Five hundred and thirty-eight Electoral College votes will soon be distributed among this year’s presidential candidates and those of CNN. John Kingthe countdown is on.

The network’s chief national correspondent, 61, operates CNN’s revolutionary “Magic Wall” touchscreen that helps viewers visualize polling data as results are returned. He has covered 10 presidential election cycles during his career, learning the ins and outs of the country’s unique electoral process.

In the United States, the presidential candidate with the most votes does not necessarily win the election. To achieve victory, a candidate must obtain more than half the support of the Electoral College, which requires 270 electoral votes. Each state is assigned a certain number of electoral college votes, based on its population, and whoever wins the state’s popular vote wins its electoral votes.

The electoral college system is controversial because it gives a few battleground states disproportionate power in determining the next president. This year, Kamala Harris And Donald Trump spent most of their time in the seven swing states – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – working hard to drum up support.

As the election draws to a close, PEOPLE spoke with King — who is, at this point, an expert on electoral maps — to discuss the history of the Electoral College, its impact on political campaigning and the possibility of abolishing it one day. Read on for our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity.

Why does the Electoral College exist? What was the reason we got here in the first place?

The Electoral College was founded because the founders – the guys in the wigs – couldn’t agree on how to elect a president. And because we were coming out of King George, the monarchy, the oppressive British rule and the authoritarian king, they were afraid to let the popular vote carry the election because they thought an angry populist would come in and influence the masses and the people. would make a mistake. So they abandoned the monarchy, but they did not fully trust democracy. And that’s how we created the Electoral College a long, long time ago.

What are the arguments in favor of maintaining the Electoral College in this modern era?

The argument for keeping it is that if the nation moved to a pure popular vote, a candidate would simply go to California, New York, Texas, and Illinois and stack their 50 states by population. In the past, you had to do calculations during the election campaign. Now you would feed it into a computer and ask your AI engine, “How do I get 50 plus one in the popular vote?” Where are they ?

So the argument against doing away with the Electoral College is that people would only campaign in large population centers, and rural America or small-town America – even within a large state – could be ignored . Or think of a place like Texas: a presidential candidate would only go to Dallas and Houston. I understand that.

There is a very legitimate point to ask: “Would certain parts of the country be excluded from the debate and ignored by the candidates?” Because if you just look at a map and study the geography, we have giant population centers, and then we have medium population centers, which tend to be close to the giant population centers. Cities and suburbs would control America and rural areas, the least populated areas, would have less influence than they have today.

And what is the argument for abandoning the Electoral College?

The argument made by the other side, in favor of eliminating the electoral college, is the pursuit of democracy in its purest form. But there really isn’t such a thing as democracy in its purest form when it comes to big countries. The Electoral College was a compromise, and how we choose a president will probably always have to be a compromise.

What fascinates me is that our politics are so polarized and dysfunctional now that we can’t even really have this conversation. Of course, the things that are still in the books and that were put there by the founding fathers, it seems a little silly to me that we can’t walk into a room and have conversations about them, that we can’t go to the floor of Congress and have debates about them.

The Electoral College is a lot like gun control. It’s a bit like the Second Amendment. “Well, around 1780 someone wrote that, how dare you want to change it to 2024?” This seems a bit ridiculous. It’s not my job to say what the outcome should be, but I find it a little ridiculous that we can’t have conversations about these things and let people come to the table. If you think it’s wrong, show me your way. And if you don’t have the votes for your path, are you willing to talk about what…could there be a hybrid?

Both sides have good arguments, but trying to see if there is a way to compromise is simply impossible at the moment due to polarization.

You’ve spoken to many undecided voters across the country this year. Does this topic ever come up for them? Was the electoral system mentioned, as to whether it affects their chances of voting?

Not whether they will vote or not. Hardline Democrats, very committed Democrats, sometimes say to you, “Why are we still doing it this way? And you can understand that because many times in recent history, whoever won the popular vote has not won the presidency.

In our more recent history, it would be Al Gore And Hillary Clintonand these were rather controversial. Not only did they lose the election and win the popular vote, but they were both very controversial elections. RIGHT? The year 2000 was the year of Supreme Court hangings and 2016 was Asset. So Democrats are more passionate about this right now because of their recent memories.

I don’t remember ever meeting a voter who said, “The Electoral College is my biggest problem” or “I’m not going to vote.” I’ve never heard people get so angry. But passionate and committed Democrats sometimes talk about it.

What would it take to abolish the Electoral College?

Well, I mean, I think it’s pretty obvious right in front of us. If Kamala Harris wins the popular vote by – Biden won by, what, 7 million votes? – if Vice President Harris wins the popular vote in any way Joe Biden did it in 2020 and loses the election, you can be sure of that… I say this water boils, sometimes it boils. The situation will boil over and Democrats will demand political reform. And that’s a guarantee.

If Harris wins the popular vote and Trump wins the presidency, then what will it be, three times in 24 years? Three times in 24 years a Democrat won the popular vote but lost the election. This will, I think, place an interesting conversation within a very controversial central issue.

And you see, with the national popular vote movement, there are people in the United States who are trying to do this. And none of them have reached the tipping point yet. But whether it’s ranked-choice voting or nonpartisan primaries, many ideas for political reform are bubbling up in different places around the country, born out of common discontent or dismay with the way things work or don’t. aren’t working right now – and the Electoral College is one of those conversations.

What does it take to move from a conversation to concrete action? I don’t know that part very well. I haven’t had enough time to think about it and study it, but I think you see a number of these reforms. One man’s reform is another man’s poison, I suppose. And so part of the question is, what would it take to get them to a tipping point?