Why do we have the electoral college? CNN’s John King explains (Exclusive)

Five hundred and thirty-eight Electoral College votes will soon be divided among this year’s presidential candidates, and for CNN john kingThe countdown is on.

The network’s chief national correspondent, 61, operates CNN’s innovative “Magic Wall” touchscreen that helps viewers view polling data as results are returned. He has covered 10 presidential election cycles throughout his career, knowing the ins and outs of the country’s unique electoral process.

In the United States, the presidential candidate with the most votes does not necessarily win the election. To secure a victory, a candidate must obtain more than half of the Electoral College support, which requires 270 electoral votes. Each state is assigned a certain number of votes in the Electoral College, based on population, and whoever wins the state’s popular vote wins its electoral votes.

The Electoral College system is controversial and gives a few battleground states disproportionate power to determine the next president. This year, Kamala Harris and donald trump They have spent most of their time in the seven swing states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) working hard to gain their support.

With the election coming to a close, PEOPLE spoke with King, who is currently an expert on electoral maps, to discuss the history of the Electoral College, how it affects political campaigns and whether it could ever be abolished. Read on for our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity.

Why does the Electoral College exist? What was the reason we ended this in the first place?

The Electoral College was founded because the founders (the guys in wigs) couldn’t agree on how to elect a president. And because we were coming out of King George and the monarchy and the oppressive British government and the authoritarian king, they were afraid to let the popular vote win the election because they thought some angry populist would come and influence the masses and the people. I would make a mistake. And so they were abandoning a monarchy, but they didn’t fully trust democracy. And that’s how we got the Electoral College a long, long time ago.

What are the arguments for maintaining the Electoral College in this modern era?

The argument for keeping it is that if the nation switched to the pure popular vote, a candidate would simply go to California, New York, Texas and Illinois and group their 50 states by population. In the old days, you had to do calculations during the election campaign. Now you would plug it into a computer and ask your AI engine, ‘How can I get to 50 plus one in the popular vote?’ Where are they?’

So the argument against getting rid of the Electoral College is that people would only campaign in large population centers, and that rural America or small towns (even within a large state) would perhaps be ignored. Or think of a place like Texas: a presidential candidate would only go to Dallas and Houston. I understand.

There’s a very legitimate question about, “Would parts of the country be left out of the conversation and ignored by the candidates?” Because if you just look at a map and study geography, we have giant population centers, then we have medium population centers, which tend to be close to the giant population centers. Cities and suburbs would control the United States and rural areas, the less populated areas, would have less influence than they do now.

And what is the argument for abandoning the Electoral College?

The other side’s argument, for eliminating the Electoral College, is to seek democracy in its purest form. But in reality there is no such thing as democracy in its purest form, in terms of large countries. The Electoral College was a compromise, and the way we elect a president will probably always have to be a compromise.

What I find fascinating is that our politics are so polarized and dysfunctional now that we can’t even have this conversation. Of course, the things that are still in the books that the founding fathers put there, it seems a little silly to me that we can’t walk into a room and have conversations about them, that we can’t go on the floor of Congress and have debates about them.

The Electoral College is something like gun control. It’s kind of like the Second Amendment. “Well, in 1780-something, someone wrote that, how dare you want to change it in 2024?” It seems a little ridiculous. It’s not my job to say what the outcome should be, but it seems a little ridiculous to me that we can’t have conversations about these things and let people come to the table. If you think it’s wrong, show me your way. And if you don’t have the votes in your favor, are you willing to talk about what? Could there be a hybrid?

Both sides have good arguments, but trying to see if there is any way to reach an agreement is something that is simply impossible right now due to polarization.

This year he has spoken to many undecided voters across the country. Does this topic ever arise? Has the electoral system been mentioned in terms of whether it affects your likelihood of going out to vote?

Not even if they are going to vote or not. You sometimes hear from hardcore Democrats, people who are very committed Democrats, “Why do we still do it this way?” And that can be understood because sometimes in recent history, the person who won the popular vote did not win the presidency.

In our most recent history, that would be Al-Gore and Hillary Clintonand they were quite controversial. Not only did they lose the election and win the popular vote, but both were really controversial elections. Good? 2000 were the chads hanging in the Supreme Court and 2016 was Triumph. And that’s why Democrats are more passionate right now because of their recent memories.

I don’t remember ever meeting a voter who said, “The Electoral College is my number one issue” or “I’m not going to vote.” I’ve never heard people get so nervous about it. But passionate and committed Democrats do mention it sometimes.

What would it take to abolish the Electoral College?

Well, I mean, I think it’s pretty obvious to us. Yeah Kamala Harris wins the popular vote by: Biden won by, what, 7 million votes? – if Vice President Harris wins the popular vote by any approximation of what joe biden He did it in 2020 and loses the election, you can be sure: I say this water is bubbling, sometimes it boils. It will boil over and Democrats will demand political reform. And that is a guarantee.

If Harris wins the popular vote and Trump wins the presidency, it will be what, three times in 24 years? Three times in 24 years, a Democrat won the popular vote but lost the election. I think that will put something that is an interesting conversation into a very controversial and central topic.

And, as seen in the national popular vote movement, there are people in America who are trying to do this. And none of them have yet reached the tipping point. But whether it’s ranked-choice voting, whether it’s nonpartisan primaries, there are plenty of political reform ideas popping up in different places around the country, born of a common discontent or dismay with the way things work or not things right now, and the Electoral College is one of those conversations.

What does it take to move from a conversation to concrete action? That part, I don’t know very well. I haven’t had enough time to think about it and study it, but I think you see a lot of these reforms. I guess one man’s reform is another man’s poison. So part of the question is: what would it take to bring them to a tipping point?