GOP Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett Proposes Rigging The Electoral College For Republicans

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

Source: Think Progress

President Obama won Pennsylvania by more than 10 percentage points in 2008, and Democrats have won the state in every single presidential election for the last two decades. In a close election, it is difficult to draw an electoral map that sends a Democrat to the White House without that Democrat winning all of Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes. So the state’s GOP Gov. Tom Corbett has a simple plan — give away nearly half of the state’s electoral vote to the Republican presidential candidate for free:

"Gov. Tom Corbett and state Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi are proposing that the state divide up its Electoral College votes according to which candidates carried each Congressional district, plus two votes for the statewide winner. The system is used by Maine — which, despite the system, has never actually split its four electoral votes — and by Nebraska, which gave one of its five votes to Barack Obama in 2008. <...>
Had this proposed system been in place in 2008, when Obama won the state by a ten-point margin, he in fact would have only taken 11 out of the state’s 21 electoral votes at the time — due to a combination of past Republican-led redistricting efforts to maximize their district strength, and Obama’s votes being especially concentrated within urban areas."

Let’s be clear, the Electoral College is a terrible idea. It has, on three occasions, allowed the loser of the national popular vote to enter the White House. It forces presidential candidates to pander to swing states and ignore the needs of the vast majority of the nation. Without the Electoral College, Bush v. Gore would never have happened and former President-elect Al Gore would have succeeded Bill Clinton. If the entire nation were to adopt Corbett’s plan of doling out electoral votes by congressional district, it would eliminate many of the problems caused by our current system.

Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/09/14/318718/gop-pennsylvania-gov-tom-corbett-proposes-rigging-the-electoral-college-for-republicans/

---

Welcome to one-party rule, folks.

If they do this in Pa, Ohio, Mich. and Wisconsin (while keeping red states as winner-take-all), the electoral college is gerrymandered and there's no realistic way a Democrat wins the White House again in this generation. You would have a system as rigged as the "elections" in China or the old USSR.

And the genius thing about it is, they'll push it as some sort of pro-democracy plan, claiming they want everyone's voice to be heard.

Link to Mother Jones, who broke the story:
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/09/gop-electoral-college-plan-beat-obama-2012

[drm604]

1. So what's our response.

How do we counter this?

[FreeBillClinton]

3. Probably a lot of complaining as our party does nothing.

[Doctor_J]

33. Don't forget signing petitions

we're good at that

[mvymvy]

52. the National Popular Vote Bill

The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).

Every vote, everywhere would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. Elections wouldn’t be about winning states. Every vote, everywhere would be counted for and directly assist the candidate for whom it was cast. States have the responsibility and power to make their voters relevant in every presidential election. Candidates would need to care about voters across the nation, not just undecided voters in the current handful of swing states.

When the bill is enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes– enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538), all the electoral votes from the enacting states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC.

The presidential election system that we have today was not designed, anticipated, or favored by the Founding Fathers but, instead, is the product of decades of evolutionary change precipitated by the emergence of political parties and enactment by 48 states of winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution.

The bill uses the exclusive power given to each state by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for president. Historically, virtually all of the major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action.

In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). Support is strong among Republican voters, Democratic voters, and independent voters, as well as every demographic group surveyed in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls in closely divided battleground states: CO – 68%, FL – 78%, IA 75%, MI – 73%, MO – 70%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM– 76%, NC – 74%, OH – 70%, PA – 78%, VA – 74%, and WI – 71%; in smaller states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK – 70%, DC – 76%, DE – 75%, ID – 77%, ME – 77%, MT – 72%, NE 74%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM – 76%, OK – 81%, RI – 74%, SD – 71%, UT – 70%, VT – 75%, WV – 81%, and WY – 69%; in Southern and border states: AR – 80%,, KY- 80%, MS – 77%, MO – 70%, NC – 74%, OK – 81%, SC – 71%, TN – 83%, VA – 74%, and WV – 81%; and in other states polled: CA – 70%, CT – 74%, MA – 73%, MN – 75%, NY – 79%, OR – 76%, and WA – 77%. Americans believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should get elected.

The bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers, in 21 small, medium-small, medium, and large states, including one house in AR, CT, DE, DC, ME, MI, NV, NM, NY, NC, and OR, and both houses in CA, CO, HI, IL, NJ, MD, MA, RI, VT, and WA. The bill has been enacted by DC (3), HI (4), IL (19), NJ (14), MD (11), MA (10), CA (55), VT (3), and WA (13). These 9 jurisdictions possess 132 electoral votes — 49% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.

http://www.NationalPopularVote.com

[msongs]

2. obama prefers to be bipartisan lol. well they are his friends and look what he gets for being nice n

[KamaAina]

4. This ought to scare the living daylights out of each and every one of us

and yet neither thread on this has gained a whole lot of traction:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=433&topic_id=772595&mesg_id=772595

:scared:

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

5. This dwarfs Citizens United, as far as radically gutting our democracy

and the fact that it's just complicated enough to bore and confuse people works in their favor for quietly implementing it.

