Florida Lawmaker Revives GOP Plan To Rig The Electoral College For Republicans

[Coyotl]

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/09/30/2698181/florida-lawmaker-revives-gop-plan-to-rig-the-electoral-college-for-republicans/
Ian Millhiser - Sept. 30, 2013 at 9:00 am

A Republican plan to place an enormous thumb on the electoral scale in favor of Republican presidential candidates is back, and if one Florida lawmaker has his way, it will be law by 2016.

In the last couple of years, several top Republicans rallied behind a plan to rig the Electoral College by ensuring that many of the electoral votes that went to President Obama in the last two elections would instead be awarded to the Republican candidate. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) proposed rigging presidential elections as early as 2011. Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus called for one set of rules in red states — to ensure that Republicans get all of the electoral votes in those states — and another set of rules in blue states to ensure that GOP candidates get some of those votes as well. In Priebus’ words, the election rigging plan is “something that a lot of states that have been consistently blue that are fully controlled red ought to be looking at.”

And now, Florida state Rep. Ray Pilon (R) introduced a bill to bring this election rigging plan to Florida. If Pilon’s bill had been law in 2012, Romney would have won 15 of Florida’s 29 electoral votes, despite the fact that President Obama won the popular vote in the state.

Under current law, most states allocate all of their electoral votes to the winner of the state as a whole. The Republican election rigging plan works by reallocating these votes so that they are awarded one by one to the winner of each congressional district ............

[DetlefK]

1. No national ID, no national election-laws... It still confounds me.

Why is it that the US is the only First-World-country that can't get shit done because it's hindered by antiquated laws and a deep-seated distrust of its people towards the concept of government?

Oh yeah, the US is exceptional.

[Baitball Blogger]

2. So now you see their evil plan come together.

You can thank all those Florida Democrats who sat on their hands during the nineties when Republican municipalities were rezoning properties from multi-family to single family homes, even though this was against their P.U.D plans or Comprehensive Plans (or lack thereof). These suburban communities were designed for white flight, which has turned into gerrymandering by rezoning.

Well played, Repubs and greedy Dems. Well played.

[Baitball Blogger]

3. And furthermore...

Since the Supreme Court determined that the election count of 2000 was illegal because it was not consistent, so would it consider that the plan proposed is also not consistent with the Constitution.

[mvymvy]

12. The National Popular Vote Bill - 50.4% toward going into effect

Unable to agree on any particular method, 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."

The constitutional wording does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for awarding a state's electoral votes.

The National Popular Vote bill, by state laws changing the method of awarding their electoral votes, would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).

When the bill is enacted by states with 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.

Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps. There would no longer be a handful of 'battleground' states where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in 80% of the states that now are just 'spectators' and ignored after the conventions.

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 power given to each state by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for President. States can, and frequently have, changed their method of awarding electoral votes over the years. 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 for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls in recent 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 Small 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: AZ – 67%, 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 win.

The bill has passed 32 state legislative chambers in 21 states with 243 electoral votes. The bill has been enacted by 10 jurisdictions with 136 electoral votes – 50.4% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.

NationalPopularVote
Follow National Popular Vote on Facebook via NationalPopularVoteInc

[gopiscrap]

4. fuckers would do anything to win

[Coyotl]

5. More like actually do anything to win, including rigging votes, past, present, and future tenses.

[gopiscrap]

6. you said it better than I, thanks!

[geek tragedy]

7. Actually, not the worst thing for Florida to do this.

Republicans can't win nationally without all of Florida's electoral votes. They need all of them. Bush's base of 286 electoral votes from 2004 includes states like Colorado, Nevada, Virginia, and Iowa that have turned relatively blue.

Had Florida split them this way, Al Gore would have been running for re-election in 2004.

[Baitball Blogger]

9. If there was such a think as a parallel universe and I was allowed to make a choice

between this one and a world where Gore had won, I wouldn't hesitate.

[progressoid]

8. Nebraska and Maine already do this.

But with such small number of votes, they don't make a big impact.

[rock]

10. As I've said before

They have no choice: they can no longer earn votes. The must steal them.

[Coyotl]

11. Good point. But, they could also realize their platform sucks and they are racists.

But, intransigence is part and parcel to being a fundamentalist.

[rock]

13. Oh I'm sure they realize their platform sucks; and they are racists

This is some of nicer things you can say about them.