Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has been criticized after she called for the elimination of the electoral college while claiming the system is a “scam” that undermines the “voters of color.”
The freshman congresswoman made her comments in an Instagram story earlier this week. The video started with her driving along a barren highway while joking that there were “many votes here.”
“Very efficient way to choose leadership of the country. I mean I can’t think of any other way, can you?” she continued.
While referring to the article, Ocasio-Cortez claimed that the electoral college favors votes from white Americans over those from people of color.
“Due to severe racial disparities in certain states, the Electoral College effectively weighs white voters over voters of color, as opposed to a ‘one person, one vote’ system where all our votes are counted equally,” she wrote.
She then went on to criticize the argument that eliminating the electoral college would give larger states more power.
“Could you image if we had this kind democracy-altering ‘fairness’ provision for literally any other group? If we weighed, for example, black and indigenous voters more because of unfairness?” she wrote.
Ocasio-Cortez ended her arguments with: “Facts are facts America. The electoral college has to go.”
Responding to Ocasio-Cortez’s claim, many prominent figures and political pundits took to social media to point out the defects of the Democratic lawmaker’s arguments.
“AOC scoffs at Middle America, our founding, and the Electoral College. They would dictate our lives from their Ivory luxury apartments,” Republican National Committee spokesperson Elizabeth Harrington wrote.
Republican National Committee’s Chief of Staff Richard Walters shared similar views with Harrington pointing out that, “The purpose of the Electoral College is to ensure all Americans have their voices heard. It’s absurd for AOC to want only the voices of the elite cities to be represented. ‘Flyover country’ matters just as much, even if that doesn’t fit AOC’s and the Democrats’ narrative.”
Similarly, Robby Starbuck, a producer and director, criticized Ocasio-Cortez for targeting people living in the American heartland.
Rep. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) also weighed in on Ocasio-Cortez’s comments pointing out that her suggestion would “silence our voices” in states like Iowa.
“Actually @AOC, eliminating the Electoral College would silence our voices here in Iowa and in many other states across the country. This is just more evidence of how out of touch the Democrats have become,” Ernst wrote.
Meanwhile, former Gov. Mike Huckabee suggested that Ocasio-Cortez should re-educate herself about the electoral college before pushing for its removal.
“The great sage, AOC, apparently didn’t take Civics so she wants to get rid of the Electoral College. The college we need to close is the one who gave her a degree! She won’t watch this, but hope you will. Electoral College is good for Dems and GOP,” he wrote.
Hans von Spakovsky, a former member of the Federal Election Commission, said that the Electoral College system was devised at America’s founding to balance the competing interests of large and small states, and to temper the “tyranny of the majority.”
