Regressives can't win so they're trying to cheat, again

We saw how regressives tried to cheat in the last election by trying to limit the vote with various measures, from reducing early voting to taking people off the roles. They understand perfectly well that demographics in the US are changing, that minorities are gaining numbers, that more women and young people are voting. And these are the very ones they targeted and thankfully it didn't work, largely due to making folks aware of their agenda and fighting back.

So now they've come up with a new scheme. The ploy now is to rig the electoral college by congressional district. That is, if one wins the popular vote in a district then the winner gets their electoral votes. The problem is, many of these districts have far fewer voters, so that in effect a candidate can win the popular vote in a State, even by a landslide, but still lose the electoral vote in that State's congressional districts. In other words, it's not one vote for one person; those is less populated districts get more voting power than those in more populated districts.


In Virginia, for example, this passed a subcommittee, which would give one electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district. That would mean that in the last election, although Obama won 51.1% of the vote in VA, under the new system Romney would have received 9 electoral votes to Obama's 4. Similar measures are being introduced in Wisconsin, Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Does this make sense to any frame of fairness? Ah, but the regressives have never been about fairness, that much is evident.

The good news is that even regressives are not buying this obvious cheating campaign, in large part due to Democrats bringing this to light. In VA 2 GOPers on the full committee said they would not support it, effectively killing the measure. If it should somehow pass, VA Governor Bob McDonnel said he opposes it.

Ed Shultz reports on this too. The Republican National Committee Chairman admits that this is their next strategy, to rig the electoral college in those States controlled by GOP legislatures, States that Obama won. He notes that due to the Democrat National Committee awareness campaign this led to the VA Senators and Governor backing out of support, which in turn scared off GOP lawmakers in Florida who were trying to pass a similar law. Their GOP FL House Speaker spoke out against the measure. However GOP organizers plan to take this program national as revealed in a story by The Atlantic. Ed shows the US map. If these rigging measures had been in place across the US in the last election, despite Obama winning by 4% in the popular vote he would lose the electoral vote by a landslide. So although some battles have been won this will prove to be a long, hard war against those who care not about your voting rights or democracy.

Ed shows how Michigan is bringing up similar legislation but it is Rachel Maddow who gets into the detail on this story. MI is the State that passed the draconian "emergency manager" law that allowed a State appointed crony to take over the public-elected governance of cities if the Governor declared a fiscal emergency. This law was so outrageous that the public overturned it in a referendum. Not to fear though. The regressive MI legislature passed another law doing the same thing only this time saying it cannot be overturned by public vote. They do not give a shit about the vote or democracy and make no bones about it.

Hence although other States are backing out of this anti-democratic electoral rigging MI will plough ahead right over your Constitutional rights. If they get away with it you can rest assured the others will get over their embarrassment and follow suit. Hence we must continue to fight and raise awareness, for they will not stop until democracy is destroyed. And that's no exaggeration.