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“It is difficult to find the words to describe just how evil this plan is, it is an obscene scheme to cheat by rigging the elections”-Pennsylvania state Sen. Daylin Leach
Some Republicans are pushing for changes to the electoral college that could tip the balance of close elections.
No, this isn’t a joke. Republicans are at it again.
After back-to-back presidential losses, Republicans in key states want to change the rules to make it easier for them to win.
From Wisconsin to Pennsylvania, GOP officials who control legislatures in states that supported President Barack Obama are considering changing state laws that give the winner of a state’s popular vote all of its Electoral College votes, too. Instead, these officials want Electoral College votes to be divided proportionally, a move that could transform the way the country elects its president.
There’s a new scheme brewing in states where the voters voted for Barack Obama but state governments are controlled by Republicans. Since they can’t win swing states like Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, they want to change the rules to rig the election to give themselves more electoral votes.
For example, say that under a new plan, Mitt Romney got one third of the electoral votes in each of those four states. That would mean that 6 of Ohio’s 18 votes would have gone to Repulbicans. Add 5 votes out of Michigan’s 16, 7 out of Pennsylvania’s 20, and 3 of Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes.
That’s 21 votes swinging to the Republicans, equivalent to a large state like Pennsylvania or New York. Under this scenario Obama still would have won in 2012. But for a closer election, this could swing the vote one way or another. This plan is essentially a way to rig the Electoral College process to give electoral votes to Republicans that they didn’t earn.
Reince Priebus, predicably, loves the idea.
“It’s something that a lot of states that have been consistently blue that are fully controlled red ought to be looking at,” [RNC chairman Reince] Priebus told the Wisconsin Journal Sentinel, emphasizing that each state must decide for itself.
One plan being floated around is to divide up electoral votes by congressional district. An article in The Nation talks about this:
Because of gerrymandering by Republican governors and legislators, and the concentration of Democratic votes in urban areas and college towns, divvying up Electoral College votes based on congressional district wins would yield significantly better results for the GOP.
This has to be treated as a serious attempt by Republicans to skew election results their way. At least some state-level Dems like Pennsylvania state Sen. Daylin Leach are sounding the alarm. But will people listen, or will this story just be buried by corporate mainstream media?
This could be a major change in the way presidents are elected, and have implications for generations to come. I know Obama and the Dems aren’t perfect, but they are better than the alternative. We can’t forget that Republicans can and will do whatever they can to advance their extreme agenda, even if it means forgetting about democracy and rigging elections by changing Electoral College rules. There’s no low that they won’t stoop to.
And here’s an article from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about the fight that’s already brewing in Wisconsin over changing Electoral College rules there.
Unbelievable. Wow.
Also: This is my first post here at FDL, so thanks for giving me a place to put this where people might read it. You can follow me on Twitter at @bannedbykos. (heh heh..)
Image by DonkeyHotey released under a Creative Commons license.
44 Comments
The Democrats’ disastrous showing in the 2010 midterms is the proverbial gift that keeps on giving.
I put much of the blame for this debacle on the White House, which (a) spat on the party’s base; (b) dismantled Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy; (c) failed to recognize, let alone react to, the Tea Party movement; (d) invested all of its political capital on a health-care “reform” law that voters neither understood nor liked; and (e) did a criminally bad job of advocacy on the health-care law.
I’ll never, ever donate so much as a dime to this incompetent train wreck of a party.
In tandem with Walker’s post – time to get rid of the Electoral College.
Republicans hate democracy, viciously
You know what? Democrats cheat, too. Hillary Clinton won the 2008 NJ primary and Obama got all the electors. How about that! The whole system needs re-working so the voters get the electors and candidates they vote for. Why fucking vote at all if the party powers re-arrange the outcomes to suit themselves? This is the consequence of putting districting and elections (almost) entirely in the hands of political parties: politicians design election districts and run elections and it shows in the results.
By design, all of it. The proof is in the 2012 re-election of Obama, that and pleasing the in crowd are his only concerns.
You really cant base “proportion” on past elections since in many states people dont bother to vote because the outcome is known beforehand. For instance, in Texas more Dems might have gone to the polls if they knew it would count, or you might have republicans in California reving up their mobility scooters to get to the polls.
Currently many people in many states just dont bother because its not Ohio or Florida and your vote really doesnt count.
Aloha, B&U…! Welcome to the Lake…!
What is the procedure for changing the rules? Wouldn’t this require a Constitutional amendment?
time to get rid of the Electoral College
http://elections.firedoglake.com/2013/01/18/by-two-to-one-margin-americans-want-to-eliminate-the-electoral-college/
one person one vote for the office of President
In view of the direction the Democratic Party has taken in recent times, it hardly matters. Except possibly to paid party bureaucrats and operatives, to whom the quantity and quality of goodies available for paying out to themselves, is probably meaningful.
actually it does matter
It hardly matters . . . This does matter, not only because the Republicans are far worse than the Democrats, but also because this destroys any semblance of a representational government. Totalitarian regimes have elections too, but the outcome is predetermined. This would change the U.S. to a totalitarian regime, where gerrymandering has predetermined presidential elections.
