Posted on 09/15/2011 7:15:39 AM PDT by Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus
Republican state legislators in Pennsylvania are pushing a scheme that, if GOPers in other states follow their lead, could cause President Barack Obama to lose the 2012 election—not because of the vote count, but because of new rules. That's not all: There's no legal way for Democrats to stop them.
The problem for Obama, and the opportunity for Republicans, is the electoral college. Every political junkie knows that the presidential election isn't a truly national contest; it's a state-by-state fight, and each state is worth a number of electoral votes equal to the size of the state's congressional delegation. (The District of Columbia also gets three votes.) There are 538 electoral votes up for grabs; win 270, and you're the president.
Here's the rub, though: Each state gets to determine how its electoral votes are allocated. Currently, 48 states and DC use a winner-take-all system in which the candidate who wins the popular vote in the state gets all of its electoral votes. Under the Republican plan—which has been endorsed by top GOPers in both houses of the state Legislature, as well as the governor, Tom Corbett—Pennsylvania would change from this system to one where each congressional district gets its own electoral vote. (Two electoral votes—one for each of the state's two senators—would go to the statewide winner.)
This could cost Obama dearly...
(Excerpt) Read more at motherjones.com ...
Believe me, my in-laws would like to.
This is the kind of thing that could alter the democrat party. If we could split off electorals from NY and California too, then they would have to scale back their pro urban welfare state platform.
I hope PA goes ahead with this plan. My first reaction was to oppose it, but the beauty of this plan is it limits the vote fraud. The Rats can't get an entire states electoral votes with the fraudulent votes of the urban centers. It's better than going to the popular vote because vote fraud can then play a role again.
I hope the Pubs in PA have the same kind of courage that the Pubs in WI did.
California is trying to do this...which would in fact be a huge benefit to the GOP.
But I had some other thoughts about better electoral reform, aimed directly at democrat vote rigging:
1. Simultaneous precinct reporting—have a set time where all precincts report together after all the votes are counted—this would eliminate the practice of dem precincts monitoring returns and ‘finding’ enough votes to sway an election.
2. Blind precinct reporting—until the vote counting is complete and filed with the Secretary of State, precincts cannot identify themselves.
3. Precinct communication blackout—anywhere votes are counted, there should be a complete communication blackout—no cell phones, no texting, no e-mail, no external communications whatsoever, except directly with Secretary of State or registrar of voters as necessary to solve any issues or report count results. EVERY communication in and out of the precinct should be logged and recorded for audit purposes.
Had some other ideas, but too early in the morning to get them down in writing.
Thoughts?
THAT is a good point!
Probably true. I didn't go all the way back to 1960, but for 2000 and 2004, using some quickie back-of-the-envelope calculations we see:
2000 - Bush 302 vs. Gore 236, versus the 271-266 actual split
2004 - Bush 331 vs. Kerry 207, versus the 286-251 actual split.
Seems this plan might be a good way to break the lock that urban areas have on electing our President.
Well, now I have a pet project to do for the next few days. I’m pretty sure I can dig up election records for Congressional districts somewhere.
Just google “presidential election results congressional district XXXX” where XXXX is the year. SHould be able to pull something up from CQ, etc.
The only race in the modern era that would have changed had the Maine/Nebraska Formula been implemented nationwide was 1960. Nixon would have beaten Kennedy.
I live in the lib state of IL. Chicago dominates the state at all levels, but there are huge sections of the state that are not liberal. These areas of the State are meaningless in a presidential election. If this system existed here it would change that.
One thing to keep in mind is each state has 2 EV’s based on the popular vote of the state as well as a breakdown by CD.
There is no way in he** that splitting the electoral votes by district amounts to a popular vote. States like CA with most of the NE counties and districts being Red would take the advantage of the population centers away from the rats. This is a good idea. In fact I would go one step further and mandate that the state has to have an electoral college for state elections and go by the same district by district method.
This method is simply an extension of the electoral college idea, but it breaks it down to the local level and is more fair than the winner take all method we use now which gives the states with heavy rat population centers the advantage and takes the vote away from millions of people.
The election where even the lamestream media admitted a lot of voters got out of their graves to go to the polls.
California is trying to do this...which would in fact be a huge benefit to the GOP.I don't think this is at all like the California plan. They want to give all the EVs to whoever wins the popular vote statewide. This plan gives out the EVs on a district-by-district basis.
It seems to be helpful for our side, but I note that almost every time someone "fiddles" with the election process to cure a perceived problem, it almost turns around and bites 'em in the butt during the next election.
Yes, I factored that into my calcs.
Don’t need no Stinkin’ GOP plan.
‘The Obama Legacy’
Let the political games begin. Many Democrats, both voters and elected officials, are beginning to wish they had never heard of one Barack Hussein Obama. What appeared initially to be “The One” has morphed into “The None.”
Behind the scenes, Democrats will be working furiously to get rid of this impostor.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/09/the_obama_legacy.html
WOW !!!! I thought his record alone should do the trick .
It shows a lack of a long view. Fix things to our advantage for right now. Tomorrow is a myth. When the Security laws were coming up I thought, yeah, they are needed for now but what will a Democrat president do with them?
And it would further the diminution of the States as politically distinct entities and tend to make them more like Provinces.
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