CNN Historian: Electoral College a ‘Relic,’ Designed to Protect ‘Slave States’

CUOMO: "Take a look at the numbers. Clinton won the popular vote, but she lost the electoral vote. This is the fifth time a president has won without the popular vote. Most notably the last time was in 2000. What does this say about the Electoral College? Why do we have it? Let’s discuss with Julian Zelizer, historian and professor at Princeton University and author of ‘The Fierce Urgency of Now.’ Why do we have this? No other country has it.”
ZELIZER: “Well, this is part of our Constitution. Part of it was to protect small states. Part of it was to protect slave states. And also part of it was, we didn’t have a democratic ethos in some ways when this country was founded, so it was about electors rather than the populist. It’s a relic, though, and many people don’t like this system because of what happened the other night.”