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Are the Republicans trying to rig a presidential election?

Are the Republicans trying to rig a presidential election?

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BigRedChief

BigRedChief

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Several battleground states have Republican parties firmly in control of the state congress's are deciding, proposing legislation to not award all the EC votes to the winner but by congressional district.

The issues that I see with this new development

  • Gerrymandering of districts has made a mockery of fairness in the states.
  • Will create a constitutional crisis at some point and violence in the streets.


How would this effect the election? I'll let someone else post all the numbers. But, here's an example from what the Republican senate did in Virgina. Obama won the election in the state, But due to gerrymandering, Romeny would have been given 9 EC votes and Obama 4 EC votes.
 
You mean like they did with Allen West in Florida?
 
This is a step toward direct elections. I thought democrats wanted that. I guess only in the states where it would benefit them. Next thing you know they will be complaining about the republicans redrawing all those snaking congressional districts the democrats drew last time.
 
Fisher said:
This is a step toward direct elections. I thought democrats wanted that. I guess only in the states where it would benefit them. Next thing you know they will be complaining about the republicans redrawing all those snaking congressional districts the democrats drew last time.
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BS gerrymandering knows no party lines.
 
Fisher said:
This is a step toward direct elections. I thought democrats wanted that. I guess only in the states where it would benefit them. Next thing you know they will be complaining about the republicans redrawing all those snaking congressional districts the democrats drew last time.
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Well, except that it would be nothing like direct elections.
 
Redress said:
Well, except that it would be nothing like direct elections.
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Sure it would, each CD is supposed to be close to the same size population wise except those couple really sparse states like wyoming. It is a closer step than winner take all based on a bigger chunk of geography we call a state.
 
I'm not a constitutional lawyer or play one on TV so help a laymen on what the law says on this subject.

Would this even be constitutional? Hold up in the SCOTUS?
 
Fisher said:
Sure it would, each CD is supposed to be close to the same size population wise except those couple really sparse states like wyoming. It is a closer step than winner take all based on a bigger chunk of geography we call a state.
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No. Direct elections: voting directly for president. This is not that.
 
BigRedChief said:
Several battleground states have Republican parties firmly in control of the state congress's are deciding, proposing legislation to not award all the EC votes to the winner but by congressional district.

The issues that I see with this new development

  • Gerrymandering of districts has made a mockery of fairness in the states.
  • Will create a constitutional crisis at some point and violence in the streets.


How would this effect the election? I'll let someone else post all the numbers. But, here's an example from what the Republican senate did in Virgina. Obama won the election in the state, But due to gerrymandering, Romeny would have been given 9 EC votes and Obama 4 EC votes.
Click to expand...

Yes, if this scenario was enacted nationally Romney would have won the Presidential election. This is probably also being done for political reasons. I also don't support this type of proposal, because rather than having the arbitrary state lines we have now, presidential elections would be decided based on the gerrymandering of the districts for the next decade by whichever party is in power after the census year elections. I don't think it's in the interest of fair elections, and I don't even think this is a smart political move by Republicans.

However, the idea that it is just Republicans who try and attempt to use these types of election tricks is ludicrous. Democrats gerrymander just as much as Republicans when given the opportunity, and although it is just speculation, I would guess they would be attempting the same type of thing if they thought they could control the state legislatures as well as the Republicans can for the near future.
 
BigRedChief said:
I'm not a constitutional lawyer or play one on TV so help a laymen on what the law says on this subject.

Would this even be constitutional? Hold up in the SCOTUS?
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It seems to perfectly legal. Presidential electors are determined by the laws of each individual state. In fact, Nebraska and Maine already have this system.
 
Fisher said:
Sure it would, each CD is supposed to be close to the same size population wise except those couple really sparse states like wyoming. It is a closer step than winner take all based on a bigger chunk of geography we call a state.
Click to expand...

It's not really a step closer. The inherent gerrymandering process we have makes it not only possible, but rather unlikely for a candidate to win the Presidential election with less than 45% of the vote with this system, if one party has a really good year in the census elections. This would be exceedingly unlikely in the current system.
 
BigRedChief said:
Several battleground states have Republican parties firmly in control of the state congress's are deciding, proposing legislation to not award all the EC votes to the winner but by congressional district.

The issues that I see with this new development

  • Gerrymandering of districts has made a mockery of fairness in the states.
  • Will create a constitutional crisis at some point and violence in the streets.


How would this effect the election? I'll let someone else post all the numbers. But, here's an example from what the Republican senate did in Virgina. Obama won the election in the state, But due to gerrymandering, Romeny would have been given 9 EC votes and Obama 4 EC votes.
Click to expand...


If true I wouldn't call it "trying to rig" a presidential election but rather "trying to win" a presidential election. The reality is the GOP simply doesn't have the numbers anymore to win the White House. 2012 was our best chance demographically but it wasn't meant to be. From what I've heard the median age of a conservative media follower is mid to late 60s (white male). The GOP in the past 2 to 4 years has become expert at deeply offending large voting blocks:

  • Infamous GOP positions on the definition of rape
  • Associating the expression for a desire to mandate contraceptive coverage under a system where one's employer has all the control over healthcare of their employees with being sluts and porno actresses
  • Demonizing Hispanics with laws that presume any Hispanic might be here illegally so racially profile them all
  • Efforts to reduce black voter participation
  • Wanting to raise interest rates on student loans while at the state level also raising tuition at state universities and colleges giving the strong impression that the GOP is about helping the rich get richer by helping them keep American workers as unskilled and uneducated as possible and pitting them against cheap overseas labor markets while doing all they can to keep their taxes as low as possible and minimize the benefits they offer employees.

