This diary entry started out as a comment to another Daily Kos reader that evolved because of a mistake I had made in deciphering the new GOP plan to reallocate the presidential electoral votes in the upcoming election. I had read an article on how this would be done and soon realized that I had totally screwed up the interpretation of how it really works. I went back to revisit this topic so I could reply to the commenter accurately. Before I was through I realized I had written an article rather than just a comment that I believe will benefit a lot of people to help them understand this concept.
I have provided a link to an article I referenced to research this topic for anyone that wants to attempt to decode this GOP plan for themselves. Follow my explanation below the fold.
As I understand it, the real benefit comes when considering a Congressional red state (i.e. with a majority of red districts in the US House of Representatives) that has a recent history of the popular vote for president going blue. Whether a state goes to this proportional method of counting electoral votes will be left entirely up to the state to decide.
Referencing the example in the article linked above, I found this concept a little difficult to follow. It provides an example using Ohio which it says had 18 electoral votes in 2012. I attempted to find out how many electoral votes were allocated per Congressional district so I looked up how many Congressional districts there are in Ohio. As it turns out there are only 16 districts because Ohio lost 2 seats in the 2010 census and those seats were removed in 2011, before the 2012 election.
One other example in the article uses Michigan as an example and indicates it has 16 electoral votes but only 14 Congressional districts.
In each case it appears that a state is given two more electoral votes than the number of districts in the state.
This is bolstered by the example of Maine in the article which is already a proportional district state when it comes to dividing up electoral votes. In the example for that state, it only has two Congressional districts but is allocated 4 electoral votes (or 2 more than the number of total Congressional districts as appears to also be the case for the Michigan and Ohio examples).
The Maine example is easiest to understand and here it is straight out of that article for your viewing.
Maine and Nebraska do not allocate their electoral votes in the presidential election by “winner take all.”
These states allocate two electoral votes to the popular vote winner, and then one each to the popular vote winner in each Congressional district (2 in Maine, 3 in Nebraska) in their state.
Given this scenario, it would mean that Nebraska, which is also a proportional district state has 3 Congressional districts and 5 total electoral votes. So in every case it appears every state in the union has 2 more electoral votes than it has Congressional districts. I have not been able to find anything concrete that backs up this assertion but at this point I am fairly certain I am right. Should anyone find me to be in error, please advise.
In states adopting the new GOP plan, the presidential nominee who is the winner of the popular vote for the entire state, regardless of party would acquire those first two electoral votes. The remaining votes get split according to which party controls a particular Congressional district but there is only one vote available per Congressional district. However, for that candidate to be assigned the vote for that district he or she must win the popular vote, within that district even though that candidate might lose the popular vote for the state. The chances of this not happening are slim to none.
In states where there are more red districts than blue districts this could spell disaster for Democrats. They could win the state but still lose the majority of electoral votes for that state if the districts within that state are predominately red.
Just to put the cherry on top of this explanation here is a FAQ description I found online regarding this topic.
What is the difference between the winner-takes-all rule and proportional voting, and which states follow which rule?
The District of Columbia and 48 states have a winner-takes-all rule for the Electoral College. In these States, whichever candidate receives a majority of the popular vote, or a plurality of the popular vote (less than 50 percent but more than any other candidate), takes all of the state’s Electoral votes.
Only two states, Nebraska and Maine, do not follow the winner-takes-all rule. In those states, there could be a split of Electoral votes among candidates through the state’s system for proportional allocation of votes. For example, Maine has four Electoral votes and two Congressional districts. It awards one Electoral vote per Congressional district and two by the state-wide, “at-large” vote. It is possible for Candidate A to win the first district and receive one Electoral vote, Candidate B to win the second district and receive one Electoral vote, and Candidate C, who finished a close second in both the first and second districts, to win the two at-large Electoral votes. Although this is a possible scenario, it has not actually happened.
So in the end, after Republicans won the House in 2012, they assured their longevity by GerryMandering and changing all the district lines within the state so that all future elections would end up with Republicans always controlling that state because they now control the majority of Congressional districts as a result of this GerryMandering.
Republicans took control of the US Senate in 2014 by using a coordinated assault on Democrats resulting in last minute blitzkrieg type attack ads, changing the rules for campaign donations to assure they always had the biggest microphone during the campaign, invoking new voter ID laws and limiting voter access to the polls using voter suppression techniques for minority voters.
Now we see where they are getting set to make an end around run to take over the White House in 2016 by essentially commandeering the Electoral College. Perhaps this is why President George W. Bush so smugly predicted that he thought his brother Jeb could beat Hillary Clinton in that race.
I know there are some people who are not afraid of Republicans taking total power of the government because they stand to better their personal situation by allowing Republicans to do what they do best and that is manipulating financial markets and taking huge risks with this country’s economy.
What these short sighted people do not realize is that giving Republicans the power to crash the economy will not make them impervious to any of the fall-out no matter how rich they manage to get from allowing Republicans to rape the world financially. Money will do them little good when there is chaos among the world’s banks and there is nowhere left to spend their money. Even the ultra rich will not escape the calamity of a world gone berserk no matter how well they manage to wall themselves off from the rest of society. They will find themselves confined to the best prison that money can buy.