Thom Hartmann: Bush v. Gore - took away your right to vote! (Pt. 1)

[thomhartmann]

If this new election-rigging scheme had been in place last year, then President Obama would have only gotten 47 Electoral College votes from the battleground states, while Mitt Romney would have won those states with 59 votes, even though he got hammered in the popular vote in each of those states. And if all the states in the nation had gone along with this election-rigging scheme, then billionaire Mitt Romney would be our president today, even though he lost the national vote by millions. Billionaires and Republicans know they're a minority in America. Their hard-right bigotry toward gays and women turns off young voters. Their xenophobia and mistrust of non-whites have turned off the growing minority electorate. And their economic principles, including Reaganomics and devastating austerity, are slowing destroying our country.

We must do something to head off this billionaire takeover of our presidential elections. And the best way to do this is with more democracy. There’s a way to eliminate the power of the Electoral College that doesn’t require amending the Constitution. It’s pretty straightforward: replace the Electoral College with a system of more democracy - a national popular vote that elects our President based on which candidate got the most votes nationwide, plain and simple, and more importantly, Republican rig-proof. Nine states have already passed National Popular Vote laws, meaning that their electors will vote for whichever candidate wins the national popular vote, even if that candidate lost the state’s Electoral College vote. The nine states that have passed national popular vote laws, which include California, Illinois and Maryland, account for 132 electoral votes, nearly half of the 270 needed in the Electoral College to win the Presidency.

If the National Popular Vote movement continues to spread, and enough states sign up to bring their combined Electoral College votes to 270, then the Electoral College will be dead, along with Republican efforts to rig elections and corrupt our democracy. This needs to be our game-plan from here on out. Hard-working middle-class Americans are the majority in America, not democracy-destroying billionaires and their Republican cronies. It’s up to us, the 99 percent, to push back against this nation’s corrupt Conservative minority and their billionaire backers, and stop them once and for all from rigging elections in America.

The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann on RT TV & FSTV "live" 9pm and 11pm check www.thomhartmann.com/tv for local listings