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The Democratic vice-presidential nominee, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, remained silent on Thursday when he was asked whether he still supported eliminating the process of the Electoral College.
“I think all of us know, the Electoral College needs to go. We need a national popular vote,” Walz had said on Tuesday during a campaign fundraiser at the home of Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom.
Kamala Harris’s campaign, however, insisted that Walz’s stance on the matter was his own and not of the campaign.
Walz also made similar comments at another fundraiser in Seattle earlier this year, Fox News reported.
During her presidential run in 2019, Harris said she was “open” to abolishing the Electoral College system. Now her campaign now insists that eliminating the system for a national popular vote system is not an official position Harris endorses.
Walz’s comments against the Electoral College prompted the Harris-Walz campaign to release a statement suggesting that Walz’s remarks were intended to show support for the system.
“Governor Walz believes that every vote matters in the Electoral College, and he is honoured to be travelling the country and battleground states working to earn support for the Harris-Walz ticket,” a Harris campaign spokesperson said in a statement. “He was commenting to a crowd of strong supporters about how the campaign is built to win 270 electoral votes. And, he was thanking them for their support that is helping fund those efforts.”
The national debate about abolishing the Electoral College and to adopt a popular vote system surged in 2016 when former president Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton to become president despite losing the popular vote but winning the Electoral College vote.
“I think it needs to be eliminated,” Clinton told CNN at the time. “I’d like to see us move beyond it, yes.”
Other political leaders in the country, too, have made similar calls, deeming the system outdated.
Last month, Democratic Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin made a case for abolishing the system. Raskin added that a popular vote system was a better alternative to the Electoral College, the latter being “convoluted, antique and obsolete.”
In the past, both Democrats and Republicans have called for abolishing the system, but it’s the former that have been more vocal in recent years following Clinton’s 2016 defeat.
The Electoral System was established by the USA’s Founding Fathers who saw it as a fair compromise between the popular vote by qualified citizens and a vote in Congress. To become the president of the country, the system requires 270 of the total Electoral College votes, all of which are allocated based on the Census. The thinking behind the system is to allow states with a lower population to have a similar impact as ones with a high population.
Interestingly, a majority of Americans prefer to move away from the Electoral College system, according to polling from Pew Research Centre released last month. The sentiment has only grown since 2016, according to the poll, with more than 6 out of 10 Americans preferring the national popular vote system.
Jason Snead, executive director of Honest Elections Project Action, a nonprofit calling to retain the Electoral College, argued Walz “said the quiet part out loud” when he insisted the Electoral College should be eliminated, according to Fox News.
“Democrat leaders don’t think they should have to campaign in places like Michigan and North Carolina, they want California and New York to decide every election,” Snead said. “There is a pattern here. Democrats claim to love democracy, then set their sights on any institution that stands between them and political power: the Supreme Court, the Senate filibuster, and the Electoral College.”