The Electoral College, many would argue, is a misguided system designed by the Founding Fathers to protect the presidency from blatantly unqualified men but which has instead made presidential campaigns needlessly complicated. Although it is flawed, its results have (almost) always matched up with the actual popular votes of the American voters. If recently-proposed changes to the Electoral College by Republican statehouses in key states had been in effect last year, though, our nation would have had another exception to this correlation. Under the proposed new rules, Mitt Romney would currently be residing in the White House, despite losing to President Obama by more than 5 million votes nationwide and decisively losing almost every swing state.
How would such a dramatically different result be possible? Take a look at the pivotal state of Virginia, where a bill to enact such changes is currently being debated. Under the proposed law, Virginia’s 13 electoral votes would not go to the winner of the most popular votes in the state (President Obama in 2012), but would instead be allocated by who won which congressional district. This change would reward the votes of less-populated, more rural, and more conservative parts of the state, which consistently vote Republican. Then, the final two electoral votes would go to the candidate who won the most congressional districts (Romney); thus, under this setup, Obama would have only won four out of the state’s 13 electoral votes despite carrying the state by 150,000 votes.
The sponsor of the bill, a Republican state senator named Charles W. Carrico Sr., explained the purpose of the proposal as one of fairness, stating, “The last election, constituents were concerned that it didn’t matter what they did, that more densely populated areas were going to outvote them.” Apparently, Carrico doesn’t grasp the fact that “outvoting” is the whole point of an election and that a more “densely populated area” is an area with more voters. His proposed scheme is especially remarkable considering Virginia voted Republican in presidential elections for 40 straight years before Obama flipped it in 2008. To him, it now appears that the party can only take the state back at the presidential level by engaging in some electoral shenanigans.
The Virginia bill, which, thankfully has attracted some opposition from inside the Republican Party, is just one example of a series of proposals floating around Republican-controlled states that Obama carried in November. In Michigan, for example, a proposed switch to awarding electoral votes based on congressional district would have given Romney a majority of the state’s 16 votes, even though Obama carried the state by almost 450,000 votes in November. Similar plans are being tossed around in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida — all states won by Obama. Although the likelihood of these changes going into effect varies from state to state, there are some powerful backers to the bills. Republican National Convention Chair Reince Priebus, for example, said the proposals are something that “a lot of states that have been consistently blue that are fully-controlled red ought to be looking at.”
If, in November, the proposed switches to allocation based on congressional districts had been in effect in the six states mentioned, the 332-206 Obama Electoral College victory over Romney would have flipped to a 270-268 Romney win, an almost laughable deviation from how the American people actually voted. As badly as Mitt Romney may have wanted to be president, I doubt even he would be comfortable taking office based on such a fundamentally manipulated result.
With demographic changes and the public’s opinion on issues increasingly working against them, some Republicans are getting understandably desperate to hold on to viable paths of winning national elections, and are resorting to convoluted and skewed ideas to do so. Passing such bills, after all, is much easier than shoring up their support among minorities, women, and young voters, or updating their positions on climate change and gay marriage. It is vitally important, though, that these changes never see the light of day. I’m all for electoral reform, but to call these proposals “reforms” is ridiculous. I hope that as more people become aware of these ideas, they die a quiet death in each of their respective states.
Ryan Kearney is a Communication sophomore. He can be reached at [email protected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this column, email a Letter to the Editor to [email protected].
