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

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

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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."

🗳️ Register to vote: https://vote.gov/

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (7 children)

I think we can mostly agree that the electoral college system is not working as intended. It was designed to give people outside the cities an extra boost to their representation, But it was certainly never designed to let fascism take hold.

Unfortunately there's no such thing as a fair and representative voting system. In all their cases you either end up underrepresenting the rural, over representing the rural, or forcing people to pick between candidates that they don't want.

Don't get me wrong, I'm perfectly down with what walls is calling for as it gives my intentions the best chance and at the same time will keep fascism from just popping in because they're good at propaganda. But I'd still like to see some other way.

[–] turtletracks 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

I've always been and always will be a Ranked ~~Choice~~ Voting advocate

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Can I persuade you to consider Approval or STAR?

RCV has some structural flaws that make it less than optimal. Flaws that exist in an Ordinal voting system but RCV puts a slightly odd twist on them, in some ways making them worse.

Approval or STAR on the other hand, are both Cardinal voting systems. They work on a different core principle and thus are immune to the flaws found in Ordinal systems.

[–] turtletracks 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Honestly, I'd be happy with any sort of ranked/cardinal voting system, and it looks like STAR is just a better RCV though. RCV just seems like the most likely to pick up steam in the US, tough I could be mistaken

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

RCV does have some money behind it, but it also has some deep-seated structural problems that come up with disturbing regularity.

Which leads to a situation where the results of an RCV election can be so bad that the district/state decides to axe voting reform entirely and go back to First Past the Post.

This has happened a few times now, and it sets efforts for real voting reform back. If you walk into Burlington, Vermont and say "I have voting reform that will fix the problems of First Past the Post" They will tell you to fuck off because they tried RCV, and it failed horribly because it's a bad system.

So an attempt to get STAR going will face that much more pushback. So it's better for everyone to resist RCV and push for STAR or Approval.

Approval has gotten some wins, and is also picking up steam. I'd be happy with it, even though STAR is slightly better.

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