Republicans Might Be Outsmarting Themselves on the Electoral College

[warrior1]

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/01/republicans-might-be-outsmarting-themselves-electoral-college

snip

However, Republicans might be outsmarting themselves. If this system of divvying up electoral votes were adopted nationwide, you could make a case for it. But the unfairness of adopting this system only in states that Democrats usually win is palpable. States in the deep South, for example, have no intention of adopting a similar system, and will continue awarding 100 percent of their electoral votes to Republican candidates. Republicans are picking and choosing different systems in different states, with not even a pretense that they're doing it for any reason aside from choosing whichever system benefits Republicans the most in each state. This is so obviously outrageous that it's likely to prompt a backlash.

Democrats don't have the votes to fight back with anything similar, but they do have another weapon in their back pocket: the National Popular Vote interstate compact, an agreement among states to award all their electoral votes to whichever presidential candidate wins the popular vote nationwide. If states with more than half of all electoral votes sign up for this, it goes into effect.

So far, only nine states with a total of 132 electoral votes have signed up. But if Republicans continue their patently shameful effort to game the electoral college system, it might spur more states to sign up. That's what a sense of outrage can do. Republicans might want to think about that as they move forward. If they keep going, the end result might be a system even less favorable to them than the current electoral college.

[sadbear]

1. I don't think republicans ever anticipate backlash.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

2. Nor do they really care- as long as they win

but, of course, when they lose they simply rationalize it away as being a product of "stupid comments" and/or "messaging", never their policies/behavior.

[sadbear]

5. They do talk about not being conservative enough.

I wonder if they actually believe that?

[oldhippydude]

7. they are either bullys (tea party) types

or corporate types, concerned only with the next quarter... neither of which require great insight

[randome]

3. This only reinforces the idea that the GOP is flailing about like a chicken with its head cut off.

The desperation is palpable. This is only one more step down the stairwell into the basement of irrelevance.

[OKNancy]

4. Who knows? It may cause a wave of sentiment for getting rid of the electoral college

and going to popular vote only

[Indydem]

6. This is stupid.

This bill does not and cannot force states that do not subscribe to it to allocate their EV count in this way.

The bill only affects states that pass it. Therefore, if the 270 that pass it are all blue states, the next time a republican takes the popular vote, it will mean that all of the states that otherwise would have gone to the Democratic candidate must now allocate their votes to the republican, even if the republican would have otherwise lost the electoral college under the current system.

However, those states that have not passed it will continue to allocate them by their own rules.

Therefore, the blue states have more to lose from this than the red states that do not.

[graham4anything]

8. They won't win this, because the democratic candidates are not constant

for the eightythird time

just saying X will change in 2012 means Y number less
doesn't apply to 2016 or 2020 because all the other constants shall change

AND should Jeb/Christie win PA in 2016, that would be negative against the repubs, because instead of winning all of PA, they will split it.

And VA is a red state.
So this has a better chance of hurting the repubs like everything else

this is a red herring

and the VA governor wants to run, and knows this would hurt him.

add the red states Hillary45 will win in 2016, and the landslide President Obama won in 2008 and 2012 will be even larger.
Especially if Texas turns blue.

[Coyotl]

9. The backlash hit before the last election, to be sure, and will only increase now

gerrymnandering and voter suppression are already well-known and understood by the voters, and young voters in particular, already well-informed on these issues, are making life-time decisions of political affiliation within this framework. The backlash will endure for the lives of those voters!!

[JoeBlowToo]

10. But who has the power to sign up for that interstate compact?

If the Republicans control the legislatures in those states wouldn't they quash that option?

[Jim Lane]

11. Right, and that's why the Compact is a bad idea

See post #6 from Indydem.

As long as the Compact is ratified primarily or exclusively by blue states, it's a one-way ratchet. It would sometimes elect a Republican who otherwise would have lost, but would never elect a Democrat who otherwise would have lost.

The OP seems to think that, after Republicans controlling state governments decide to split up their electoral votes (in states like Pennsylvania and Michigan that usually go blue), those Republicans will discover to their horror that their state has somehow jointed the Compact. As you point out, that can't happen.