Today’s Republican Party has some serious challenges facing it. The demographics are not in its favor. It’s leaned perhaps too far to the right. It does not seem to have a coherent governing philosophy. It has lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections. So how does the party right the ship?
By disenfranchising the voters.
Go ahead and read the links above. It’s not pretty. What pisses me off about this coming from an urban perspective is the blatant acknowledgement that apportioning electoral votes is necessary because urban areas can outvote rural areas:
Sen. Charles W. “Bill” Carrico, R-Grayson, said the change is necessary because Virginia’s populous, urbanized areas such as the Washington, D.C., suburbs and Hampton Roads can outvote rural regions such as his, rendering their will irrelevant.
Which is the point, isn’t it? If you can’t win over a majority of the population, perhaps you don’t deserve to win elected office. But, by the GOP’s logic, let’s just change the rules.
The problem with this isn’t that it’s more democratic, as the Republicans would have you believe. It’s that it is a deliberate effort to maintain the power given to them by the gerrymandered districts in numerous states that would allow normally blue states to swing red. Hence this legislation is popping up in places like Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan. All states that voted for Obama – twice.
Why does this matter, you ask? Because of the gerrymandering that turned strengthened the Republican control of the House after the 2010 census, a strong majority of U.S. Congressional districts now lean Republican. If, for example, the entire country were to award its electoral votes by district, Mitt Romney would have won the 2012 presidential election despite losing the popular vote by 4%.
What a way to run a democracy.
