Hillary Clinton renews calls to abolish the Electoral College after casting her vote to confirm Biden as President-elect four years after she lost the presidential election but won the popular vote
- Hillary Clinton said it was time for the winner of the US presidential elections to be determined by popular vote instead of the Electoral College
- She won the popular vote by three million votes in 2016 but Trump won the Electoral College and the presidency
- She made the plea after casting her vote to confirm Biden as US President-elect
Hillary Clinton has renewed calls for the abolishment of the Electoral College after casting her vote to confirm Joe Biden as US President-elect.
She said it was time for the winner of the US presidential elections to be determined by popular vote instead.
Democrats were outraged in 2016 when Clinton won the popular vote by three million votes, but didn’t clinch the election because Trump won the Electoral College. He earned 304 Electoral College votes and she won 227.
2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton (left) and former President Bill Clinton (right) cast their ballots for President-elect Joe Biden in New York Monday, as part of the state’s Electoral College electors
Symbolic moment: Hillary Clinton and her husband Bill were both electors in New York state, traveling to Albany to cast their ballots for Joe Biden as the Electoral College confirmed his victory
Hillary Clinton, the Democrats’ 2016 nominee for president, participated in New York’s Electoral College vote tally Monday in Albany
‘I believe we should abolish the Electoral College and select our president by the winner of the popular vote, same as every other office,’ Clinton said on Monday.
‘But while it still exists, I was proud to cast my vote in New York for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.’
The former secretary of state made her latest plea after casting her electoral vote with Bill Clinton to confirm President-elect Biden’s defeat of Trump on Monday in New York’s capital in Albany.
A total of 538 electors in all 50 states and the District of Colombia met to formalise the Democrat’s victory in last month’s election, 302 of them for Biden and 232 for Trump.
Clinton called for the abolishment of the Electoral College on Monday after casting her vote to confirm President-elect Joe Biden
Biden’s Electoral College win became official just before 5.30pm Monday as California’s votes pushed him over the 270 vote threshold.
Clinton has called for the Electoral College to be abolished in the past, citing it as the reason she lost the 2016 Presidential election. She won the popular vote by three million votes but lost the Electoral College.
‘I think it needs to be eliminated,’ she said during a 2017 CNN interview. ‘I’d like to see us move beyond it, yes.’
President Trump took to Twitter that day and said: ‘Crooked Hillary Clinton blames everybody (and every thing) but herself for her election loss. She lost the debates and lost her direction!’
‘I think it needs to be eliminated’: Hillary Clinton said it was time for the US to change how it elects presidents in 2017
| YEAR | WINNER | # OF VOTES | # OF ELECTORAL VOTES | LOWER | # OF VOTES | # OF ELECTORAL VOTES |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Donald Trump (R) | 59,131,310 | 289 | Hillary Clinton (D) | 59,293,071 | 219 |
| 2000 | George W. Bush (R) | 50,456,002 | 271 | Al Gore (D) | 50,999,897 | 266 |
| 1888 | Benjamin Harrison (R) | 5,443,892 | 233 | Grover Cleveland (D) | 5,534,488 | 168 |
| 1876 | Rutherford B. Hayes (R) | 4,0347,311 | 185 | Samuel J. Tilden (D) | 4,288,546 | 184 |
| 1824** | John Q. Adams (D-R) | 113,122 | 84 | Andrew Jackson (D-R) | 151,271 | 99 |
| **The 1824 election was decided by the House of Representatives because no candidate won a plurality of the electoral votes | ||||||
Under the Electoral College system, each state is given a certain amount of electoral votes, depending on their population. It means that a populous state like California has 55 electoral votes while a small state like North Dakota has just three.
In 48 states, electors must cast a vote for the candidate who wins the state’s popular vote. So even if the votes are split nearly 50-50, as was the case in Florida in 2016, Trump still won all 29 of the states electoral votes because he won the popular vote by a thin margin.
Maine and Nebraska are the exceptions to the rule, giving out electoral votes to each candidate proportionally, based on the results of the popular vote.
Only five times in American history has a candidate won the popular vote but lost the presidency, including the 2000 election where Al Gore won the popular vote but George W. Bush took the electoral college.