I work in an industry where I could work in other countries. If this system is put into effect, I will seriously consider leaving this country permanently, as I do not wish to live in a Republican controlled totalitarian country.
By the way,there is plenty of room to criticize the Democrats and President Obama, but I can’t believe the number of posts blaming him for this. This is a pure power grab by the Republicans, and has nothing to do with the Democrats’ policies.
In Ohio, some republicans want to actually make the electoral vote relate directly to the majority votes in each Congressional District now that they have gerrymandered the state so well. In other words, although the total statewide popular vote might go for the Democrat (as it did this year) gerrymandered districts that favor them would most likely deliver Republican electoral votes in at least the next two Presidential elections.
Please tell me how Americans tolerate this rigged electoral system but would not tolerate the same kind of behavior in their kid’s soccer league?
What a wonderful time to press for the total elimination of the electoral college.
I am not perturbed that this outcome can potentially hurt the Democratic party. The reason for this is that, unlike you, I actually believe that Democrats are not better than the alternative.
How is this problematic from a progressive point of view?
Electoral College out.
Or, there actually is no alternative. Heads they win, tails we lose.
Why do you suppose there are possibly enough votes in the house for whatever the Republicans want to do? The administration has no responsibility for that? Have you analyzed that at all?
Up until around the 2000 election or so, this would have bothered me a fair amount.
But I’ve really reached the point over the past 10 – 12 years where I think anything that draws attention to the inefficiencies of our present system of voting will ultimately help bring about change, even if that nominally means something that helps the GOP short-term.
Not that it would fix the uniparty situation, but nine states have legally committed their 132 electoral votes to the National Popular Vote. Couldn’t this power play by repug-controlled states be countered by remaining LOTE-controlled states to enact the NPV, and by 2016? If there’s not enuf of those remaining blue states, might the issue be emphasized in the midterms to turn enuf of those remaining blue-leaners into blue-controlled and then enact NPV?
Nice piece b&u. I hope the PTB give you a spot.
Nothing the republicans do surprises me any more. The GOP of today is composed of the most dastardly, despicable, black-hearted bastards ever.
Maybe there will be a silver lining to this if it drives country towards direct election of the President by a simple scheme of greatest share of the votes? Nah, shitbag banksters will still own our politicians either way.
Can each state on its own decide to use winner-take-all or proportional allotment of electoral votes?
I would think that it should be one way nationally, not a mix of each depending on each state’s inclination.
Best case scenario: No electoral college; direct popular vote like every other ‘civilized’ country.
This Empire is so fucked up . . .
My understanding is that the states control their system of elections. I agree that there should be one consistent system for national elections. Doing away with the electoral college would be great, but as difficult as it is to pass legislation, I can’t see how an amendment to the constitution would get done.
NPV (see#20) would be constitutional. Needs several more states with combined 138 more EV to get there.
Gee, Republicans are looking for a system that reflects the popular vote!
Or not.
Bet they never propose proportional representation for Texas or Alabama.
At least not until Texas is a swing State.
No amendment needed.
Unfortunately, the Constitution allows states to set their own “time, place and manner” for determining their Electors. In 2000, Florida’s Republican statehouse was poised to throw out the ballots of Floridians -not just the disputed ballots but all of the ballots- and replace that result with a slate of pro-Bush Electors. They might have gotten away with that too, but the SCOTUS’ freezing of a lawful recount underway spared them the bother. Florida’s Electors could have been chosen this way because there’s nothing in the grimy rag that says little people have any guaranteed right to vote for their President. Fucked up, ain’t it? The 14th Amendment was used in Bush v. Gore to say that there couldn’t be a recount of votes statewide with different prevailing standards, varying county by county, for how imperfect ballots would be scored and interpreted. (And since it was the SCOTUS nobody laughed at them, despite the fact that nobody on the bench or arguing in court ever ventured to specify which group it was that supposedly was having their right to be treated equally under the law maliciously suppressed by this patchwork of local practices.) And even so, the prospect that everyone in Florida might have their ballot tossed in the trash should the Republican statehouse boys didn’t like the look of the outcome, was thought likely to stand up to review, owing to the wide latitude given to the states in the matter of elections.
Maine and Nebraska already split their electors by Congressional district. They seem to be in no danger of being slapped down Constitutionally, and they’ve been doing it that way for a while now.
I would be a lot more upset about this but I really believe that these days the best weapon we have in the fight against economic royalists and authoritarians of all stripes is their own overreach. They’ve had the whole system rigged so well for the past 30-35 years that vast sections of the population are beginning to take notice of just how grossly unfair it all is- and instead of conceding a relative pittance or even just dialing down their assault on what remains of the material assets and political power of working people, they feel now is the time to drive us back into the Gilded Age. That’s nothing short of totally pathological, particularly given the rising social tensions their machinations have already caused. I say let them be undone by their own temerity.
