Poll Shows PA Voters Favor Current Electoral College System

[blue neen]

"Registered voters in Pennsylvania favor retaining the current winner-take-all system in the Electoral College, according to a poll released Wednesday morning."

"By a 52-40 percent margin, state voters said they want to continue the state's current election system, rather than switch to one in which Electoral College votes would be awarded based on the winner in each congressional district, the Quinnipiac University poll said."

"The poll showed that voters said by 57-32 percent that Republicans in the state Legislature want the switch to help GOP presidential candidates rather than reflect the will of the voters. Voters also said by 51-38 percent that the switch would diminish Pennsylvania's importance as a key presidential swing state."

"Overall, most Pennsylvanians think the proposal is being presented to give partisan advantage to Republicans," said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "By large margins, Democrats and independent voters are not buying that 'will of the voters' argument."

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11271/1178126-100.stm#ixzz1ZFTu94zD

[Cirque du So-What]

1. My local RW fishwrap has been pushing - hard - for reform

I can only imagine how the publication in a neighboring county - a Scaife publication - is flagellating the subject.

[JPZenger]

2. Remember the key is gerrymandered House Districts

If the GOP wanted to change the electoral college vote to reflect the actual popular vote, that would be worth considering. However, they are not. Instead, they are proposing to base all but 2 of the PA. electoral votes on individual US house races. Because the GOP controls the Governor's office, both houses of the Legislature by large margins and the State Supreme Court, they can gerrymander the House districts as bad as they want.

That means all of the Dems and minorities will be packed into a few bizarrely shaped districts, and then all of the rest of the districts will be set up with Republican majorities. The results will definitely NOT reflect the will of Pennsylvanians.

Because of this gerrymandering, there is a high risk that a Democrat would win the PA. popular vote, but the Republicans could grab a majority of the electoral votes. That could repeat 2000, when Al Gore clearly won the popular vote nationwide, but lost the election (at least according to the 5-4 Supreme Court's decision which stopped the vote recount).

Corbett said that the proposal is designed to keep "those people" in Philadelphia from cancelling out the votes of true American Republicans from the central part of Pa.

[blue neen]

3. I guess he considers "those people" to not be true Americans.

Corbett is not only a corporate tool, but apparently a quite bigoted one.

IMHO, he is also extremely stupid.