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Republicans Trying To Game Electoral College

the makeout hobo

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Really, I try to give Republicans some benefit of the doubt and treat them in good faith, but it is hard sometimes. In Pennsylvania, a blue state with large red enclaves, Republicans are trying to give electoral votes by district. In Nebraska, where this is in effect that Obama won one district last election, the Republicans are trying to turn the state to a winner take all system. It seems clear to me that the Republicans, in both states, are just trying to change the rules to help themselves win, and I see this as a fundamentally unfair and malicious thing to do. Thoughts? I'd love to hear the perspective of anyone who thinks this is totally legitimate and ok.

| Missouri News Horizon

Pennsylvania ponders Electoral College revamp - politics - Decision 2012 - msnbc.com
 
No different than gerrymandering, IMO. Shame on them, and shame on any other group of politicians who have ever tried to manipulate results by playing the system.

That said, this isn't an idea that the GOP can take full credit for.
 
No different than gerrymandering, IMO. Shame on them, and shame on any other group of politicians who have ever tried to manipulate results by playing the system.

That said, this isn't an idea that the GOP can take full credit for.

Both political parties gerrymander and do other things that I don't approve of (I was very happy when my state took redistricting away from the legislature), but I think that this is just a whole, shameless new level. There's no justification for it, and trying to play the system for the presidency is even worse, imho.
 
Both political parties gerrymander and do other things that I don't approve of (I was very happy when my state took redistricting away from the legislature), but I think that this is just a whole, shameless new level. There's no justification for it, and trying to play the system for the presidency is even worse, imho.

Every election has had some of it on both sides. Trying to disregard absentee ballots, intimidating people trying to access polling locations, falsifying voter data, exploiting human flaws, etc. The rules for the electoral college technically allow states to split the electoral voters in any number of ways, if they so choose....it's crappy, but it isn't exactly protected against, either.
 
Republicans have known for a while now that a party of white, upper middle and upper class conservative people - mostly male and shrinking in demographics cannot long hold onto the majority in the USA. So they have to come up with ways to still win public elections with a minority of potential voters. This is but one manifestation of it.
 
Really, I try to give Republicans some benefit of the doubt and treat them in good faith, but it is hard sometimes. In Pennsylvania, a blue state with large red enclaves, Republicans are trying to give electoral votes by district. In Nebraska, where this is in effect that Obama won one district last election, the Republicans are trying to turn the state to a winner take all system. It seems clear to me that the Republicans, in both states, are just trying to change the rules to help themselves win, and I see this as a fundamentally unfair and malicious thing to do. Thoughts? I'd love to hear the perspective of anyone who thinks this is totally legitimate and ok.

| Missouri News Horizon

Pennsylvania ponders Electoral College revamp - politics - Decision 2012 - msnbc.com

I hope they don't. It seems like this could easily backfire on Republicans.
 
Republicans have known for a while now that a party of white, upper middle and upper class conservative people - mostly male and shrinking in demographics cannot long hold onto the majority in the USA. So they have to come up with ways to still win public elections with a minority of potential voters. This is but one manifestation of it.

Just wondering why some on the left think it is fine to denigrate white voters, or people of a different religion as your compatriot pbrauer questioned whether Jewish voters in NY9 cared about America. Statements like that belittle what Liberalism ( at least used to) stands for.
 
Republicans have known for a while now that a party of white, upper middle and upper class conservative people - mostly male and shrinking in demographics cannot long hold onto the majority in the USA. So they have to come up with ways to still win public elections with a minority of potential voters. This is but one manifestation of it.

appealing to self sufficiency, less federal government and less dependency is a white value?
 
appealing to self sufficiency, less federal government and less dependency is a white value?

Lets just say those are not core values of the segment of the population Hay's views represent.
 
the Maine/Nebraska system isn't bad... and lots of folks, not just Republicans, think it's a lot more fair than a winner-take-all system.

i'm not sure why this is being portrayed as "gaming the system" though... it's really not.... but I understand why it's being sold that way, but partisanship should not be an alternative to thinking.


the winner take all system nullifies the votes of the minorities... if 51% vote one way, the other 49% are simply SOL.
this Maine /Nebraska system simply allows for the minority to have a portion of the voice in federal elections.



Republicans in blue states really like the idea... and Democrats in red states do too.
anywhere that you find an minority, they will like the idea of getting a say in matters...
 
the Maine/Nebraska system isn't bad... and lots of folks, not just Republicans, think it's a lot more fair than a winner-take-all system.

i'm not sure why this is being portrayed as "gaming the system" though... it's really not.... but I understand why it's being sold that way, but partisanship should not be an alternative to thinking.


the winner take all system nullifies the votes of the minorities... if 51% vote one way, the other 49% are simply SOL.
this Maine /Nebraska system simply allows for the minority to have a portion of the voice in federal elections.



Republicans in blue states really like the idea... and Democrats in red states do too.
anywhere that you find an minority, they will like the idea of getting a say in matters...

I would like the proposed system better if it looked at dividing the electoral college votes in relation to the way the entire state voted rather than a district which can be gerrymandered.
 
Really, I try to give Republicans some benefit of the doubt and treat them in good faith, but it is hard sometimes. In Pennsylvania, a blue state with large red enclaves, Republicans are trying to give electoral votes by district. In Nebraska, where this is in effect that Obama won one district last election, the Republicans are trying to turn the state to a winner take all system. It seems clear to me that the Republicans, in both states, are just trying to change the rules to help themselves win, and I see this as a fundamentally unfair and malicious thing to do. Thoughts? I'd love to hear the perspective of anyone who thinks this is totally legitimate and ok.

| Missouri News Horizon

Pennsylvania ponders Electoral College revamp - politics - Decision 2012 - msnbc.com

Yea I read this a few days ago and was disgusted. But I have also read that their own party members are against it because quite a number of members are in swing seats and will loose their seat if the changes happen. So this might not happen.. but there is no doubt that there could be big backlash against the GOP if they are not able to gerrymander it so that they will never loose power.

