MSNBC anchor Lawrence O’Donnell slammed voter apathy in solidly red and blue states resulting from the Electoral College, deriding the president-electing procedure as voter suppression.
In an analysis of vote shares in Pennsylvania counties by data whiz Steve Kornacki, O’Donnell voiced his issues with a focus on a handful of swing states in a country of over 300 million.
“I would like to issue an apology to all of those states we have not mentioned,” O’Donnell said. “It is not our fault, it is the founding fathers. They decided on this thing called the Electoral College. Which interestingly, no other country in the world decided to copy.”
The Electoral College has a misfire rate of five out of the 59 presidential elections in American history, delivering the Oval Office to the popular vote loser twice this century. The system, which largely grants plurality winners in each state the bulk of its electors, keeps some voters home, O’Donnell argued.
“In effect on nights like this, you have a right to think that it feels like no one cares about your vote,” the anchor said. “If you are in California or if you’re in New York, and when you think about how enormous a force that can be in voter suppression, there may be nothing quite like it.”
O’Donnell questioned the system which makes voting feel pointless for tens of millions.
“There are seven million people in California who don’t vote, they are registered, they don’t vote today,” he added, citing the tendency to stay home amongst voters whose voice won’t move the needle.
Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 and 2020, as results for 2024 are still trickling in, but if he were to win, a lack of motivation amongst non-swing-state voters would be a major factor.
“Most of those, if they voted, would add millions to Kamala Harris. This Electoral College problem is one that bedevils us in the 21st Century as it never has before,” O’Donnell said.
In a recent interview with Salon, O’Donnell spoke at length about the election — the results of which are still out of reach, as of late Monday night — and specifically called out how many journalists haven’t landed on the right way to cover Trump.
“More than 90% of the news media was never around idiots like Trump,” he said. “They didn’t grow up in those kinds of streets, in those kinds of urban sectors where those guys are all over the place.”
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