ABOUT THE EVENT
Join us for a conversation with NYT editorial board member Jesse Wegman as we discuss discuss his book and possible reforms of the presidential vote and the Electoral College. The way we vote for the only official whose job it is to represent all Americans is neither fair nor just. Major reform is needed―now. Isn't it time to let the people pick the president?
Twice in the last five elections, the Electoral College has overridden the popular vote, calling the integrity of the entire system into question―and creating a false picture of a country divided into bright red and blue blocks when in fact we are purple from coast to coast. Even when the popular-vote winner becomes president, tens of millions of Americans―Republicans and Democrats alike―find that their votes didn't matter. And, with statewide winner-take-all rules, only a handful of battleground states ultimately decide who will become president. Jesse Wegman draws upon the history of the founding era, as well as information gleaned from campaign managers, field directors, and other officials from twenty-first-century Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns, to make a powerful case for abolishing the antiquated and antidemocratic Electoral College.
Thursday, January 21, 2021, 5pm EST
Jesse Wegman serves on the editorial board for The New York Times where he has written about the Supreme Court and legal affairs since 2013. He was previously a senior editor at The Daily Beast and Newsweek, a legal news editor at Reuters, and the managing editor of The New York Observer.
His recent book has been heavily praised with Publishers Weekly saying "Wegman combines in-depth historical analysis and insight into contemporary politics to present a cogent argument that the Electoral College violates America’s ‘core democratic principles’ and should be done away with…" The New York Times wrote, "“People have been arguing against the Electoral College from the beginning. But no one… has laid out the case as comprehensively and as readably as Jesse Wegman does.”
