The Electoral College system has screwed Democrats (and, arguably, the country) on two elections.

[70sEraVet]

Close call on the last one.
Time to do away with it, but we probably wouldn't be able to get the votes for the next couple of decades. But there does seem to be a way to make the Electoral College more democratic: the National Popular Vote interstate Compact.

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) is an agreement among a group of U.S. states and the District of Columbia to award all their electoral votes to whichever presidential candidate wins the overall popular vote in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The compact is designed to ensure that the candidate who receives the most votes nationwide is elected president, and it would come into effect only when it would guarantee that outcome.[2][3] As of June 2022, it has been adopted by fifteen states and the District of Columbia. These states have 195 electoral votes, which is 36% of the Electoral College and 72% of the 270 votes needed to give the compact legal force.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact

Passage of the Act is currently pending in two more states, Michigan and Pennsylvania, which would reach 241 votes, if my math is correct.
I gave the link to the wiki page, because its good about giving the pros and cons.

[Blues Heron]

1. The harm the EC has done is incaculable

It is profoundly unfair to give more weight to votes based on geography.

You just cant let the person with fewer votes win the election. All sorts of evil mayhem will undoubtedly follow if you do, as we have seen over the last 20 years.

[inthewind21]

4. It's not based

on geography. It's based on how many senators and how many house members a state has. Every state has 2 senators, but how many house members is based on population. And it's been an unfair balance for way more than 20 years.

"Granting slaveholding states the right to count three-fifths of their population of enslaved individuals when it came to apportioning representatives to Congress meant that those states would thus be perpetually overrepresented in national politics."

https://www.britannica.com/topic/three-fifths-compromise

[Blues Heron]

14. its geography as in what state you live in determines the weight of your vote.

as opposed to everybodys vote counts equally, which is patently not the case if the person with fewer votes gets to win the election.

[Kaleva]

6. The states with the largest populations have the most electoral college votes

We also don't vote for presidents. We vote for a slate of electors . One can see that on the ballot.

[Blues Heron]

15. great, all I know is the people with fewer votes were allowed to win twice now in the last 20 years

[Kaleva]

21. Over 6 million people in CA voted for TFG in 2020

In the grand scheme of things, their vote didn't matter because all of CA's electoral college votes went to Biden

[Blues Heron]

24. you just cant let the person with fewer votes win the election and thats what has happened

The EC has harmed our country in myriad ways. One is overturning Roe v. Wade - three of those justices were appointed by vote-loser Trump. That is some major harm right there.

[Kaleva]

25. We don't. It's the Electors whose votes are counted.

[Blues Heron]

26. whatever, the net effect is the loser with fewer votes gets installed and that is wrong

its just of an illusion of democracy if losers get to win. It has harmed us big time and will continue to do so every time the loser with fewer votes is allowed to take office.

[Kaleva]

27. Maybe but I don't think there's enough interest in changing it.

[Blues Heron]

28. yep, we are stuck with it for the foreseeable future. Just means we have to work harder

to GOTV.

[Kaleva]

29. I agree with you there!

[moose65]

2. It has happened 4 times in history

There have been 4 occasions where the winner of the popular vote lost the Presidential election due to the Electoral College.

1824 - that one is so long ago and so removed from us, that we usually forget about it. Neither of the modern parties existed at that time, and it was the first election where some states actually used the popular vote - most of them still let the states just pick the electors. That election really isn't in the same league as the others.

1876 - volumes have been written about this election. This one is also the only one where a candidate won a majority of the popular vote and still lost the election - poor Samuel Tilden!

Then of course we had the lovely elections of 2000 and 2016.

Interesting that in all three of those elections - 1876, 2000, and 2016 - the Democrat got screwed and a Republican won the election in the Electoral College.

[ITAL]

5. No one really knows about 1876 to this day

Both sides were involved in shadiness and tampering and suppression. I wouldn't necessarily say Tilden got screwed, whoever lost that election would have had a beef.

[HelpImSurrounded]

3. Yes but it weirdly helped in 2020

Not the EC itself but the federated nature of our elections. By having 50 sovereign entities running 50 separate elections it meant that Trump couldn't interfere with the election and he had to bring suits in multiple jurisdictions.

I am a huge supporter of the NPVIC - it would drive a stake through the heart of the EC and we would not see the will of the people thwarted again. But I now understand the federal government should never run presidential elections - that is best in the hands of 50 different Secretaries of State.

[In It to Win It]

18. A national popular vote shouldn't change the dynamics of how states run elections

They would tally votes as they do now with secretaries of state reporting and certifying the result as they do now, but that's where it would stop. No slate of electors or anything else that comes after.

With this EC workaround, it would work the same way they do now.

[Poiuyt]

7. I doubt if anything will happen unless the Republicans win the popular vote but lose the EC

Then we'll get change real fast!

[sarisataka]

8. Isn't it somewhat odd that we want this compact

Where a state will ignore its own popular vote in favor of the national majority yet oppose SCOTUS ruling that states can assign electors differently than a state's popular vote.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217372287

[Wounded Bear]

10. Yeah, I've always suspected such laws woule not stand up to challenge...nt

[MichMan]

19. It is odd, isn't it?

[Kaleva]

22. +1

[Wounded Bear]

9. The EC system was designed when there were 13 states...

at 50 states it has become a bit unwieldy.

They exacerbated it in 1913 when they fixed the number of representatives at 435. Since then the population has more than tripled, with the most growth in urban-largely democratic-areas.

We're gerrymandered in 3 ways.

1. In the Senate just because of it's fundamental makeup. Small population states outnumber big ones.

2. In the House because of population distribution. Small population states outweigh large states whose representation is capped.

3. Through politics where partisanship has prevailed in some states.

The third has been rectified in some states, but not in all.

[70sEraVet]

11. I didn't know about the 'fixed number of representatives'.

I'll research that a bit. Thanks

[moose65]

12. Yep

And as to your #2 point, I have never understood why we don't push more for increasing the size of the House. It used to be routinely done after each census to account for population growth, and it was last done after the 1910 census. At that time New Mexico, Arizona, Alaska, and Hawaii weren't states yet, women and Native Americans couldn't vote, and most Black citizens were prevented from voting.

After the census in 1920, when the Republicans had complete control (what a surprise), the number wasn't increased. Some of that was due to fear of immigrants who were crowding into the cities at that time. The size of the House was permanently set at 435 sometime in the 1920s. That law needs to be repealed.

Increasing the size of the House would also affect electoral votes. California is woefully under-represented in the House. A correction is needed, desperately.

[ITAL]

13. Partly I think it's the size of the chamber itself

It'd be tough to fit something like 1500 seats in there, which is probably about how many it would take to match the population ratio from the 1920s.

[moose65]

16. I see that as a cop-out

If we can spend billions each year on the military, surely we can figure out some way to add some space to the House chamber

[ITAL]

17. Sure, they could probably take out hallways/offices and such

But I think that'd be the only way to really expand it much unless you wanna tear down the wing and build a new one from scratch.

[MichMan]

20. Close the entire building and have everyone working remotely from home

[Demsrule86]

23. Unless everyone signed on the compact could cost us elections...and I would not waste my

my time...the current courts will strike it down.