I assume that because the Republicans can steal most of the Electoral College votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, that they will at least try to do so. Virginia, Florida and Ohio, I think they will leave alone. Let me explain what I am talking about.
As far as I know, there are 48 states that award their Electoral College votes on a winner-take-all basis. Maine and Nebraska give their 2 senate votes to the statewide winner, too, but they award the rest of their delegates to the winner of each congressional district. In 2008, Barack Obama lost Nebraska rather badly, but he won the congressional district containing Omaha, and he was awarded one delegate from the state.
Legally, there is no reason that all 50 states couldn’t do the same thing. But most state governments have no incentive to water down the power of their state or to allow the weaker party to gain any share of their delegates. For example, Democrats in California and Republicans in Texas would never go for this kind of reform because it would only weaken their candidate for president. But if the traditionally weaker party can gain control of the legislature of a state while controlling the governor’s mansion, they can capture electoral votes that they are unlikely to win any other way. That condition is now met in the states mentioned above.
The key is, the whole thing backfires on you if your presidential candidate actually wins the state. I think the Republicans probably believe that they still have a shot at winning Florida, Virginia and Ohio outright, so they won’t want to tinker with the Electoral College there, but I think they probably see Wisconsin and definitely see Michigan and Pennsylvania as lost causes.
Just doing Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania would give the next Republican nominee a likely boost of about 27 electoral votes. It’s the rough equivalent of stealing Florida. If they did this in all the states where they have the technical power to do it, they’d gain 64 votes, which coincidentally is exactly the number Mitt Romney would have needed to get to 270 and win the presidency. And, no, there are no states where we could reciprocate.
Obviously, the optics of doing this in just a few states where it is transparently designed to confer an uneven advantage to the Republicans would be at least as bad as the trillion dollar coin. But why would the Republicans care? If they don’t pull a stunt like this, they’ll have to actually abandon their unpopular conservative delusions and become a moderate, inclusive party. Fuck that.
And it’s not illegal.
Three thoughts about this:
1 – Republicans are chasing a moving target. Barack Obama ended up with a 5 million popular vote margin running with 8% unemployment. Demographic changes in the electorate alone means the 2016 Republican presidential nominee will face a gap of at least 6.5 million voters…not counting the added margin if the economy continues to improve.
2 – Assume, for the sake of argument, that the Republicans pull it off: change the electoral college rules in enough gerrymandered states that the Republican nominee has an electoral college majority (e.g., 272-268) in 2016 despite losing the popular vote 53%-46%. That’s going to make for a lot of unhappy and angry citizens.
3 – Whether shrill, quietly determined, or scathingly scornful, better—as Booman says—to stop these shenanigans before they go any further.
No it won’t. The very people who respect the process, and the rule of law, are the same people whose ox is being gored — or Gored. Liberalism is about process.
You want to see people in the streets, you’d need a Democratic president installed on the strength of an EC majority and a popular minority.
I see your point. But this isn’t just about “process liberalism”. It’s about race, ethnic, class, sexual identity…along with a bunch of other stuff.
If it’s all the same, I’d rather not see people in the streets over an election result. I just wouldn’t underestimate the potential trouble Republicans could be buying themselves if they win a presidential election that way in 2016.
No one went into the street in 2000 when Bush was selected. No one is going to the street for an ideological point. People will go to the street when they realize they will never get jobs and have joined the permanent underclass.
You must have missed W’s Inauguration back in 2000.
Youtube it.
I would suggest that the Dems in those states get some sort of constitutional amendment going. I have no idea what the process is, but most states allow this by some sort of popular initiative. Since each of these states went D and all have D senators right now, there is some strong ability to do this. If it were done as a “fairness” thing, it could be widely popular.
This is a good idea—the Dems in these states need a plan NOW, not later. The DNC should launch an offensive, preempt the “discussion”, declare that the Repubs in PA, WI and MI are planning to do this (based on the already floated PA proposal), state Dem opposition to biased electoral college rigging and announce a means to combat it in the affected states.
