Five hundred and thirty-eight Electoral College votes will soon be split between this year’s presidential nominees and for CNN John Kingthe countdown is on.

The network’s chief national correspondent, 61, operates CNN’s groundbreaking “Magic Wall” touchscreen, which helps viewers view poll data as results are returned. He has covered 10 presidential election cycles in his career, learning the ins and outs of the nation’s unique electoral process.

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

The Electoral College system is controversial, giving battleground states disproportionate power in determining the next president. this year, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump they spent most of their time in the seven swing states—Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—working hard to support them.

As the election draws to a close, PEOPLE sat down with King — who is, at this point, an expert on electoral maps — to discuss the history of the Electoral College, how it influences the political campaign, and whether it could ever be abolished. Read on for our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity.

Why does the Electoral College exist? What was the reason I ended up with her in the first place?

The Electoral College was created 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 and the monarchy and 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 and influence the masses and the people. would make a mistake. And so they abandoned a monarchy, but did not fully trust democracy. And that’s how we got the Electoral College a long, long time ago.

What are the arguments for keeping the Electoral College in this modern era?

The argument for keeping it is that if the nation switched to a pure popular vote, a candidate would only go to California and New York and Texas and Illinois and stack the 50 states by population. Back in the day, you had to do math throughout the campaign. Now you would feed that into a computer and ask your AI engine, “How do I get to 50 plus one on the popular vote? Where am I?’

So the argument against getting rid of the Electoral College is that people would only campaign in large population centers, and that rural America or small-town America—even in a big state—maybe the small towns would 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 about, “Would certain parts of the country be left out of the conversation and ignored by the candidates?” Because if you just look at a map and study geography, we have huge population centers, then we have medium population centers, which tend to be close to giant population centers. The cities and suburbs would control America and the rural areas, the less populated areas, would have less influence than they have now.

And what is the argument for abandoning the Electoral College?

The argument for the other side, eliminating the Electoral College, is the pursuit of democracy in its purest form. But there is no such thing as democracy in its purest form, really, as far as large countries are concerned. The Electoral College was a compromise, and the way we elect a president will probably always have to be a compromise.

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

The Electoral College is a kind of gun control. It’s kind of like the second amendment. “Well, in 1780 something, someone wrote that down, how dare you want to change it in 2024?” It seems a bit ridiculous. It’s not my job to say what the outcome should be, but I find it 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 any votes for your mod, are you willing to talk about what… there might be a hybrid?

Both sides have good arguments, but trying to see if there is any way to compromise is something that is simply impossible at this point because of the polarization.

You’ve spoken to a lot of undecided voters across the country this year. Does this topic ever come up for them? Is the electoral system something that has been mentioned, in terms of whether it affects their likelihood of turning out to vote?

Not even if they will vote or not. You sometimes hear from democrats in love, people who are very dedicated democrats, “Why do we keep doing this?” And you can understand that because a few times in recent history, the person who won the popular vote didn’t win the presidency.

In our more recent history, it would Al Gore and Hillary Clintonand these were quite controversial. Not only did they lose the election and win the popular vote, but both were really controversial elections. Correct? 2000 was the year of the Supreme Court suspension and 2016 was trump card. And so Democrats are more passionate right now because of their recent memories.

I don’t recall ever meeting a voter who said, “The Electoral College is my leadership issue” or “I won’t vote.” I’ve never heard people get so worked up. But passionate and dedicated Democrats sometimes speak 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 anywhere Joe Biden he did it in 2020 and lost the election, you can be sure… I say this water is bubbling, sometimes it will boil. It will backfire, and Democrats will demand political reform. And that’s a guarantee.

If Harris wins the popular vote and Trump wins the presidency, so that will be, three times in 24 years? Three times in 24 years, a Democrat won the popular vote but lost the election. This, I think, will put something that is an interesting conversation about a very controversial issue front and center.

And you see with the national popular vote movement, there are people in the States trying to do that. And none of them have reached the tipping point yet. But whether it’s elective voting or nonpartisan primaries, there’s a basketful of ideas for political reform popping up in different places around the country, born of a shared dissatisfaction or dismay with the way things work. or not now – and the Electoral College is one of those conversations.

What does it take to push this from conversation to action? That part, I don’t really know. I haven’t had enough time to think about it and study it, but I think you’re seeing a lot of these reforms. One man’s reform is another man’s poison, I think. And so part of the question is, what would it take to bring them to a tipping point?