Eliminating the electoral college is a nice idea but it’ll be of little practical effect so long as we maintain the same abominable political and legal system that exists today. I personally think that the adoption of the Constitution constituted nothing more than a patrician takeover of the country and that everything but the Bill of Rights and the other Amendments ‘guaranteeing’ our freedoms should be thrown away like a five year old freezer burned piece of fish.
No, they’re not. At best, they’re the slightly more evil fraternal twin. And since when have we had real representative democracy in America? Not for most of my lifetime, anyway, and I’m over 50.
Get real.
It would indeed.
Unable to agree on any particular method for selecting presidential electors, the Founding Fathers left the choice of method exclusively to the states in section 1 of Article II of the U.S. Constitution– “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . .” The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as “plenary” and “exclusive.”
To abolish the Electoral College would need a constitutional amendment, and could be stopped by states with as little as 3% of the U.S. population.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps. There would no longer be a handful of ‘battleground’ states where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in 80% of the states that now are just ‘spectators’ and ignored after the conventions.
When the bill is enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes– enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538), all the electoral votes from the enacting states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC.
The presidential election system that we have today was not designed, anticipated, or favored by the Founding Fathers but, instead, is the product of decades of evolutionary change precipitated by the emergence of political parties and enactment by 48 states of winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution.
The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for President. Historically, virtually all of the major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action.
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls in recent closely divided Battleground states: CO – 68%, FL – 78%, IA 75%, MI – 73%, MO – 70%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM– 76%, NC – 74%, OH – 70%, PA – 78%, VA – 74%, and WI – 71%; in Small states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK – 70%, DC – 76%, DE – 75%, ID – 77%, ME – 77%, MT – 72%, NE 74%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM – 76%, OK – 81%, RI – 74%, SD – 71%, UT – 70%, VT – 75%, WV – 81%, and WY – 69%; in Southern and Border states: AR – 80%, KY- 80%, MS – 77%, MO – 70%, NC – 74%, OK – 81%, SC – 71%, TN – 83%, VA – 74%, and WV – 81%; and in other states polled: AZ – 67%, CA – 70%, CT – 74%, MA – 73%, MN – 75%, NY – 79%, OR – 76%, and WA – 77%. Americans believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should win.
The bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers in 21 states with 243 electoral votes. The bill has been enacted by 9 jurisdictions with 132 electoral votes – 49% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.
NationalPopularVote
Follow National Popular Vote on Facebook via NationalPopularVoteInc
…so it would seem /does seem. Much ado about little then? Would seem so.
Undoubtedly the Ds will stop this being the Ds do Hope and Change so well.
Just ask POTUS Obama(D) — POTUS Obama(D) will tell you all about Doing Hope and Change.
Actually, the rules could be changed just in state legislatures. Two states already assign electoral votes proportionally like this, Maine and Nebraska. I’m no constitutional lawyer, but as far as I know states can change the rules on their own, state by state.
Thanks for the warm welcome!
Broke and Unemployed, you’re right: the States which do divide the choice of their electors by congressional districts and the like are a good example. If we agree that having the winner of the popular vote not become president is a bug rather than a feature, then the interstate compact to appoint electors according to the national popular vote outcome seems the best fix, and easier than a constitutional amendment (let’s not forget the Equal Rights Amendment struggle and the barriers faced there). The broader issues of Instant Runoff Voting or real proportional representation, to make multi-party democracy a reality, are a very important conversation which this discussion invites.
I’m afraid we live in a Republicrat controlled authoritarian country.
Yes, it truly does. As Tip O’Neill reminded us, “All politics are local.” It really does matter when one looks at their local politics, even here in Texas.
Now, Nationally, you are probably correct. But it is a fact that party affiliation matters in local matters.
“all politics are local” should read “all politics are MONEY”. Campaign finance reform must happen and Citizens United must be repealed. Also, we will be forced to buy shitty Health Ins. next year or be fined (taxed). Why not the same with our vote. If you choose to NOT vote, you will be fined. What’s the difference? Most Americans just don’t seem to give a shit anymore.
It sounds like what they’re doing is aggressive and cunning, but I don’t see how it’s undemocratic.
When combined with gerrymandering, it winds up doing the opposite of the will of the majority of voters so pretty much a textbook example of anti-democratic.
The only way it would work is if all congressional districts nation wide are drawn compactly and without regard to incumbent protection or party bias and that isn’t going to happen as long as the current systems exist.
In 2010, Florida voters passed state constitutional amendments requiring all state house, senate, and US House districts to be drawn as compactly as possible, no snake districts, keeping current town and county areas together as much as possible. Incoming gov and legislators immediately stopped process of getting approval from DoJ (Florida is subject to Voting Rights Act) and continued business as usual. So even when voters say to change the way things are done, politicians ignore and do as they wish.
Don’t most state constitutions give voters a means to determine how electors are allocated? If so, couldn’t voters put forth a ballot initiative overriding legislative action that changes the allocation method? Also, don’t most state constitutions require a super-majority (e.g., 60% or 2/3) to amend the constitution, much like the federal constitution?
You got that right.
The electoral college system is a joke. It should simply be a national popular vote and nothing more to decide a president. It needs to be abolished not changed.