Electoral college fixes could backfire on the GOP
If some Republican leaders had their way, states in which the GOP controls legislatures and governors’ offices soon would reshape election laws.
Maine and Nebraska moved away from a winner-takes-all system of awarding Electoral College votes to one that allocates them by congressional districts. The concept could quietly gain momentum during the Republican National Committee’s Winter Meeting here, though many GOP members caution that changing the way states bestow electoral votes could backfire and hurt governors and congressional candidates. …
President Obama won the popular vote in November with 65.9 million votes, or 51.1 percent, to Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s 60.9 million, or 47.2 percent, and won the Electoral College, 332-206. If states awarded electoral votes proportionally, it’s unclear whether he would have been re-elected.
In Pennsylvania, Pileggi’s new plan would award two votes to the winner of the popular vote statewide and then divide the 18 congressional districts based on the percentage of the popular vote each presidential candidate received.
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
Give them enough rope…
Progressive/Socialists consider that a feature rather than a bug.
Fallon on January 25, 2013 at 8:56 AM
I would support doing that, but only if the big blue states did it as well. I noticed a lot of the NPV states passed their laws only on condition that other states did it as well.
Odysseus on January 25, 2013 at 8:58 AM
When one side consistently flaunts the law, new laws are a “what difference does it make” moment.
Difficultas_Est_Imperium on January 25, 2013 at 9:04 AM
The more states we have awarding EV’s by CD the better, IMHO. Besides acting like a voter fraud containment mechanism, it will keep the super-concentrated urban areas from disenfranchising everyone else in outlying areas up to hundreds of miles away.
crrr6 on January 25, 2013 at 9:10 AM
Less political ads on TV and fewer advertising dollars for the liberal media – I’m sold.
blammm on January 25, 2013 at 9:15 AM
Having rigged the House through redistricting — Democrats won more popular votes while Republicans took more seats — the disloyal opposition seeks to cheat at the presidential level.
Given other highlights of the GOP campaign strategy — refusing to allow the 2000 Florida recount to go forward, mounting a bogus impeachment campaign, backing voter suppression laws in the name of “ballot security” it’s clear that the Republicans have no actual commitment to the democratic process at all ans are, in fact, attempting to engineer a slow-motion coup.
They should be very proud.
urban elitist on January 25, 2013 at 9:16 AM
Wow. So much fail in one post. You may have set a record.
Oh, and gerrymandering is a two-way street. Dems do it, too.
Bitter Clinger on January 25, 2013 at 9:30 AM
You still have Illinois.
Fallon on January 25, 2013 at 9:38 AM
the gop is an epic FAIL….home of the dinosaurs and soon to be extinct…..the GOP!
Pragmatic on January 25, 2013 at 9:40 AM
I like Virginia, where the Senate Republicans waited until an African American State Senator took the Martin Luther King Day holiday to head to the Obama Inauguration, rammed through a redistricting of the state senate districts on a 20-19 vote, and then adjourned early in honor of traitor racist Stonewall Jackson’s birthday.
So classy on so many levels.
urban elitist on January 25, 2013 at 9:57 AM
the GOP….now launching Jim Crow 2.0…..coming soon to a state legislature near you! Virginia is the pacesetter!
Pragmatic on January 25, 2013 at 10:02 AM
There are only 2 reasons we are even having this discussion.
1) The incredible polarization, constantly fed and encouraged by the current administration,which to a great degree is really an urban v rural dynamic.
2) The 17th Amendment which eliminated the portion of the constitution that would have specifically eliminated almost all of this problem. If state legislators still elected senators, all of this would be balanced out without any screwing around with state electoral systems. The absolute fix to this is repeal of the 17th amendment which would also to a great degree increase the checks and balances between/within the bicameral congress and the executive.
If I could make one and only one change to the Constitution, while my emotional self would delete the penumbra in the 2A leaving, “The right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”, my analytic, CEO-type self would fully repeal the 17th which I honestly think would restore much, if not most, of the balance to our government and make revising the 2A language unnecessary.
deepdiver on January 25, 2013 at 10:06 AM
Bad plan. The principal effect of a winner-take-all Electoral College system is to reduce the electoral battlespace to about a dozen purple “battleground” states. Political campaigns don’t pay much attention to the other 38 states.
Switching to a proportional representation system will change that. Suddenly campaigns will be incentivized to fight in every “purple” Congressional District in the country. That takes a lot more money (more even than the outrageously absurd amount of money spent this cycle) and manpower.
