Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) told CNN the Electoral College was “conceived in sin” and originally designed to effectively perpetuate slavery.
Said Cohen: “The slave states wanted equal representation in the Senate because they wanted to keep slavery. The slave states wanted to have an Electoral College to where the members that they had in Congress counted towards the vote of president, where the slaves counted as two-thirds and in the popular vote they would count as zero. So the slaves states didn’t want a popular election because their slaves wouldn’t count towards voting and the slaves states would have less votes.”
Philip Bump: Democrats calling to abolish the electoral college should not be surprising.
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