1122
submitted 2 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

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/

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] InverseParallax@lemmy.world 28 points 2 months ago

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

[-] loutr@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes

Could you explain this sentence please? English isn't my first language and I can't make sense of it.

[-] BradleyUffner@lemmy.world 17 points 2 months ago

Southern states owned a lot of slaves, and thought the slave owners should get to have the slave's votes in addition to their own. They thought that if they couldn't do that, the South couldn't have a loud enough voice in the election.

It's kind of related to the 3/5th compromise.

[-] loutr@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 months ago
[-] blockheadjt@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 months ago

White slave owners in the south didn't want abolitionists to vote away their supremacy over blacks, and thought the EC would be a good way to make sure the abolitionist voting bloc would be kept in check.

[-] xenoclast@lemmy.world 15 points 2 months ago

History is riddled with the results of people on the right side giving so much to the losers that the losers win in the long run.

They were monsters that treated humans like property.. fuuuuuuuuck them so hard.

And here we are, back again cuz someone didn't smack them hard enough

[-] Maeve@midwest.social 3 points 2 months ago

Now we're all still property, but must find a way to feed, clothe, home ourselves and get to our mostly underpaid jobs. It's fine if it's extralegal, until we're caught or turned in.

[-] Otkaz@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Madison was saying that blacks in the south were enslaved and couldn't vote. They made up a significant portion of the southern states population which put them at a disadvantage giving them poor representation.

this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2024
1122 points (98.5% liked)

News

23650 readers
2803 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS