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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but campaign says issue is not part of Democrats’ agenda
Fucking hell! Every time either of them says something truly based, some DNC lackey comes and spoils it by saying that! 🤬
I think at this point pretty much everyone I’ve ever talked to thinks the electoral college is bullshit. Even my dad and he’s a trumper.
It makes sense to exist… In the 40’s.
But with modern day society and how small the world has become, it makes no sense to me to still exist tbh…1840s. It existed to preserve slavery
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.
I think the electoral college has become pretty unpopular with pretty much everyone except committed republicans in recent years
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.
Small suggestion to use “enslaved people’s” rather than “slaves”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
not the undecided swing state voters.
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
His comments – to an audience of party fundraisers – chime with the sentiments of a majority of American voters
I guess you missed this bit
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.
I very much doubt that. Their metric is fundraising, and the money/rich people is/are on the right.
Lol
The programs that Walz champions speak for themselves.
And they’ve been loosing the left this whole time.
But if we take the high road once more, surely the voters will see the light!
Finally!
Watch Trump win the electoral college again and Democrats not use that as a rallying point to abolish it.
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.
what if we make a compromise on the land area, say 3/5?
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.
Cool. Not going to happen, but…. Cool.
Yeah, it’s a hopeless quest. Truly eliminating the EC would require 3/4 of state legislatures, an almost impossible task when the majority of states would be effectively voting against their self-interest.
Effectively neutering the EC only requires that the states with 50% of the EC votes agree to follow the national popular vote. But, it would be a fragile detente, since any state legislature could back out and break it.
It still sends a message. Which in and of itself is good.
I wish Walz was at the top of the ticket.
I’d eagerly vote for him, as opposed to skeptically voting for Harris.My hope is that she chose him, so she likes him, maybe for the same reasons we do.
When she was in the senate she was statistically the closest to Bernie in voting.
Don’t worry. As soon as Waltz said an overwhelmingly positive thing, Kamala distanced herself from it.
Yawn……