Ds and Rs are pretty fairly matched on money. But Ds have a far larger and better organized grassroots, thanks largely to unions and black churches.
So guess who will be able to turn that system to their advantage better?
Outlander on January 25, 2013 at 10:07 AM
If something stupid and shortsighted can be done, we can count on the GOP to do, or at least try, it.
besser tot als rot on January 25, 2013 at 10:10 AM
Oh come off it. We’ve had Voter ID and related ballot security laws (like the one that removes dead people from the polls) in this country for a decade. Yet somehow, despite all this “voter suppression,” Obama had the largest black and poor voter turnout in modern history in 2012.
Outlander on January 25, 2013 at 10:13 AM
The more states we have awarding EV’s by CD the better, IMHO. Besides acting like a voter fraud containment mechanism, it will keep the super-concentrated urban areas from disenfranchising everyone else in outlying areas up to hundreds of miles away.
crrr6 on January 25, 2013 at 9:10 AM
——
1
disenfranchising? You cannot possibly be so stupid as to suggest that higher populations in cities make elections unfair
2
there is no voter fraud
3
how come the EC winner take all system wasn’t a problem when Bush won 2 in a row
Dave Rywall on January 25, 2013 at 10:14 AM
The moochers are up early.
CurtZHP on January 25, 2013 at 10:18 AM
The headline doesnt match the article. They say it could backfire, but there is not one example or one quote in the article that supports that. A bunch of people saying they would look at it, but not even a theoretical explanation of how it might backfire.
ChrisL on January 25, 2013 at 10:41 AM
Fixed.
Del Dolemonte on January 25, 2013 at 10:44 AM
You do know, Teaching Assistant, that the person “Gerry” that the term “Gerrymandering” was named for was a Democrat from MA?
G-
Del Dolemonte on January 25, 2013 at 10:45 AM
See “Illinois, 1960″ and “Texas, 1960″, followed by “Minnesota, Al Franken” and/or “Washington State, Dino Rossi”.
H-
Del Dolemonte on January 25, 2013 at 10:48 AM
Having personally worked a special election that was called after the previous one was thrown out by the Indiana Supreme Court for voter fraud, I feel quite qualified to say, “You’re full of $hit.”
Or do you not consider Democrat-on-Democrat voter fraud to be “voter fraud”?
JimLennon on January 25, 2013 at 10:52 AM
In a predominately black, 99% (D) city near my parents, the last few elections have resulted in (D) vote totals exceeding the entire voting age population of the city, not even just the number registered voters. When a caucasian county official (family friend) suggested that there may be some irregularity in the vote counting if you end up with a (D) vote total 110% of the voting age population, he was roundly attacked and criticized for being racist. The predominate (D) county and state refused to investigate and simply played the race card at every turn.
Voter fraud happens. And voter fraud truly appears to happen primarily (not exclusively) in (D) controlled urban areas.
deepdiver on January 25, 2013 at 11:01 AM
Most of my live I’ve lived and worked in the south Chicago suburbs and northwest Indiana. These are areas where Obama beat Romney by 30+ points, and that haven’t elected a Republican to either Congress or the state House in decades. And your observation that vote fraud usually entails one faction of Dems disenfranchising another competing faction of Dems is spot on, at least in my neck of the woods.
JimLennon on January 25, 2013 at 11:28 AM
You do realize that Stonewall Jackson conducted Sunday School for black children and wanted to see “the shackles struck from every slave”
topdawg on January 25, 2013 at 12:04 PM
Doesn’t matter. He’s a Southerner and fought for the Confederacy, in which slavery was an accepted practice. Therefore, he must be racist. Leftist ideology doesn’t allow for a nuanced view of individuals in this particular case.
JimLennon on January 25, 2013 at 12:11 PM
Agreed. If Illinois had this, more republicans would be out there minimizing Crooks county.
AH_C on January 25, 2013 at 12:56 PM
Hey Drywall, I left a response to your IDOTIC post claiming Oboobie has a mandate.
AH_C on January 25, 2013 at 1:01 PM
Dumass Canuck. It was a problem in Oo & 04. If it had been proportional, Bush would have won by a greater ECV and maybe even goosed the popular vote in his favor. To wit, a State like MI etc, why vote when your red district would be discounted by the greater populations in the blue districts.
AH_C on January 25, 2013 at 1:08 PM