No more Electoral College ever again, OK?!

According to this NYTimes piece (The Battlegrounds Within Battlegrounds), one could view the future of world’s richest nation hinges upon actions of (and voting access for) residents of 20 of its counties. The US has 3,141 counties, and our fate will be sealed by less than 0.007% of them.

Am I oversimplifying, yes. But still, who thinks the Electoral College is a good idea?

Why do we even have such bizarre system? If you knew (or guessed) racism played a role, you’d be right.

The original intent supposedly had to do with (a) ensuring smaller states had some power and (b) limited access to national information made a popular vote impractical. Sounds fine at face value (even if untrue today). But since states with enslaved people got more Electoral College votes (and freeing slaves costed them votes), you have a terrible system in which Slavery and Electoral Collage were mutually supportive.

Defenders of the EC often say things like “I don’t want LA to have as many votes as 20 states,” but those arguments are exaggerated. The big cities of this country aren’t that big. The 50 most populated US cities only make up 15% US population. And they’re not necessarily a monolith that votes the same way.

Contrary to popular apathy, we’re not stuck with it the EC. I only recently learned about the The National Popular Vote Bill, which so far 15 states plus Washington D.C. have made law. If enough states jump on, the EC would still exist, but it would reflect the popular vote.