New GOP plan to dilute minority vote criticized
Lewis DiuguidThose amazing Republicans! What will they think of next to win?
Voter identification requirements and limiting when ballots can be cast are not enough to tamp down the Democratic votes. Republicans in Virginia want to split the electoral votes according to congressional districts.
The law change being proposed would have given Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney nine of Virginia’s 13 electoral votes instead of President Barack Obama winning the state. The bill creating the change is poised to pass the Republican-dominated state legislature and be signed by the Republican governor.
The NAACP is protesting the change and rightfully so. It is likely the move will spread to other states.
Kent Mueller
3 months, 4 weeks agoWhile it is clear that this is “bitter grapes” legislation, it can make sense. States are granted Electoral College votes based on how many congressional districts they have, plus two for their two Senators. The bill should be changed to elect two of the EC voters statewide, as Senators are elected, rather than going to the party with the most EC votes from the Congressional districts.
Republicans in California have little to nothing to say about the presidential election as neither do the Democrats in Kansas and Missouri.
This change (with two of the EC voters elected statewide, as Senators are) would retain the good parts of the Electoral College (i.e. spreading meaningful voting in more states) and improve that by extending that increase in meaningful voting to more congressional districts.
Certainly worthy of debate. Besides, the states can do what they want. It’s their right to do so.
Zach Watkins
3 months, 4 weeks agoI don’t see how this can make sense at all. Isn’t each citizen’s vote equal to the other? Or perhaps the question is whether it should be? The electoral college was created to keep the power of electing the president from out of the hands of the voting populace as a whole. If you agree with that idea, then the new proposals make sense. If, however, you believe that a simple majority of whoever wins the most votes should be declared the winner, then these proposals are nothing short of appalling. One person, one vote. Period.
Kent Mueller
3 months, 4 weeks agoZach, the new proposal gets you closer to the democracy based election to which you allude than what currently exists. I think you have it exactly backwards. Any time you make voting more meaningful to smaller groups, as this proposal would, then you are putting it more in the hands of the voting populace.
George Hunsucker
Northland
3 months, 4 weeks agoZero lost more congressional districts then he won…. He has massive turnout of takers to thank for his reelection… But he posies the low informational voters stuff…. Does some state in the NE do this now??? VT, NH???
George Hunsucker
Northland
3 months, 4 weeks agoZero lost more congressional districts then he won…. He has massive turnout of takers to thank for his reelection… But he promsies the low informational voters stuff…. Does some state in the NE do this now??? VT, NH???
Phil Cardarella
3 months, 4 weeks agoHere is the legal problem: Right now, the few small states that do this CANNOT result in a candidate who loses the statewide popular vote winning themajority of the electoral votes. The GOP is NOT trying to create proportional distribution, but a system where a candidate who loses the state’s popular vote can win the great majority of its electoral votes.
Thus, a person voting in one subdivision of the state would have a less effective vote than one voting in another. Ethics aside (as they must be when discussing the GOP and voting) I suspect that the courts may well find that this violated the one-mna/one-vote rule.
Phil Cardarella
3 months, 4 weeks agoYou see, this is NOT ant attempt to dilute the minority vote. It is an attempt to defeat the majority vote.
And, it may well then bring into question the legality of lines for congressional districts.
George Hunsucker
Northland
3 months, 4 weeks agoSo is this like you libs wanting to do away with the electoral college phillie????
Kent Mueller
3 months, 4 weeks agoPhil, which is why I added the caveat that they should have the two EC votes that result from the state having two senators be elected by statewide voting. That cures the problem.
Phil Cardarella
3 months, 4 weeks agoNo, Kent, it does not — unless the state has 4 or fewer EC votes.
We are not talking about proportional allotment of the state’s EC votes. No one on the GOP side is suggesting that Texas’ votes get split 60/40.
The issue is that what the GOP wants — and don’t be disingenuous about it — is the ability to get the majority of EC votes even if they do not get the majority of the popular vote in the state. By drawing the Districts, legislatures would decide the actual power of each person’s vote. By lumping all the voters of a party into one district, you can win the others. In effect, they wantto gerrymander the electoral college.
Kent Mueller
3 months, 4 weeks agoPhil, you know as well as I do, that there is legal redress to extreme gerrymandering.
Besides, you act like that would be new. I am a disenfranchised voter for as long as Cleaver is in a “protected” district.