Buttigieg slams Electoral College for overruling popular vote ‘twice in my lifetime’

South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D) on Sunday made his call to scrap the Electoral College part of his 2020 campaign launch.

“We can’t say it’s much of a democracy when twice in my lifetime the Electoral College has overruled the American people,” he said during a rally in South Bend as he officially announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020.

{mosads}”Why should our vote in Indiana only count once or twice in a century? Or your vote in Wyoming or New York?” Buttigieg added.

.@PeteButtigieg: “We can’t say it’s much of a democracy when twice in my lifetime, the Electoral College has overruled the American people … Let’s pick our President by counting up all the ballots and giving it to the woman or man who got the most votes” https://t.co/ak42dRUf5R pic.twitter.com/EpCC54432k

— CNN (@CNN) April 14, 2019

Buttigieg first called for eliminating the Electoral College in January, saying it has damaged democracy in the U.S.

“We’ve got to repair our democracy. The Electoral College needs to go, because it’s made our society less and less democratic,” Buttigieg said at the time, during an appearance on “CBS This Morning.”

Several other 2020 Democratic hopefuls have suggested it’s time to eliminate the Electoral College, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) coming out strongly for the proposal and former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke and Sen. Kamala Harris (C-Calif.) indicating openness to the idea.

The mayor’s calls to move to a popular vote come as more than a dozen Democratic states have banded together in an effort to bypass the Electoral College by awarding their electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote.

So far, 14 states and the District of Columbia have passed legislation to join the National Popular Vote interstate compact. Under the compact, the states that have joined would award their Electoral College votes to the popular vote winner, but it will only go into effect if the states that are involved make up a total of at least 270 votes — the amount needed to win the presidency.