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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  • Veedem@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    While I agree with him, it’s also a stupid thing to say out loud during the election when they’re CLEARLY trying to sway moderate and uneasy right leaning voters.

    • Furball@sh.itjust.works
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      4 hours ago

      I think the electoral college has become pretty unpopular with pretty much everyone except committed republicans in recent years

      • InverseParallax@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        It’s become unpopular with everyone except the people who originally demanded it so they could count their slaves as 3/5 of a vote.

          • vxx@lemmy.world
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            18 minutes ago

            Why though? We call baking people bakers, why shouldn’t we call enlaved people slaves?

            It’s not as if their circumstances become more human that way.

            • chaosCruiser@futurology.today
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              9 minutes ago

              I think there’s a difference between the two. The term “salve” says nothing about what happened. It just tells you how things are. However, the term “enslaved” clearly indicates that the person used to be free, but was later forced into slavery by someone.

        • Dwraf of Ignorance@programming.dev
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          40 minutes ago

          I think it was progressive who demanded it to be 3/5 if then conservative had their way they would happily count slaves as two people. It’s was in their favour to do so. Slaves could vote and it inflated their population count which will grant more seat. I’m neither American nor have I been there.

          • Mbourgon everywhere@lemmy.world
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            35 minutes ago

            Nope, but not bad. The free states wanted them to not count for representative purposes, since they couldn’t vote.

            From Wikipedia:

            Slave holding states wanted their entire population to be counted to determine the number of Representatives those states could elect and send to Congress. Free states wanted to exclude the counting of slave populations in slave states, since those slaves had no voting rights. A compromise was struck to resolve this impasse. The compromise counted three-fifths of each state’s slave population toward that state’s total population for the purpose of apportioning the House of Representatives, effectively giving the Southern states more power in the House relative to the Northern states.

      • takeda@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        Exactly, the result is decided but free starts and for example Republicans in California and New York feel their vote doesn’t matter at all.

        • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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          2 hours ago

          with the amount of money being spent to woo swing state voters I feel like being an “undecided voter” is some kind of career at this point

    • The Assman@sh.itjust.works
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      2 hours ago

      His comments – to an audience of party fundraisers – chime with the sentiments of a majority of American voters

      I guess you missed this bit

    • njm1314@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      Maybe they’re finally realizing that instead of chasing right wing voters they should try to tap into the much larger pool of left-wing voters. Or at least one can hope.