Ever since Mitt Romney lost the 2012 election, Religious Right activists have been pushing a vote-rigging scheme in which states would change the way in which they allot electoral votes during a presidential election, switching from the current winner-take-all approach to one in which electoral votes are allocated based upon the candidates’ performance in each state’s congressional districts.
The result of such a switch would be a system in which candidates who lose the overall popular vote in a state could still end up receiving a number, and in some cases even a majority, of that state’s electoral votes simply by virtue of winning the popular vote in several individual districts. The impact would be greatest in swing states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, both carried by Obama, where Republicans have gerrymandered congressional districts to the party’s advantage
Had this sort of system been in place in 2012, Romney would have won the presidential election … despite having lost the popular vote by several million votes.
Obviously, there is something fundamentally flawed about any system in which the candidate who receives fewer votes still wins the election … but that is not stopping American Family Radio’s Bryan Fischer from throwing his support behind this plan in a piece he wrote today in which he laughably declared that this change would be more “fair”:
Can such changes be made in the electoral college? Certainly. And there is no time like the present. As a result of the 2014 tsunami, the GOP now has total control of 24 states, meaning they control the state legislature and hold the governor’s seat. Since these decisions are made at the state level, 24 states are in a position, starting tomorrow, to change the way votes are awarded in the electoral college.
Such a change should not be made to give an electoral advantage to one party or another. Who can foresee what the landscape will look like in two years or 20? No, the reason to make such a change is that it is fair, just, right and in accordance with the Founders’ principle of representative government. It is an idea whose time has come. Will the GOP seize the moment?
How exactly a system under which a candidate who receives fewer votes wins the election is thought to be more “fair, just, [and] right” than one under which the candidate who receives more votes wins the election is anybody’s guess.
