GOP's Electoral College Scheme

[Cave Johnson]

So, rather than adapt to a changing electorate, Republicans are going to try and win the 2016 election through procedural "reform"/chicanery. F yourselves with a rusty, AIDS-infected dildo, the whole lot of you.

Republicans alarmed at the apparent challenges they face in winning the White House are preparing an all-out assault on the Electoral College system in critical states, an initiative that would significantly ease the party's path to the Oval Office.

Senior Republicans say they will try to leverage their party's majorities in Democratic-leaning states in an effort to end the winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes. Instead, bills that will be introduced in several Democratic states would award electoral votes on a proportional basis.

Already, two states -- Maine and Nebraska -- award an electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district. The candidate who wins the most votes statewide takes the final two at-large electoral votes. Only once, when President Obama won a congressional district based in Omaha in 2008, has either of those states actually split their vote.

But if more reliably blue states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin were to award their electoral votes proportionally, Republicans would be able to eat into what has become a deep Democratic advantage.

All three states have given the Democratic nominee their electoral votes in each of the last six presidential elections. Now, senior Republicans in Washington are overseeing legislation in all three states to end the winner-take-all system.

Obama won all three states in 2008, handing him 46 electoral votes because of the winner-take-all system. Had electoral votes been awarded by district, Republican nominee Mitt Romney would have cut into that lead. Final election results show that Romney won nine of Michigan's 14 districts, five of eight in Wisconsin, and at least 12 of 18 in Pennsylvania. Allocate the two statewide votes in each state to Obama and that means Romney would have emerged from those three Democratic states with 26 electoral votes, compared with just 19 for Obama (and one district where votes are still being counted).
Republicans are able to contemplate such a bold plan because of their electoral success in 2010, when the party won control of state legislative chambers and the governorships in all three states, giving them total control over the levers of state government.

"If you did the calculation, you'd see a massive shift of electoral votes in states that are blue and fully [in] red control," said one senior Republican taking an active role in pushing the proposal. "There's no kind of autopsy and outreach that can grab us those electoral votes that quickly."

The proposals, the senior GOP official said, are likely to come up in each state's legislative session in 2013. Bills have been drafted, and legislators are talking to party bosses to craft strategy. Saul Anuzis, the former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, has briefed Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and Chief of Staff Jeff Larson on his state's proposal. The proposal "is not being met with the 'We can't do that' answer. It's being met with 'I've already got a bill started,' " the official said.

Republican state legislators are motivated to act after Romney's loss. And the party lost legislative seats in all three states, adding urgency to pass the measures before voters head to the polls in 2014.

Tweaks of electoral-vote rules are hardly unprecedented, according to Michael McDonald, a political scientist at George Mason University. State legislatures routinely changed Electoral College allocation rules in the early years of the Republic; the political fallout then can inform present-day lawmakers considering the changes.

"State legislative elections became tantamount to the presidential election in a state. Local issues were put aside for presidential politics," McDonald said. "These states legislators thus risk the nationalization of their state politics, to the detriment of their personal careers. State legislators learned that once they fixed the Electoral College rules, national politics no longer dominated state elections."

In the long run, Republican operatives say they would like to pursue similar Electoral College reform in Florida, Ohio, and Virginia. Obama won all three states, but Romney won a majority of the congressional districts in each state.

Any changes to the allocation of Electoral College votes would have a major impact on each party's path to the White House. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia have given Democrats their collective 246 electoral votes in each of the last six elections. That virtually forces Republicans to run the swing-state table.

But rewriting the rules would dramatically shrink or eliminate the Democratic advantage, because of the way House districts are drawn. The decennial redistricting process has dumped huge percentages of Democratic voters into some urban districts, while Republican voters are spread over a wider number of districts, giving the party an advantage. This year, Democratic House candidates won more than 1 million more votes than Republican candidates, but Republicans won 33 more seats.

And if Republicans go ahead with their plan, Democrats don't have the option of pushing back. After the 2010 wave, Democrats control all levers of government in only one state -- West Virginia -- that Romney won this year. Some consistently blue presidential states have Republican legislatures; the reverse is not true.

Some Republicans acknowledge that the party would open itself up to charges of political opportunism, but that they would frame the proposal as a chance to make the system more fair.

"With the frustration of the current system—and the fact that almost everyone would agree proportional or CD is more representative and maybe more fair than the current winner-take-all—Republicans have a strong, righteous argument," Anuzis said. "However, the motivation would be viewed as being purely political since it hasn’t been done before."

http://www.nationaljournal.com/colum...cheme-20121217

[Cave Johnson]

Originally Posted by Garcia Bronco

We'll it's still up tot he States regardless. I believe New Hampshire already does this. The only thing I'd like to see too is the splitting of California's votes. I think it's unfair and against the spirit of the Constitution, IMO.

Winner take all in red states and proportional splits in blue states is a f'd up idea of fairness.

[Cave Johnson]

Originally Posted by BucEyedPea

Who are these "senior Republicans" or "Republican operatives?" That report is loaded with too much anonymity.