The GOP has a lot of damage control to do and with rapidly growing segments of the very populations we have deeply offended, I personally doubt an image makeover would even be successful. Its possible that high ranking GOP leadership realizes this too and as a last ditch effort are planning to try to change how states with GOP control (for now) can stack the deck in their favor. My best guess is the public will get wind of these tactics and it'll backfire in our faces, which at a minimum would lead to incumbent Republicans being kicked out of office and possibly the elimination of the Electoral College to be replaced with a direct popular vote.
 
If this crap (gerrymandering, and trying to rig elections.) continues or grows, we, the people will lose our democracy and our voting rights...and our nation...
We need a better people and we need more to participate in politics.
 
Personally, putting the gerrymandering (which both parties do) aside, I think this is an excellent idea. There have been at least two states (Maine being one of them) that do something like this already. Honestly, I think this puts the power much more back in the hands of The People while maintaing the Constitutionally prescribed system. Give the two "Congressional" electoral votes to the overall winner in the state and then base the "Representative" electoral votes on how that individual district voted. In doing so, you reduce the power of the Urban centers to overwhelm the Rural areas simply due to population density.
 
Rigging an election? I think their advocacy of voter ID laws is fairly close.
 
letting politicians draw their own districts is insane. gerrymandering is a bipartisan problem nationwide.
 
Tigger said:
Personally, putting the gerrymandering (which both parties do) aside, I think this is an excellent idea. There have been at least two states (Maine being one of them) that do something like this already. Honestly, I think this puts the power much more back in the hands of The People while maintaing the Constitutionally prescribed system. Give the two "Congressional" electoral votes to the overall winner in the state and then base the "Representative" electoral votes on how that individual district voted. In doing so, you reduce the power of the Urban centers to overwhelm the Rural areas simply due to population density.
Click to expand...

So, essentially, you want give make the votes of those living in rural areas count more than those living in urban areas.
 
BigRedChief said:
Several battleground states have Republican parties firmly in control of the state congress's are deciding, proposing legislation to not award all the EC votes to the winner but by congressional district.

The issues that I see with this new development

  • Gerrymandering of districts has made a mockery of fairness in the states.
  • Will create a constitutional crisis at some point and violence in the streets.


How would this effect the election? I'll let someone else post all the numbers. But, here's an example from what the Republican senate did in Virgina. Obama won the election in the state, But due to gerrymandering, Romeny would have been given 9 EC votes and Obama 4 EC votes.
Click to expand...

Both sides are doing their damndest to rig any and all elections. It's not limited to one side of the Republocrats.
 
Anagram said:
It's not really a step closer. The inherent gerrymandering process we have makes it not only possible, but rather unlikely for a candidate to win the Presidential election with less than 45% of the vote with this system, if one party has a really good year in the census elections. This would be exceedingly unlikely in the current system.
Click to expand...

It is call, redistricting. Gerrymandering is when there is a tortured effort to come up with districts that are clearly phony on a map. (gerrymander is a play on salamander, which is what one particular district in Massachusetts look like).

There is also the assumption that based on party affiliation, state legislatures know how someone is going to vote. The reality is that to some degree, they do.

States can decide how the allocation of their Electoral votes are decided. I like the 1 district, 1 vote method (with 2 statewide votes going to the state majority candidate) much more than the--Candidate A got the majority of the votes in the country, but our state voted in the majority for Candidate B. We agree to go along with the national majority and cast all our votes for Candidate B. That method truly is wrong.
 
waas said:
So, essentially, you want give make the votes of those living in rural areas count more than those living in urban areas.
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No. What I want to do is to level the playing field. Let's take a low population density state like Maine (which already uses this system). The vast majority of Maine's population resides along the shoreline and the southern half of that shoreline to be more specific. There are two Congressional districts in Maine. If they were to do things the way that almost every other state does them, the Second Congressional Distric residents might as well not even vote for President, because the First District (where the vast majority of the population and urban centers are), would simply control the outcome no matter how the Second Distric votes. All this idea does is to re-level the playing field and give those Second District people's votes some weight again. It will force candidates to actually attempt to get votes from both the Urban AND the Rural voting bases.
 
waas said:
So, essentially, you want give make the votes of those living in rural areas count more than those living in urban areas.
Click to expand...

You have no factual basis for saying this. Are you trolling?

Congressional districts are generally of the same size populations. Rural districts tend to be geographically larger while urban districts are geographically smaller. What of it?
 
I support the idea. It does away with swing districts/counties. If more people think their vote counts then they are more likely to vote. I thought democrats were all about voting rights for people......guess not really.
 
waas said:
So, essentially, you want give make the votes of those living in rural areas count more than those living in urban areas.
Click to expand...

That is exactly the Republican plan. They know they can't win by actually getting more votes, considering the previously mentioned hateful positions towards nearly everyone who isn't a white, heterosexual, Christian male. So they're trying to make their votes count for more.

AliHajiSheik said:
Congressional districts are generally of the same size populations. Rural districts tend to be geographically larger while urban districts are geographically smaller. What of it?
Click to expand...

That's not even a little bit true. Rural districts have WAY fewer people in them than urban ones. Seven New York counties compose half the state's population, and the other fifty-five the other half. That's three cities, NYC, Rochester, and Buffalo. Many cities comprise a single county, while a large rural area may have a tenth as many people and be divided into several counties. This is nothing but a move to make those mostly empty rural districts count for more than the dense urban ones.

There is absolutely no reason to muck about with electoral votes and winning states. No state population is homogeneous, so no candidate can win by appealing to the interests of one state over another, since states don't really have different interests like that. The only fair system is a direct popular vote. Every person counts the same, and nobody needs to care about where they live.
 
Ikari said:
Both sides are doing their damndest to rig any and all elections. It's not limited to one side of the Republocrats.
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Now that I agree with.
 
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