If the Repub gov-turds like Walker deny this is the plan, great. That will make it harder for Repubs to get it going. If they refuse to deny it, then take that as an admission of the election rigging that Repubs are planning and get the national (and state) press talking about it.
The point is some pre-emptive offensive action is necessary, Dems can’t wait for Repubs to plan their strategy on how they are going to accomplish their latest election rigging. Repubs are going to do it, so attack now.
Federal Democrats should move to kill the anachronistic Electoral College itself the moment the first GOP Legislature begins to move to do this. That’s the obvious move here. Making it a big Federal fight would highlight with a big red marker how outrageous this is.
The problem/challenge with that strategy is that “killing the Electoral College” requires a constitutional amendment. That in turn requires either 1) a constitutional convention called for by at least 2/3 of the states (never happened), or 2) 2/3 majority votes in both houses of Congress followed by approval by 3/4 of the states.
The up coming immigration debate may provide an opening in the west for dems. Would a win in Texas make up for the stealing of they plan in Pa., Mi., and Wi.?
In Ohio and some other states where 2010 gerrymandering congressional districts were drawn by republicans to ensure the erasure of any other political party impact, there is the horrendous idea of allotting electoral votes by congressional districts. In other words, for the last presidential election when the majority of Ohio visitors cast democratic votes but still lost congressional seats: most of the state’s electoral votes would have gone to Romney despite his numerical defeat!
I’ll tell you why the Republicans might restrain themselves.
If a state goes from being a major plum, with a net shift of 18 or 22 or 32 electoral votes riding on the outcome, to a state in which winning that extra few popular vote points only swings one or two EVs, then that state becomes a great deal less important in national politics.
That is true, but the appeal of going from 0 EV in PA to 13, 0 in MI to 10, 0 in WI to 5 is pretty high. That’s the action. They probably look at only the increase from 0.
Include 0 from Illinois to six.
IL is for the moment (depending on how badly those morons fuck up the pension system) Democratic. I forsee no movement within IL to do this.
Could be done as a ballot initiative.
I disagree. I think they take into account the number of electoral votes the Democrats lose, too.
Screwing Democrats is definitely a motivator here.
Oh, I agree with that a lot. I think that they read the same analyses that we read, in that the current lock on the POTUS that the Ds have (given a reasonable candidate). They want to shake up the calculus.
right just think about the reduced political spending in a state if they did this
Let me count the ways:
Less money from the Congressional campaign committees.
Less money from the national committees for presidential races.
Less pork from Congress.
Less third-party money in all races.
The other risk is that the Republicans might continue losing despite their manipulations. Then they’re going to be electoral losers along with suffering a huge public backlash. And I don’t think I’m overestimating the public on this one.
It seems to me that moving to a system like this weakens the power of the states and brings us one (giant) step closer to elections based on the popular vote.
And might that not also call into question the whole idea of each state getting two seats in the senate, regardless of size or population?
This looks like a slippery slope to me. The republicans should be careful what they wish for…
Is it too late to change the word “republicans” in my comment to greedy, earth-scorching nihilists?
Too lazy to grab the link right now, but my numbers in this piece were based on preliminary results. Now that the numbers have been crunched, it looks like Romney would have won by (I think) five electoral votes if all 50 states did it this way. So, a guy who lost by 4 points would have won. That’s getting us further away from the popular vote. The gerrymander is the reason.
Even without gerrymandering, your thesis that the Republicans are a dying dinosaur party would result in districts where Democrats are in overwhelming majority and others (possibly more in district numbers) where Republicans have a slim majority.
Boo, the number-crunching you provide here is exactly why I believe the Congressional Dems should propose bills to kill the Electoral College if the GOP moves in those states. Scorched-earth for scorched-earth.
I realize the weakness in that plan is that if the Republican Legislatures and Governors maintain unity, they can pass their changes but the Congressional Dems cannot. Doing this, though, would shine a white-hot spotlight on this legal but extremely unethical bullshit, create pressure on the State Republicans with a greater threat that they will pay electorally, and could bring forward a national discussion about the College, which has long outlived its usefulness.