United States | News & Politics

1868 readers

467 users here now

Welcome to [email protected], where you can share and converse about the different things happening all over/about the United States.

If you’re interested in participating, please subscribe.

Rules

Be respectful and civil. No racism/bigotry/hateful speech.

Post anything related to the United States.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

483

Tim Walz calls for scrapping of electoral college to decide US presidential race (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

89 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Kamala Harris’s running mate urges popular vote system but campaign says issue is not part of Democrats’ agenda

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

You need 2/3rds majority to pass the constitutional amendment required to make this happen, so as long as Republicans exist this isn't going to ever be the case. It means they'll never win another election.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago

Not just that, you then need 3/4 of states to sign off on an amendment before it takes effect. More than 1/4 of states benefit from the electoral college, which makes it a hard sell.

There's also that interstate compact (which if it ever takes effect will be challenged in court on grounds that interstate compacts are supposed to be approved by Congress), which is also highly unlikely to take effect for the same reason - there aren't 270 electoral votes worth of states that are either big enough that the electoral college hurts them or willing to hitch themselves so going along with whatever the two or three largest states want.