MSNBC host: Electoral College would be unconstitutional ‘if it wasn’t specifically in the Constitution’

After a brief pause with no applause, Hayes attempted to explain his point by noting moves by the Supreme Court in the 1960s, nearly 200 years after the Constitution was written.

“Here’s what I mean by that. Starting in the 1960s — 1961, particularly — the Supreme Court started developing a jurisprudence of ‘one person, one vote.’ Right? The idea is that each individual vote has to carry roughly the same amount of weight as each other individual vote, which is a pretty intuitive concept, but it was not a reality.”

“There are all sorts of crazy representational systems that were created that would not give one person one vote and would disenfranchise certain minorities — you can guess which ones,” he continued.

The MSNBC host went on to argue that the Electoral College disenfranchises people of color but appeared to provide an example of how gerrymandering does so rather than the Electoral College itself.

“Here’s an example. Let’s say that a city is 60% black and 40% white, OK? Here’s how you would ensure white people stay in charge: Divide the city into four voting districts, right? But you put the entire black population into one district. Sixty percent of the people. And then, each district elects one city council member, and voila, now the city council — for a majority black city — is run by a majority white government.”

Hayes was mocked on social media for the comments.