Anyhow, I don't like when Rs act like Democrats...or Chicago politicians.

Would you want your name associated with this plan?

[BucEyedPea]

Originally Posted by Cave Johnson

Would you want your name associated with this plan?

Well, I wouldn't advocate something like that to start with. I see what you're saying though....but who reports should put names to such actions. I see this as no different than what the GOP leadership did to force through Romney as their nominee. And, their kicking out Republicans who have voted the least with their leadership. It's disgusting.

[Garcia Bronco]

Originally Posted by Cave Johnson

Winner take all in red states and proportional splits in blue states is a f'd up idea of fairness.

I don't advocate that. What I advocate is having every electoral district to represent itself to keep population centers from controlling the direction fo the federal government. And what I mean on Cally is splitting it in two as in a NorCal and SoCal. at 55 votes and needing roughly 270 to win...Cally counts as 1/6th of he winning votes by itself.

[ChiefsCountry]

Originally Posted by Garcia Bronco

I don't advocate that. What I advocate is having every electoral district to represent itself to keep population centers from controlling the direction fo the federal government.

That seems fair to me.

[whoman69]

Originally Posted by Garcia Bronco

I disagree...I like having the electoral districts get there vote counted for the democratic winner. I've advocated this for years.

The Presidency shouldn't be effected by state legislatures with a partisan agenda. I like this system too, but only if they use the non partisan method of mapping districts that is used in Iowa. State legislatures can already stack the deck in the House. They shouldn't be able to do so for either, but especially not for the Presidency.

[whoman69]

Originally Posted by ChiefsCountry

That seems fair to me.

Its not fair if those districts are stacked in favor of a certain party.

[BucEyedPea]

Originally Posted by whoman69

Its not fair if those districts are stacked in favor of a certain party.

Not when those districts were constructed because a party earned that right through elections though.

[Garcia Bronco]

Originally Posted by whoman69

The Presidency shouldn't be effected by state legislatures with a partisan agenda. I like this system too, but only if they use the non partisan method of mapping districts that is used in Iowa. State legislatures can already stack the deck in the House. They shouldn't be able to do so for either, but especially not for the Presidency.

I was under the impression that these were already defined in each state based on the existing electorate.

[patteeu]

It's our system, right? Each state gets to determine how it allocates it's electoral votes. I see nothing wrong here although I understand why it bothers democrats.

Compare this to the way democrats threaten the integrity of our voting system by trying to rig the system by blocking reasonable ID measures.

[Garcia Bronco]

Originally Posted by patteeu

It's our system, right? Each state gets to determine how it allocates it's electoral votes. I see nothing wrong here although I understand why it bothers democrats.

Compare this to the way democrats threaten the integrity of our voting system by trying to rig the system by blocking reasonable ID measures.

and by saying that we need immigration reform and a path to citizenshsip that already exists.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by Garcia Bronco

and by saying that we need immigration reform and a path to citizenshsip that already exists.

Yes

[BucEyedPea]

Originally Posted by patteeu

It's our system, right? Each state gets to determine how it allocates it's electoral votes. I see nothing wrong here although I understand why it bothers democrats.

Compare this to the way democrats threaten the integrity of our voting system by trying to rig the system by blocking reasonable ID measures.

How 'bout intimidating voters in Pennsylvania with Black Panthers, free cell phones, govt jobs for undocumented workers and their own version of election fraud which they claim never happens when 42 states have prosecuted or convicted for voter fraud, 24 million voter registrations are invalid, more 2.75 million Americans are registered to vote in more than one state and the Ohio Secretary of State admitted that multiple Ohio counties have more registered voters than residents

Also the Florida New Majority Education Fund, Democratic Party of Florida and the National Council of La Raza are currently under investigation for alleged voter registration fraud.

Yeah voting fraud is virtually non-existent.

http://www.truethevote.org/news/how-...-facts-figures

This, again, is the pot calling the kettle black. Both parties try to leverage their power in some way and fraud does exist.

Video of girl saying she was going to make her vote count twice.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by BucEyedPea

How 'bout intimidating voters in Pennsylvania with Black Panthers, free cell phones, govt jobs for undocumented workers and their own version of election fraud which they claim never happens when 42 states have prosecuted or convicted for voter fraud, 24 million voter registrations are invalid, more 2.75 million Americans are registered to vote in more than one state and the Ohio Secretary of State admitted that multiple Ohio counties have more registered voters than residents

Also the Florida New Majority Education Fund, Democratic Party of Florida and the National Council of La Raza are currently under investigation for alleged voter registration fraud.

Yeah voting fraud is virtually non-existent.

http://www.truethevote.org/news/how-...-facts-figures

This, again, is the pot calling the kettle black. Both parties try to leverage their power in some way and fraud does exist.

Yep. There is seemingly an endless list of nefarious activities on the part of democrats to distort the system.

[JonesCrusher]

This will effect the elections by .000003 %. Really not worth worrying about.