Friday on MSNBC’s “All In,” host Chris Hayes took on the Electoral College and how it can allow for candidates to win the presidency without a majority of the vote, which undermines the premise of one person, one vote.
During his dissertation, Hayes made the astounding conclusion that if the Electoral College were not a part of the U.S. Constitution, it would be unconstitutional.
“It’s basically this, do we actually really believe in democracy, right?” Hayes said. “The question before us now in the Electoral College question is, are we going to actually live up to the promise of one person one vote. Now, to be fair, it is not surprising the Republicans are defending the Electoral College, right. There’s a very obvious reason for that. Since 1992 we have had seven presidential elections. Republicans have won the popular vote one time, but they’ve gotten three presidents out of it which is a very sweet deal if you’re the Republican Party, right.”
“You can see why on just basic tactical grounds why the Republican Party would want to continue a system in which they can lose a majority of votes and still get all the powers the presidency appointing the Supreme Court justices and judges and signing legislation, vetoing legislation, commanding the army, everything, right,” he continued. “All of that with less votes than the Democrat got. No wonder they like. But I think there’s actually a deeper philosophical thing happening which is the question of what exactly American democracy is for. And the weirdest thing about the Electoral College is the fact that it wasn’t specifically in the Constitution for the presidency, it would be unconstitutional.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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