Is the way we elect a U.S. president undemocratic? That's the argument being made in four different lawsuits filed in California, Texas, South Carolina and Massachusetts. Each challenges the legality of the "winner takes all system" that awards the entirety of a state's Electoral College points to the candidate who gets a majority of the votes.

Harvard University professor of law Lawrence Lessig is one of the key organizers of the effort to make "one person one vote" the standard. "The problem is this system is denying this basic idea of democracy, which is that we all should have a say," Lessig said in an interview with Salon's Alyona Minkovski for "Salon Now." He argues that winner takes all distorts both the results of elections and the outsized focus of campaigns onto battleground states. To hear how the legal argument adds up, watch the video above.