Jan 6 Committee member Jamie Raskin claims Electoral College is 'a danger to the American people'

"I think 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."

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Hannah Nightingale Washington DC
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In an interview with CBS News’ Face the Nation on Monday, Democrat Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland called the Electoral College "a danger not just to democracy, but to the American people," calling for an overhaul of the institution.

"The institutions held," said Raskin, "they did hold just barely. The truth is that we need to continually be renovating and improving our institutions."

Raskin continued on to explain that "I think 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 6th, there are so many curving byways and nooks and crannies in the Electoral College, that there are opportunities for a lot of strategic mischief."

The January 6 Committee member added that the president should be elected "the way we elect governors, senators, mayors, representatives, everybody else, whoever gets the most votes wins."

Host Margaret Brennan asked whether he thought the reformation of the Electoral Count Act would solve the issue, to which Raskin said, "it doesn’t solve the fundamental problem."

"I’m for that, and that’s the very least we can do and we must do. It’s necessary, but it’s not remotely sufficient. You know, 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 that you have, that’s so great, we think we will adopt that too.'"

Raskin continued on to speak of Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers, saying "her deplored the sanctimonious reverence with which some people look at the original handiwork of the framers when they should be looking at their own experience."

Raskin said that the founding fathers "didn’t have the benefit of the experience that we’ve lived and we know that the Electoral College doesn’t fit anymore, which is why I’m a big supporter of the national popular vote interstate compact, where it’s bubbling up from below, but there are now 15 or 16 states and the District of Columbia, who’ve said we’re going to cast our electors for the winner of the national vote once we get 270 electors in our coalition."

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