The next issue coming into the spotlight is the Electoral College. Rep. Jamie Raskin, a member of the House January 6 select committee, said the Electoral College “has become a danger” to American democracy.
Raskin said that reforming the Electoral College is necessary in order to ensure the presidential winner reflects the outcome of the popular vote and would be the next step to safeguard democracy.
“The Electoral College now – which has given us five popular-vote losers as president in our history, twice in this century alone – has become a danger, not just to democracy, but to the American people,” Raskin said.
The Maryland Democrat discussed the Electoral College in an interview with Margaret Brennan on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that aired Sunday night.
Raskin said that it is about time that Americans directly elect their presidents in the same way that they elect other public officials, through the popular vote.
“There are so many curving byways and nooks and crannies in the Electoral College, that there are opportunities for a lot of strategic mischiefs. We should elect the president the way we elect governors, senators, mayors, representatives, and everybody else. Whoever gets the most votes wins.”
Furthermore, Raskin said that the electoral college has become a danger.
“It was a danger on January 6,” Raskin said.
Raskin served on the House select committee tasked with investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection on the Capitol.
The Electoral College was created by the Founding Fathers in the U.S. Constitution. The Electoral Count Act of 1887 has guided practical aspects of how it functions for more than a century.
Under the Constitution, Americans don’t select their president directly. They vote for their state’s electors, who are then expected to carry out the will of the voters when they vote for president and vice president.
Proponents of the existing system argue that it gives individual states an important role in national elections.
Changes to the Electoral Count Act were included in the omnibus spending bill that the House and Senate passed last week. Those changes are designed to block some of what then-President Donald Trump and his allies tried to do in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Raskin said he supported those reforms but they did not go far enough.
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