[KamaAina]

8. It actually works hand in glove with CU

this way the plutocrats don't even need to buy whole states. They can ignore the Blue CDs, which are generally in the expensive media markets. :eyes:

[No Elephants]

34. Whether a DU thread gain traction (or not) does diddly about the Gov's proposal

to split Pennsylvania's electoral votes.

Worse, it does diddly about the proposal California state lawmakers bring up again and again to split California's electoral votes.

[socialshockwave]

6. Corbett is an idiot. Plain and simple. n/t

[Muskypundit]

14. Really? He strikes me as a genius. An EVIL genius.

Considering he has gotten away with fucking (no, I didnt mean fracking, but that too) the state of pennslyvania back to the 19th century without a fight, I am going to put him in the evil genius category.

Now perry.... thats a stupid motherfucker.

[Doctor_J]

7. Does anyone think we'll do anything to stop them?

we've pretty much declared that the Repukes can do anything they want with impunity. Most European countries would burn to the ground if one party tried something like this.

[totodeinhere]

9. As the article at Mother Jones indicates, it's perfectly legal. The Constitution

gives the states the sole authority to determine how to disperse their electoral votes. The only thing that we can do about it actually is to take back political control of the state. This is another example of why elections do have consequences. The GOP took control of the state at the last election and now they can do this.

[NYC Liberal]

18. Yep. In the first few presidential elections, there was no popular voting. The state legislatures

chose and appointed the electors.

If they wanted to, states could make it so the governor alone appoints the electors with no popular input.

[wisteria]

28. There may be legal ground to fight this, because most people in PA live in urban areas,

and they will be underrepresented, if the law was to change. And, just the fact that it is being done for nothing other than for political reasons, will make a lot of people angry.

[creeksneakers2]

29. There is no legal ground to fight this

In the first portion of Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court ruled that state legislatures have plenary (absolute) power to choose the electors they wish. If a state legislature decides to choose a slate of electors belonging to a losing candidate they can do it. During the 2000 election, the GOP Florida legislature said that no matter what the outcome of the court cases and recounts, they were going to make Bush the winner of Florida. It infuriates me to this day that there was almost no objection to that.

Besides, A couple of states, I think Maine and Nebraska, already have proportionate selection of electors.

This would make lots of people angry but the GOP doesn't seem to care about that anymore, on lots of issues.

[Doctor_J]

31. This is exactly the sort of cowardice I am talking about

"Well, it's technically legal, and the Repukes won the election, so we have to let it happen"

We, Americans, are a pathetic, weak, and disgusting people. First of all the election was very likely stolen, and second, losing it does not mean that we completely surrender our democratic way of life. Thanks for highlighting so sharply the sorry state of the union.

[totodeinhere]

49. I think you overreacted a bit to what I said. And I understand your anger and frustration.

I wasn't implying that we just roll over and play dead and do nothing about it. I thought I had made it clear that my prescription is to use the ballot box to take the state back from the GOP. Even if they go ahead with this before the next election it's nothing that can't be undone if we can get back control of the governor's mansion and the legislature. And to do that Democrats and progressives need to come out to the polls in large numbers. Too many didn't last time.

As far as stolen elections go, I don't know enough about politics in that state to venture an opinion about that. But if that is a legitimate concern then we need to have an army of lawyers on the ground next time ready to fight any effort to steal it. And we need to work hard to get a large enough vote margin that they couldn't get away with stealing it. It's much easier to steal a relatively close election.

Also, I disagree with your description of Americans as "pathetic, weak, and disgusting people." No, Americans are a great people.

[No Elephants]

35. Yep, and most Governors get to fill a lot of vacancies, too.

I don't think we, as Democrats, pay nearly enough attention to state elections.

We tend to focus on the Presidential elections and overlook Governors who may run at midterm time, instead of at the same time as the president.

[bobalew]

11. At that point we should just eliminate it

and use the popular vote instead. What's the point of it otherwise?

[No Elephants]

36. Problem is, getting a purple state like Pennsy to change its own laws about

Pennsy's electors is a hell of a lot easier than getting a Constitutional amendment passed to abolish the electoral college system.

[Freddie Stubbs]

40. Pennsylvanians would need to put pressure on their legislators to reject this

[MrSlayer]

10. My idiotic fellow Pennsylvanians are responsible for this debacle.

This country is un-salvageable at this point. The fascists have won. The people are too stupid and gullible to do anything about it, they'll cheer on the executioner as he cuts their throats. It was always a question of whether or not I was going to leave this country, now it's a question of when.

