost. Because that’s important.
It’s also really good for making sure that whoever wins the most acres of land gets a huge electoral boost. Because that’s important.
Is it? The most disproportionate representation in the EC belongs to the people of Delaware, last time I ran the numbers of EC votes per capita.
State population is all that matters. Very small populations still get an EC vote for each Senator, which is the root of the problem.
Delaware has 3 electoral votes and a population of 1.018 million.
Wyoming has 3 electoral votes and a population of 584,000.
Wyoming is almost twice as over-represented as Delaware in the electoral college.
California currently has 54 electoral votes. If CA was as represented in the electoral college as Wyoming is, it would have 200 votes.
So you could argue that both Wyoming and California can claim to be more disproportionately represented by the EC than Delaware.
