The GOP’s nightmare voting scenario
From McConnell to the WSJ, right-wingers are citing absurd reasons to oppose a plan to scrap the Electoral College
http://www.salon.com/2012/02/07/the_gops_nightmare_voting_scenario/singleton/
Lots of people complain about the electoral college voting system (I used to be one of them until I read the background on the process) because they want every vote to count. Well, individually by state each vote does indeed count because each state votes the way their population votes, so all is well and good. The problem comes when certain states are ‘guaranteed’ to vote for one party or another, thus are totally ignored by the Presidential candidates (note that this only applies to the Presidential contest) because the winner has the state in his (or her) pocket and the loser has no chance, so why waste his (or her) time. I have always said that abolishing the electoral system all together and going with a pure popular vote was a total non-starter because the states with very low population would be completely ignored (I think barely a handful of states have enough voters to swamp the remaining states) and those low-population states would never ratify anything that so thoroughly marginalizes them. However, this system (I didn’t read the details, just the article above) appears to preserve the electoral system, just forces the electors to be apportioned out based on the popular vote in the state rather than winner-take-all as is the current in almost all states.
So why does this matter and what difference would it make? Well certain states, while reliably ‘blue’ or ‘red’, are often so by fairly small margins, thus the ‘loser’ would pick up a lot more electoral votes in such cases than they do now when they get zero, even if they lose by a single vote (as a consequence, ‘landslides’ would probably cease to exist). Thus, when there is a 51/49 split, each (presuming, naturally, we still only have two parties, though with a system like this third parties might actually get a boost because such a vote wouldn’t be totally thrown away as it is now) each candidate would get half, though perhaps if the number of electors is odd one gets a single additional one. This way the power of the tiny (population) states is preserved intact, so there is no concern about losing that power, but big states that are reliably blue/red now become ‘battle ground’ states instead of the moronic situation we have now. As things stand now, there is virtually no campaigning (after the primaries) in California or New York, for instance, with this change the candidates will be forced to show the flag in these states regularly or risk failing to turn out their voters.
I think this approach makes a great deal of sense and the idea that the GOP is resisting it so determinedly tells me that they feel they have a lot to lose, which makes me think that they really aren’t representing the country any more and have already focused their entire attention on the battle ground states. Basically, the GOP, in addition to working to disenfranchise the poor and elderly, regular voters for Democrats (note that I do NOT support the idea of letting anyone and everyone vote, rather the total opposite; see Poll Tax), are insisting that Republicans in huge blue states like California and New York continue their disenfranchisement. That hardly seems representative to me! How did these assholes wind up in charge? Oh yea, it is because they bought their way in, that’s right!
