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Sunday, January 6th, 2013

The Latest Effort to Fix Election Results: Rig the Electoral College

Author:     Brendan Fischer
Source:     Truthout.org
Publication Date:     Wednesday, 02 January 2013 11:45
Link: The Latest Effort to Fix Election Results: Rig the Electoral College
Stephan:   Here is yet another aspect of the Republican Party's attempt to rig America's election process in order to keep themselves in the game at the national level. They have a very effective state strategy, and are using it to maintain national influence. All of this arises because, at the at the base level the party is regional, Southern, and made up of aging Whites particularly males, in a country that is going majority minority with astonishing rapidity. All of this, the voter suppression, the gerrymandered congressional districts, and this attempt to rig the electoral college bespeak a contempt for the processes of democracy, a deep commitment to holding on to power, and a subservience to corporate masters who fund these efforts. The only way to stop this is to vote these people out of office. A country gets the kind of government its people vote for -- until the special interests become so powerful they can eliminate a fair vote. However I don't think that is going to happen, so I see all this as part of the Great Schism Trend, in which power descends to states and regions. Social values will create two or perhaps five functional 'countries' under a Federal umbrella. The fight that is coming, I believe, is the one between the 'donor' and 'taker' states -- of which more below.

Despite Wisconsin residents overwhelmingly voting for Democrats in the 2012 elections — sending progressive powerhouse Tammy Baldwin to the U.S. Senate and reelecting President Barack Obama by 6.8 points — five of the state’s eight newly-drawn congressional districts voted out of sync with the majority of Wisconsinites and went for GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. This is largely because the GOP reworked congressional maps to their party’s benefit during the redistricting process that followed the 2010 census and elections. Now, Republicans in Wisconsin are discussing plans to allocate the state’s electoral college votes according to these new Congressional districts, giving the GOP a chance for victory in a state that has elected Democrats in each of the past seven Presidential elections.

Gov. Scott Walker recently expressed support for awarding presidential elector votes by Congressional district rather than statewide totals, incoming Assembly Speaker Robin Vos has sponsored legislation to make such a change in past sessions, and Republican legislators introduced a bill to do this in 2011. As Mother Jones reported, Pennsylvania Republicans considered similar legislation last year, and are again considering such a plan to rig the electoral college. Republican legislators in Michigan also plan to introduce legislation.

All three states voted […]

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