But things like this is a very good reason to hate the GOP. They did it in Texas, and now the democrats dont have a rats chance of winning power in the State nor take the governorship. Even Perry's own home town hates Perry for what he did, since they lost their representation with Delay's and Perry's gerrymandering. They also did it in Wisconsin not long ago and it saved their asses in the latest recall elections.

This type of political discourse (by either party) is undemocratic to say the least. It should be banned period and districts should be made based on population size and nothing else. Some of the pathetic gerrymandered districts I have seen in some states, are ... frankly shocking.. some have other districts cutting right through them and are not even one continuous district but small pockets in among other districts..... seriously...
 
I would like the proposed system better if it looked at dividing the electoral college votes in relation to the way the entire state voted rather than a district which can be gerrymandered.

dividing the electoral votes by district isn't intrinsically bad.
gerrymandering can be bad or good, depending.

but yeah, at least you are open to having the minority get a few votes in the game...others here don't seem very interested in even that much.


none of this helps 3rd parties though... so i'm not really interested in solutions that don't address the stranglehold on federal elections the 2 parties have. <shrugs>
 
I read the title of this thread, "Republicans trying to game electoral college," and I thought, of course they are , they want to win.

Actually, I like this kind of system better. It gives you a more accurate view of who the voters want. In a winner take all system, big cities can skew the results. Take New York, for example. New York City has enough votes to throw off the fact that much of upstate NY is pretty Conservative.

On the other hand, take this table. It shows the populations of the Congressional districts in Minnesota. I edited to take out the Congresspersons' names so it didn't become partisan,but my source is here: Resource record: 2010 population counts for Minnesota congressional districts. There's also other data that really doesn't matter for this comparison that I took out (for example, the district that has the largest population is more than 90% white, which is interesting, but not relevant to this).

District 1 644,787
District 2 732,515
District 3 650,185
District 4 614,624
District 5 616,482
District 6 759,478
District 7 625,512
District 8 660,342


Why should the 625,512 people in the 7th district count the same as the 759,478 in the 6th? Under the principle of "one person, one vote," shouldn't roughly 759,000 people have more votes than roughly 625,000?

On that end, I don't like it. It would work if districts had equal populations, but until they do...
 
How do you see it doing that?

Well, right now, the only conceivable way that Republicans could win the Presidency while losing Florida is winning Pennsylvania. If Rick Perry wins, the Democrats will probably run a medi-scare campaign against him. (Regardless of whether its deserved, this isn't the place to talk about it). That campaign could quite possibly cost the GOP Florida with all its retirees. Even if the Obama only wins the Kerry states plus Florida, New Mexico, and either Iowa or Nevada, but loses Pennsylvania, he will only lose by only six votes. Even if Republicans win the popular vote in Pennsylvania, Obama's got districts 1, 2, 13, 17 locked up. That would give him the election.

Edit: Not to mention all the popular uproar this could cause. The Pennsylvania electorate could easily see this as shameless political opportunism and be less inclined to vote for them.
 
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The vote shoul dbe winner take all but as far as fairness goes, some wouldn't know fair if it bit them in the ass.
 
This seems like a lot of effort to avoid a straight popular vote. Sad that we feel the need to erect all these buffers between the people and those who represent them.
 
Just for the record. The Democrats don't have a problem with Proportional Representation. They use it also. Where it's to their advantage they will suggest it. This is just one link.

Delegates and the Democrats

It makes things far more complicated when it comes to elections and that's something I'm against whoever it is suggesting it.
 
Just for the record. The Democrats don't have a problem with Proportional Representation. They use it also. Where it's to their advantage they will suggest it. This is just one link.

Delegates and the Democrats

It makes things far more complicated when it comes to elections and that's something I'm against whoever it is suggesting it.

To compare the division of a states delegates to a closed party convention based on a primary vote within a party to the electoral vote a state casts in the election of a President of all the American people is an intellectual fraud and disingenuous in the extreme. They are two very different things.
 
Really, I try to give Republicans some benefit of the doubt and treat them in good faith, but it is hard sometimes. In Pennsylvania, a blue state with large red enclaves, Republicans are trying to give electoral votes by district. In Nebraska, where this is in effect that Obama won one district last election, the Republicans are trying to turn the state to a winner take all system. It seems clear to me that the Republicans, in both states, are just trying to change the rules to help themselves win, and I see this as a fundamentally unfair and malicious thing to do.

Both parties work very hard to game the system both to their own individual advantage and for the sake of perpetuating the two-party system as a whole.

I do not and will never believe that either party is capable (much less desirous) of being the least bit fair or benevolent when it comes to the election system.
 
To compare the division of a states delegates to a closed party convention based on a primary vote within a party to the electoral vote a state casts in the election of a President of all the American people is an intellectual fraud and disingenuous in the extreme. They are two very different things.

There are many examples. That was just the first I found. Will it make a bit of difference to you if you if I find a different example?
 
There are many examples. That was just the first I found. Will it make a bit of difference to you if you if I find a different example?

I will be more than happy to look at it.
 
Not what I asked.
. Perhaps he was reserving the right to comment on whether your second example would be any more relevant than your first.

That said, I think it is ridiculous to suggest that democrats are significantly less likely to try and game the system than republicans. Hell, I am absolutely certain I could find plenty of states where the dems are engaged in gerrymandering, for example.

In honesty, I would like if pennsylvania went this route. It is absolutely more fair than winner take all. I think all states should be forced to do a proportional division of electoral votes, though, instead. Or just get rid of the electoral college altogether.
 
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