Top Pennsylvania GOP Lawmaker Proposes New Election Rigging Scheme

[DonViejo]

By Ian Millhiser on Dec 4, 2012 at 3:30 pm

Last year, Pennsylvania Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R) was one of the leading proponents of a plan to rig the Electoral College for Mitt Romney by allocating the state’s electoral votes by congressional district rather than awarding them to the overall winner of the state. Had Pileggi’s election-rigging proposal been in effect last month, Romney would have likely received 13 of Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes, despite losing the state by more than 5 percentage points. The election rigging plan eventually died, however, due to concerns from House Republicans that it might cause the Obama campaign to shift resources to their districts and cost them their seats.

Pileggi is not giving up, however, and he’s now backing a slightly modified scheme to rig the 2016 election for Republicans:

Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi says frustrated Pennsylvania supporters of Mitt Romney deserve a more equitable way of counting presidential votes. He’s pushing once again to break up the state’s electoral college vote.

But instead of determining the votes by congressional district, they would be allocated according to percentage of the popular vote, plus two for the statewide winner. . . . Under that system, Barack Obama would have won 12 of Pa.’s electoral college votes and 8 for Romney. That’s a net advantage of 4 EC votes for Obama versus the net 20 advantage Pa. gave him on election day.

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http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/12/04/1277821/top-pennsylvania-gop-lawmaker-proposes-new-election-rigging-scheme/