Republicans in key swing states are considering bills or ways to change how a state’s electoral votes are allocated. For the GOP who lost the presidential race with people of color, women and young adults, one might think they would re-think their strategy. And they have re-thought the strategy—just not in the way I was thinking. The states of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia considered bills to restructure the electoral votes from their states, in favor of Republican candidates. Sometimes non-fiction is stranger than fiction. Some Republicans particularly from swing states have introduced or are considering bills to change the winner take all electoral votes to a proportionate system. This would mean that a state’s voters could cast more votes for one candidate but another candidate could receive more electoral votes. Under the present system, a winner of a state takes all of the electoral votes of the state.
The GOP, who attempted to disenfranchise millions of black and Hispanic voters from voting and win the election with voter ID laws, have now come up with another strategy. It’s a new twist on “if at first you don’t succeed, try again”. At first, they tried to steal the election with voter ID laws for bogus voter in person fraud. But that only backfired and caused people of color and women to come out in overwhelming numbers in support of Pres. Obama.
Now Republicans, in states with Republican leadership that voted Democratic in the presidential election, want to change the way the electoral college votes are distributed in key swing states.. In Virginia, the proposed bill was so ultra conservative that even conservative Governor Bob McConnell did not support it. And it died in a Virginia Senate committee. But Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker who tried to break unions, says let’s take a look at it. To him, it probably sounds like a tantalizing idea to outsmart and beat Democrats.
Governors in Michigan and Ohio have denounced the idea which is commonly known as gerrymandering. That leaves Wisconsin and Pennsylvania as the next-most-likely places to consider similar moves. Due to Virginia declaring death to its bill and other prominent Republicans, like Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, speaking publicly against these types of bills, the electoral college is probably safe for now.
Republicans do not want to do the hard work of attracting new members to its party. Instead they want to choose the easier path for them by attempts to change the way the game is played. It’s really the same strategy that caused them to lose the election in November. Instead of focusing on outreach to other groups, they chose the easy path of changing the rules to how the election game is played—passing voter ID laws in over half the states and now this newest attempt to defraud voters.
Just as Republicans are thinking of ways to rig the next Presidential election, Democrats are re-introducing bills such as the Voter Empowerment Act to protect the vote and restore rights to disenfranchised voters. Democratic bills are an attempt to make elections more inclusive for Americans.
Stay tuned for the latest bills having an impact on voting and voters’ rights.
Leave a Reply