this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2024
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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] 6 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Rank choice voting for all federal elections

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I think I want him to be president.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

That would fit the pattern (provided Harris wins) Obama/Biden -> Biden/Harris -> Harris/Walz -> Walz/??

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Maybe.

Walz really is the ideal politician but he might be rough around the edges after 8 years. He already looks a bit older than what he is and I don't consider his speaking to be quite as good as Harris's. It would preferential if we started looking towards building up younger politicians within the party with people like Walz providing support.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 31 minutes ago

We really do tend to vote for charisma over statesmanship, which is incredibly problematic.

[–] [email protected] 66 points 1 day ago (12 children)

We are all slaves to the ruling class until this is done.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 hours ago (2 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.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

I always hear that excuse about the rural areas not being represented without the electoral college, but my only reaction is GOOD. Rural areas are large in land ans small in people. Why should they get an equal voice as a Metropolitan area with the majority of people? A government is supposed to reflect the will of the people. The not ALL the people, that would be impossible, but but an average of the majority of the people.

Additionally, the government at the federal level has relatively minor impact at the local level. The federal level is broad strokes, the local government is fine strokes, and the state level is somewhere in between. Rural dwellers can run their local government however they like as long as it doesn't violate state or federal laws.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 hours ago

The real problem is that the size of the House of Representatives has been frozen for 100 years. The number of electoral college votes a state has is equal to the number of reps and senators they have. Since the House hasn't grown alongside our population, the relative representation for rural areas has steadily grown more and more.

Ending the cap on the House would balance out the electoral college issues and help reduce the constant congressional deadlocks we're seeing.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 hours ago

ent at the federal level has relati

Not equal, but at the same time you don't want to collectively just shit on all your farmers, although, they don't seem to have any problem shitting on us so maybe?

[–] turtletracks 5 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

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.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Removing the electoral college does nothing to change our two party system so I don't understand why you think it solves billionaire class rule.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

It absolutely does. Without Republicans gerrymandering everything to stay in the fold, they're completely done. They'll get bodied every election. The last time the Republicans won the popular vote was 20 years ago, and the party has radically changed since then.

Hopefully undoing the electoral college is the first step to dismantling the two party system.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago

Maybe I'm to clinical but I think this means the petty bourgeois is a safe bet for the ruler class. That needs to change.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 day ago (7 children)

Which was the point of the EC in the first place:

There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to fewest objections.

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-0065

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 21 hours ago

Even if we keep the electoral college as a means of allocating points we need to get rid of the electors. I've been saying this since before Jan 6th 2021.

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