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Gerrymandering: blatant anti-democracy
Republican plans to gerrymander my state and others even more are their main hope to steal the next election from citizens. This outright cheating already keeps them as a majority in the House, enabling a small minority to stop effective government and favor the 1% over everyone else. I mostly hate gerrymandering because it's enabled the Greedy Old Party to push fossil fuels while Climate Destabilization threatens.
How Republicans Plan To Rig The Next Presidential Election, In Six ...
Yesterday, Virginia Republicans took the first step to move a GOP plan to rig the Electoral College forward in that state. Similar plans are under consideration in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.
The Republican election rigging plan targets blue states that President Obama won in 2008 and 2012, and changes the way they allocate electoral votes to give many of these votes away for free to the Republican candidate for president. Under the Republican Plan, most electoral votes will be allocated to the winner of individual Congressional districts, rather than to the winner of the state as a whole. Because the Republican Plan would be implemented in states that are heavily gerrymandered to favor Republicans, the resulting maps would all but guarantee that the Republican would win a majority of each state’s electoral votes, even if the Democratic candidate wins the state as a whole.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by James Kz on -
One would note the pejorative term "gerrymandering" is the term the party out of power uses to call any redistricting by the party in power.
There are numerous gerrymandered Democratic districts. Note for example, Michigan Congressional District 4 (which includes my hometown), which runs from Traverse City diagonally across the state to south of Flint, including Alma, Mt Pleasant, Clare, and nearly half of the rural area of the Lower Peninsula, as well as the suburbs of Saginaw and Flint.
As for the idea of the electoral college votes being divided up by winners of congressional districts rather than winner take all, I would note Maine and Nebraska (my home state now) already do that, and in truth votes wind up not being divided anyway. In Nebraska Omaha and Lincoln are the lion's share of the population and the rest of us are unrepresented even with such division.
My solution would be much simpler: abolish the electoral college. It served its purpose two hundred years ago when travelling to cast votes in the national election was a real chore; in the days of the computer we do not have a democratic-republic when voters whims can be overturned by an elector who is not obligated to vote the way he was elected anyway.
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Permalink Reply by Grinning Cat on -
(Not that I "like" these Republican tactics, but this deserves more attention!)
It would be instructive to see the state maps redrawn as cartograms based on population. Our ideal is "one person, one vote" rather than "one acre, one vote".
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Permalink Reply by matthew greenberg on
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here's a good article on all this:
http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/
we all know most republicans are god fearing christian folk. isn't cheating a sin?
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Permalink Reply by booklover on -
Matt, remember you can sin if you're an xtian, but just repent and gawd will forgive you. So they can repent AFTER the next election. UGH.
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yeah, nice little system they got there.
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Permalink Reply by Secular Forces 2013 on -
thanks for graphic. irony. russia's banned any russian gov types to purchase real estate in USA.. ?
and banned gay rallies. in public.
and.. imho that's foreign influence w/the gerryriggn'. loophole city~pffffft
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Permalink Reply by Grinning Cat on
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To reform Presidential elections, the National Popular Vote bill, already enacted by eight states and Washington DC, would have states commit their electoral votes to the nationwide winner of the popular vote. This interstate compact would take effect once enough states enact it to account for a majority of the votes in the Electoral College.
The states (and DC) that have enacted it have 132 votes -- it's just about halfway to taking effect!
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Permalink Reply by jay H on -
There is a potential problem with the national popular vote if there is a close, contested race (as in 2000). In such a case, the entire nation would be subject to recounts, even states that had a clear majority, because ANY votes picked up there could go against the contested vote. Not necessarily a fatal problem, but I could see it creating huge extended squabbles every election.
One result of the state based electorals, is that states where there is no serious challenge are not involved in subsequent litigation.
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