US Senator Bernie Sanders, who was one of the 2016 Democratic presidential candidates, has renewed his call for a “re-examination” of the Electoral College system, saying it was not fair to some states during the November 8 presidential vote.
Speaking to CNN on Sunday, Sanders said Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s defeat against President-elect Donald Trump, despite winning the popular vote, was “weird” and urged a review in the voting system.
“We have one candidate who got 2 million more voters than the other candidate, but she is not going to be sworn in as president,” the Vermont senator said. “I think on the surface that's a little bit weird.”
“The second thing that bothers me, as everybody knows, during the campaign, we have states — California, New York and many others — that are traditionally Democrat and a whole lot of other states that are traditionally Republican. The needs and the people of those states are ignored during the political process,” Sanders said.
“And then what ends up happening is campaigns are basically about 16, 17 states, battleground states, in this country, and I think that's unfair to the other 30-plus states that would also like to be part of the political process,” the lawmaker said.
Trump was able to clench a historic victory over Clinton by winning 306 electoral votes. The former secretary of state took 232 votes after losing key states.
Less than a week after the election, Sanders said the outcome necessitated a “serious discussion” on the concept of electoral votes.
The senator, who ran an unsuccessful nomination campaign against Clinton in the primaries, renewed his call in the wake of an attempt by Green Party’s nominee Jill Stein to recount votes in some states.
She has called for an audit and recount of voting results in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Wisconsin election officials said Friday that her request was accepted and the recount would begin soon.
Following the announcement, the Clinton campaign said its representatives would join the effort to make sure Trump’s election was “fair.”
Despite attacking the Electoral College before the election, Trump hailed the body’s “genius” role in the process after his election.
Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders’ calls for a change in the US Electoral College are made out of the “contempt” the party members have for the rule of law in the United States, an analyst says.
In an interview with CNN on Sunday, Sanders argued that US election is “weird” as the now president elect has over two million less support than his contender.
“We have one candidate who got 2 million more voters than the other candidate, but she is not going to be sworn in as president,” said the senator. “I think on the surface that's a little bit weird.”
The Vermont senator, who ran for president but chose to endorse Clinton after she was nominated ahead of the 2016 vote, also predicted that no “profound” change would be made to the election results after a recount of votes in the key states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, as sought by Green Party nominee Jill Stein.
"No one expects there to be profound change, but there's nothing wrong with going through the process," Sanders said. "I don't think that Hillary Clinton — who got 2 million more voters than Mr. Trump in the popular election — thinks that it's going to transform the election, but do people have a legal right to do it? Yeah, we do.”
According Idaho-based analyst Mark Glenn, Clinton was the “candidate of choice for the establishment,” and “when you hear people like Bernie Sanders or Jill Stein or Senator Barbara Boxer talking about doing away with Electoral College, these are not just harmless noises.”
It proves, he said, how “desperate the entire situation is, and how desperate these people are.“
“It also reveals really just how much contempt they have for the rule of law and for the same US Constitution, to which all of these people swore an oath to defend an protect when they achieved their office.”
Trump and his supporters have been attacking the Clinton campaign over a recount in the three key states, claiming she is in cahoots with Stein.
“We are standing up for an election system that we can trust; for voting systems that respect and encourage our vote, and make it possible for all of us to exercise our constitutional right to vote,” Stein said upon announcing her official request for a recount in America's Dairyland.
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