[WhiteShoesATL]

21. well not all PA'ians

Jus the hill billy's!
...and maybe a handful of confused and angry Italians

[wisteria]

27. Oh, the hill billy's. I know what you mean, I had to move to Western PA for job reasons.

The anger over a black President is so thick here you could-sorry for the pun-"cut it with a knife." The ignorance and misinformation being digested by these people is really sad. The talk radio stations-at least three or four-the newspaper-owned by Richard Mellon Scaife, and our entire House and Senate make sure these people don't get wise to how they are being bamboozled.

[cppuddy]

12. Fine

Fine then divide up all the electoral votes from all states, or get rid of this antiquated system altogether. How long would this take to happen, before the 2012 elections?

[SoapBox]

13. Wake up Lemmings of America!

...your rights to vote...are trying to be taken away...so VOTE these dirty bastards out of office.

[Cool Logic]

15. I believe California was considering this policy shortly after Bush v Gore.

[KamaAina]

17. Actually, we and several other states are considering a different plan

that would award each state's electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, thereby basically making the Electoral College a formality. It wouldn't take effect until ratified by states with a combined 270 electoral votes.

This approach has pitfalls for Dems, too, though, if mostly Blue states are the ones that sign on (while Red states use trickery like that in PA). :scared:

[Muskypundit]

16. The electoral college is really one of those things that should be nationally standardized

And I would like to get away from the winner takes all system and to the split system, but ONLY if every state had to do it. Otherwise its holding presidential elections hostage to a few elected officials at the state level.... which is really messed up. That is if we want to keep the electoral college at all.

[SoapBox]

24. And I think we should have a National Voting Day.

[creeksneakers2]

30. 50 states splitting the vote would greatly increase the chances of

the winner of the popular vote losing. Especially for Democrats. Winners would be determined by Congressional districts. Many Democratic districts are 9 Democrats to 1 Republican. Most GOP districts are 3 Republicans to 2 Democrats. So it would take 9 Democratic votes to equal 3 Republican ones. The chances of a Democrat who won the popular vote losing the election would be great. It already happened just cutting the pie into 50 slices. Imagine 535.

[mvymvy]

53. How to Award Electoral Votes is Exclusive Power of States

The Founding Fathers left the choice of method for selecting presidential electors exclusively to the states by adopting the language contained in section 1 of Article II of the U.S. Constitution-- "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . ." The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as "plenary" and "exclusive."

[Warren Stupidity]

19. They have a plan, they are executing that plan.

And we are going to be transformed into their New Republic with breathtaking speed.

[WhiteShoesATL]

20. finally

finally. they jus come out and put this in legislation. its about time they stop lying to
the people and jus tell the truth lol

RUN! Its the Republicans!

[fascisthunter]

22. the GOP has no respect for our democracy... they were always totalitarians

at least their leadership and now the rest just follow like lemmings.

[Initech]

23. Haven't they been rigging (or at least trying) elections for the last 30 years?

[scheming daemons]

25. Unless it is done in EVERY state, it is inherently unfair and disenfranchises voters in

winner-take-all states.


We need to get this into the courts, pronto.

[Doctor_J]

32. The courts? You mean ask Scalia, Thomas and Roberts to decide it?

pathetic

[Freddie Stubbs]

38. Maine has been doing this since 1972. Nebraska since 1992.

[KamaAina]

43. Maine has two congressional districts. Nebraska has three.

Not nearly as much room for gerrymandering as in PA with its 18 CDs, as well as a Dem population heavily concentrated in and around Philly and Pittsburgh.

[Freddie Stubbs]

46. So, how many Congressional districts is too many for a state to split its electoral votes?

[KamaAina]

47. Enough that repukes can gerrymander them to within an inch of their lives.

Witness their recent tour de force in Ohio, where a 100-mile-long ribbon from Cleveland to Toledo was constructed for the sole purpose of pitting two of the few true progressives in the House, Dennis Kucinich and Marcy Kaptur, agasinst one another in a primary.

[Freddie Stubbs]

48. The problem is, federal courts have been hesitant to throw out maps unless

the districts are of unequal population, or the districts discriminate on the basis of race/ethnicity. The Republicans are solid legal ground doing this. The only way to stop them is through political pressure.

[LongTomH]

57. I understand there are court challenges underway already.

If the challenges fail, we may be headed toward a single party state, like unto the Soviet Union, Red China, or Germany under the Reich.

[wisteria]

26. This is a sleezy idea, brought to us by Corbett and probably RM Scaife.

Splitting the electorial college votes should be DOA. It is unfair and is nothing other than partisan politics. Republicans control everything in the PA House and Senate-and this idea comes accross as sleezy and disgusting.How low will they go to gain the White House back? They must already know their candidates are terrible and have to cheat to get one of them in. I will do what I can to fight this. It seems to me to be an abuse of power and would leave larger urban areas underrepresented.

