Friday, December 7, 2012

"What Blue States?" He Said...

If Republicans can't win elections by getting people to vote for Republicans, change the rules so that Democratic votes count less.  MoJo's Nick Baumann:

In September, top Pennsylvania Republicans shocked the nation by proposing a change to the state's election rules that would have rigged the Electoral College in favor of Mitt Romney. Facing a nationwide backlash, the state's GOP backed down—but not before Wisconsin Republicans considered a similar plan. With the old rules still in place, President Barack Obama won a 332-206 electoral college victory over Romney.

But now that Romney has been defeated, prominent GOPers are once again mulling rule changes that could make it harder for Democrats to win the White House—and easier for Republicans to claim Electoral College votes in states where they lose the popular vote.

Remember, the presidential election isn't a nationwide contest, it's a state-by-state fight, with each state worth a certain number of electoral votes (the District of Columbia gets 3, too). There are 538 electoral votes total; if you win 270 or more, you're headed to the White House—even, as George W. Bush can assure you, if you don't win the popular vote. The Constitution allows each state to allocate electoral votes however it wants, but in every state except for Nebraska and Maine, the contest is winner-take-all. If you get the most votes in Pennsylvania, you get all of its electoral votes.

Republicans want to change that. On December 3, Dominic Pileggi, the powerful Republican majority leader of the Pennsylvania state Senate, announced that he plans to introduce legislation that would change how the state allocates its electoral votes. This shouldn't be a surprise: Pileggi was one of the Pennsylvania politicians behind the pre-election plan to change Electoral College rules.

Our old friend Ohio GOP Secretary of State Jon Husted wants in on this plan too, as does Scott Walker in Wisconsin...and notice that no Republicans in deep red states want to do this.  Could you imagine splitting Texas?  Of course not.  it's not about "fairness" it's about stealing 2016.

So of course the GOP wants to change the rules of voting.  Do that and you control the country.

It's the only way they can win now.

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