A California senator has introduced a legislation to rid the United States of its electoral college, the system that allowed businessman Donald Trump to win the presidency despite Hillary Clinton’s lead of nearly one million votes.
The measure comes amid calls for reform following the presidential upset.
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This is the only office in the land where you can get more votes and still lose the presidency,” said Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer, who introduced the measure.
The US Constitution specifies that the electoral college ultimately decides the presidential election, not the popular vote.
Each US state is given a number of electors, which corresponds to the size of the state’s population.
In 48 of 50 states, rules require all of a state’s electors to cast their votes for whichever candidate wins the popular vote there, in a winner-take-all system.
According to AFP, under these rules, the winner of the electoral college does not always correspond to the candidate who won the country’s popular vote.
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Electoral college is an outdated, undemocratic system that does not reflect our modern society, and it needs to change now. Every American should be guaranteed that their vote counts,” he said.
Although Clinton received nearly 800,000 more votes than Trump, she lost in the electoral college.
Already, more than 4.3 million people have signed a petition on the change.org website asking the college’s 538 electors to elect Clinton on December 19, when their votes will be officially counted.
But 26 states legally mandate that electors vote according to the rules and it is almost unprecedented for the remaining states’ electors to disobey, there is little possibility of a Clinton presidency.
