Act Daily News
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Rep. Jamie Raskin, a member of the House January 6 choose committee, stated reforming the Electoral College to make sure the presidential winner displays the end result of the favored vote can be the following 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. It was a danger on January 6,” the Maryland Democrat stated in an interview with Margaret Brennan on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that aired Sunday. “There are so many curving byways and nooks and crannies in the Electoral College, that there are opportunities for a lot of strategic mischief. We should elect the president the way we elect governors, senators, mayors, representatives, everybody else. Whoever gets the most votes wins.”
“The truth is that we need to be continually renovating and improving our institutions,” Raskin stated, later noting that he helps the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which represents a pledge made by sure states and the District of Columbia to award their electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the favored vote nationwide.
Under the US Constitution, Americans don’t choose their president straight. They vote for his or her state’s electors, who’re then anticipated to hold out the desire of the voters after they vote for president and vice chairman.
Democrats Al Gore in 2000 and Hillary Clinton in 2016 each received the nationwide fashionable vote of their races however misplaced the Electoral College vote depend. Other presidential nominees who misplaced after successful the favored vote included Andrew Jackson (1824), Samuel Tilden (1876) and Grover Cleveland (1888).
“The framers [of the Constitution] were great, and they were patriots, but they didn’t have the benefit of the experience that we have lived, and we know that the Electoral College doesn’t fit anymore,” Raskin stated.
Included within the sweeping spending invoice that Congress handed final week was a measure geared toward making it more durable to overturn a licensed presidential election. Raskin described the transfer, which might reform the 1887 Electoral Count Act, as “necessary” and “the very least we can do and we must do.”
“But it’s not remotely sufficient,” he stated. “We spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year exporting American democracy to other countries, and the one thing they never come back to us with is the idea that, ‘Oh, that Electoral College thing you have, that’s so great, we think we’ll adopt that too.’”
Raskin’s remarks come simply days after the choose committee – which has investigated the January 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol – issued its ultimate report, a complete overview of the bipartisan panel’s findings on how former President Donald Trump and his allies sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election. In a symbolic transfer, the committee in its final public assembly referred Trump to the Justice Department on 4 legal prices.
Raskin stated the unprecedented referrals have been obligatory due to the “magnitude of the attack on democracy” on January 6. He additionally warned of a future coup try.
Raskin talked about safety threats members of Congress face amid rising partisan tensions.
“There’s very dangerous rhetoric going on out there that’s a real break from everything we’ve known in our lifetimes,” he stated.
“What it means to live in a democracy with basic civic respect is that people can disagree without resorting to violence. But the internet has played a negative role, especially for the right wing, the extreme right, which now engages in very dangerous hyperbolic rhetoric that exposes people to danger.”