Failed Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris has repeatedly floated or been open to ditching the Electoral College, framing it as part of a broader "brainstorm" on structural changes (alongside court-packing and new state admissions). The partisan motive is transparent: Democrats have won the national popular vote in several recent cycles, but lost the presidency under the current system. A pure popular vote would shift power decisively toward dense urban coastal populations of non-whites and woke liberal women.
The US Electoral College is the constitutional mechanism by which the United States elects its President and Vice President. Each state is allocated electors equal to its total congressional representation (House seats plus two Senators), with the District of Columbia receiving three; a candidate needs 270 of the 538 total electoral votes to win. It was deliberately designed by the Founders as a compromise between direct popular election (risking mob rule or urban dominance) and congressional selection (risking insider corruption). By requiring candidates to win states rather than just amass raw national votes, it forces broad geographic coalitions, protects smaller and rural states from being ignored by coastal megacities, and reinforces the federal republic's balance between popular will and state sovereignty, precisely the sort of structural wisdom woke progressives seek to dismantle when it frustrates their majoritarian ambitions. In short, it prevents New York and California from choosing the leader for Wyoming and Iowa.
Core Merits of the Electoral College (EC)The US Founders designed it deliberately as a federalist compromise, not pure democracy, but a republic balancing popular will with state sovereignty and minority protections. Key strengths:
Protects Federalism and Smaller States: Every state gets electors equal to its House + Senate seats (plus DC). This gives smaller/rural states a meaningful voice. Without it, candidates could ignore Wyoming, Vermont, or the Dakotas entirely and stack out in NYC, LA, Chicago, and a handful of others. The EC forces geographic breadth: you must build coalitions across regions, not just rack up raw numbers in population centres.
Encourages Moderation and Broad Appeals: Winner-take-all (in most states) incentivises candidates to appeal to swing states and diverse constituencies. It discourages extreme regional or ideological candidates who might dominate a pure popular vote but alienate the middle. Third parties and radicals struggle because you need 270 electoral votes, not just pluralities in big cities.
Stability and Certainty: It usually produces a clear winner with a magnified mandate, reducing endless recounts in a hyper-partisan environment. Close popular margins become decisive EC outcomes. The system has delivered peaceful power transfers for over two centuries, even amid deep divisions.
Prevents Urban Tyranny of the Majority: In a continent-sized republic with vast cultural, economic, and geographic differences, pure popular vote would let a few dense areas (often with aligned media/academic cultures) dictate to flyover country, farms, energy producers, and manufacturing heartlands. The EC is a structural check against that, echoing the Senate's equal state representation.
Critics call it "undemocratic," but that's the point: the U.S. Constitution rejects pure majoritarianism precisely to safeguard liberty and pluralism (see Federalist No. 10 on factions). The popular vote has its place in the House and Senate, but the presidency represents the union of states.
Abolishing it via amendment is a heavy task (needs 2/3 Congress + 3/4 states) for good reason: many smaller states would never ratify their own diminished influence. Harris's push is classic institutional revisionism when the rules don't deliver the preferred outcome. The EC isn't perfect (e.g., faithless electors, occasional popular/EC splits), but it remains a bulwark for balanced republican government over pure numerical democracy.
The US Founders understood human nature and concentrated power better than today's Leftist reformers chasing short-term partisan edges: cheating and manipulation, of course!
https://www.theblaze.com/news/kamala-harris-change-elections-voting