Ohio’s GOP Secretary of State Already Has A Plan To Rig The 2016 Election For Republicans

[warrior1]

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/11/09/1169761/ohios-gop-secretary-of-state-already-has-a-plan-to-rig-the-2016-election-for-republicans/


Last year, Pennsylvania’s Republican Gov. Tom Corbett proposed rigging the Electoral College vote in his state through a plan that would have given the majority of the state’s electors to Romney even after President Obama carried the state. Under Corbett’s plan, the winner of each congressional district within Pennsylvania would receive a single electoral vote, and the overall winner of the state would receive an additional two electoral votes. Had this plan been in place last Tuesday, Mitt Romney would likely have won 13 of the state’s 20 electoral votes, despite losing the state overall by more than five points.

Corbett’s election-rigging plan died, largely because Republican members of Congress in Pennsylvania feared that it would cause the Obama campaign to shift resources into their districts and endanger their own chances of being reelected. Now, however, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted (R)– who spent much of 2012 inventing ways to prevent pro-Obama votes from being cast or counted — wants to revive this election rigging scheme. According to the Ohio political blog Plunderbund,

Husted’s solution to this perceived problem of Democrats and the national media picking on him? He says we should make Ohio less important in the election by dividing up our electoral votes by Congressional district.

This is huge and should raise giant red flags. Under the current winner-take-all system, Obama won all 18 of Ohio’s electoral votes. Under Husted’s plan, 12 of those 18 electoral votes would be handed to Mitt Romney, the popular vote loser.


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The GOP are never going to give up stealing elections anyway they can. We're never going to let them get away with it either.

[stopbush]

1. Er, couldn't the case be made that the current "winner take all" system amounts to rigging

the election?

There's nothing wrong with proportionally dividing the EVs based on who voted for whom as some states do. There is a problem with giving the overall winner extra EVs if you're going down that path.

If a state has 10-million voters in it and the guy who gets 5,000,001 votes gets all the EVs, one could just as easily say that's rigging the vote.

[djean111]

3. If the votes are decided by district, then we will see gerrymandering writ very large.

Awarding EV's by district can be easily manipulated. Easier than manipulating an entire state.
Extra EV's - No.

[byeya]

2. I think a good case could be made for nationwide proportional elections.

[Agnosticsherbet]

4. A nationwide proportional votes system would be better, however...

a system set up to guarantee electoral votes for one Party is designed to create a system of one party rule.

They tried something similar in California. The Plan was to make sure that big reliably Democratic states would have to split their electoral votes with Republicans, while reliable Republican states like Texas would not be touched so that, no matter who won the popular vote, a Republican would win.

The way to fix this is to get rid of the Electoral College in Presidential elections and go straight popular vote, not rig the electoral college to guarantee one party rule from the White House.

[Springslips]

6. You beat me too it.

A straight popular vote would give too much influence to the East Coast population centers--which would become the new 'swing states,' that's why I would favor a proportional system, if and only if every state did it. In fact, I think we should do that for the House seats too. (Which creates problems for low population states with few seats, but that can be worked out.)

[Springslips]

5. A better idea, nationwide.

Make the EV proportional to the statewide vote, forget districts. If that was adopted in every state of the nation it would force campaigns to consider every state. Now blue votes in Mississippi, Alabama, Oklahoma, ect are not worthless. (Same with Repubs in blue states.) This is better than a pure popular FPTP method in that it would balance the power from the east coast cities which would dominate in that method. The states would still have the same formula, based on the 10-year census, to determine their total EV, but would be divided to the parties based on the percentage of popular vote they win.

This would only work if every state did it.

Not sure how this would add up in Tuesdays election.

[HopeHoops]

7. I still say fuck the EC. It's antiquated. Popular vote makes everyone equal.

The candidates should have to campaign for everyone in the country, not just a few "swing states". If you're a Republican in VT, your vote doesn't mean shit. If you're a Democrat in ND, it also doesn't mean shit. Both votes should carry the same weight.

[DCKit]

8. We sure as hell didn't this time.