Sen. Elizabeth Warren Calls for Abolition of the Electoral College

Massachusetts Senator and presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren called for an amendment to abolish the Electoral College Monday night at a CNN town hall in Mississippi.

“I believe that we need a constitutional amendment that protects the right to vote for every American citizen and to make sure that vote gets counted,” said the senator when asked about her plans to ensure voting rights. “My view is that every vote matters, and the way we can make that happen is that we can have national voting, and than means get rid of the Electoral College.”

Every vote should count—and the way we can make that happen is getting rid of the Electoral College. pic.twitter.com/pyGOkvhLzC

— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) March 19, 2019

The effectiveness of the Electoral College has long been a subject of contention and discussion, with more than 700 attempts to reform or eliminate the system proposed in the past 200 years. Controversy surrounding the College soared following the 2016 election when President Trump, who secured 304 electoral votes (46.1 percent of the popular vote), won against Hillary Clinton, who secured 48.2 percent of the popular vote. The same discrepancy confounded the 2000 election, when Al Gore lost the Electoral College to George W. Bush but won the popular vote.

There’s also no question that the winner-takes-all nature of the Electoral College systematically disenfranchises many voters. Mississippi, a state historically rife with gerrymandering and other suppression tactics, is no exception.

“Presidential candidates don’t come to a place like Mississippi,” Warren noted, citing the College’s reputation for coaxing past presidential hopefuls to only those purpling, battleground states. “I think everybody ought to have to come and ask for your vote.”