[No Elephants]

37. I just gave the wiki on the electoral college a quick skim. Turns out, like

so many things in this country, it relates back to slaves and also to women and First Americans.

Southern states, with many slaves, but no so many people who were entitled to vote, wanted the electoral college so that their states would be important to Presidential elections and sitting Presidents, even if only a few voters lived in those states. Plus, with lots of people living in a state, you got more electors, even if those people could not vote.

Poor John Adams tried hard to fight against slavery, but he lost.

Will the stain of our sins ever fade?

P.S. No wonder Scalia is so fond of the "original intent." So much of it had to do with anti-minority, anti female laws. And today's Republican Party is another example of "The more things change, the more they stay the same."

[RedCloud]

39. Pennsylvania has been gerrymandered to where it's GOP 12 Dems 6

This is in spite of a possible 10% + victory by the Dems on the national election there. How fair is that shit?

I agree with the torch proposal. Until these bastards are held criminally accountable and imprisoned they will keep fucking up democracy until they get their dictatorial plutocracy and global warming disaster. They are morons on crack.

[Freddie Stubbs]

41. This could blow up on Republicans' faces if Obama were to lose PA but still get some EV's there

[Kingofalldems]

58. If Obama loses PA., he loses the election

But I suspect you know that.

[brendan120678]

42. How is his plan really any different than...

the plan that I have seen supported in some other state legislatures, whereby a State's entire slate of electors will go to the candidate who wins the national popular vote, no matter what the results in that individual state are?

That, in my opinion, is an even bigger danger to the individual citizens of a state.

I'm actually a supporter of states being allowed to split up their electoral votes if they so choose. There is certainly nothing unconstitutional about it.

[KamaAina]

44. The difference is, the National Popular Vote would not take effect

until states with a total of 270 electoral votes had passed it.

[GOTV]

45. It's hugely different.

The first plan, would only go into effect when enough states do it to control 270 electoral votes or more. It's effect is to nullify the electoral college, which is a good thing IMO. The second plan does not nullify the EC.

The first assures that the person who wins the national popular vote wind the election. The second plan applies only to the state and allows the person who wins the state to get a MINORITY of the EVs from that state.

Republican's tend to do better in sparsely populated rural counties of which there are many. Democrats tend to to better in urban centers of which there are few. In the second plan Republicans will almost always end up with the most electoral votes regardless of who wins the state.

[mvymvy]

55. District Method Realities

Republican legislators seem quite "confused" about the merits of the congressional district method. In Nebraska, Republican legislators are now saying they must change from the congressional district method to go back to state winner-take-all, while in Pennsylvania, Republican legislators are just as strongly arguing that they must change from the winner-take-all method to the congressional district method.

Dividing a state's electoral votes by congressional district would magnify the worst features of the Electoral College system.

If the district approach were used nationally, it would be less fair and less accurately reflect the will of the people than the current system. In 2004, Bush won 50.7% of the popular vote, but 59% of the districts. Although Bush lost the national popular vote in 2000, he won 55% of the country's congressional districts.

The district approach would not provide incentive for presidential candidates to campaign in a particular state or focus the candidates' attention to issues of concern to the state. Under the 48 state-by-state winner-take-all laws(whether applied to either districts or states), candidates have no reason to campaign in districts or states where they are comfortably ahead or hopelessly behind. In North Carolina, for example, there are only 2 districts (the 13th with a 5% spread and the 2nd with an 8% spread) where the presidential race is competitive. In California, the presidential race is competitive in only 3 of the state's 53 districts. Nationwide, there are only 55 "battleground" districts that are competitive in presidential elections. Under the present deplorable 48 state-level winner-take-all system, two-thirds of the states (including California and Texas) are ignored in presidential elections; however, seven-eighths of the nation's congressional districts would be ignored if a district-level winner-take-all system were used nationally.

Awarding electoral votes by congressional district could result in third party candidates winning electoral votes that would deny either major party candidate the necessary majority vote of electors and throw the process into Congress to decide.

Because there are generally more close votes on district levels than states as whole, district elections increase the opportunity for error. The larger the voting base, the less opportunity there is for an especially close vote.

Also, a second-place candidate could still win the White House without winning the national popular vote.

A national popular vote is the way to make every person's vote equal and guarantee that the candidate who gets the most votes in all 50 states becomes President.

[Blue_Tires]

50. If they are going that route, then just blow up the electoral college

Which is what half of America wanted after Nov. 2000

[mvd]

51. Perhaps we can get a referendum on this

Corbett is the invisible governor and what he does behind the scenes is very bad.

[The Stranger]

54. If the state is so Democratic, WTF do they have a Republican governor?

[No Elephants]

56. I thought it was purple?