Gerrymandering the Presidency

Years ago I worked for a State Senator in Louisiana. In that year the newspaper, the New Orleans Times-Picayune, characterized a bill that was introduced in the legislature as “a snake.” Specifically, the paper opined that there was a “snake to kill” in the legislature. While I do not recall the particulars of the legislation or what it sought to achieve, I do know that referring to a bill as a “snake” is a to none to subtle way of deriding it. Enter the second decade of the twenty-first century and there is a snake to kill that is currently making its way through not one but several state legislatures. The bill or bills that I am discussing refers to a Republican Party scheme to fix American presidential elections. I call it, Gerrymandering the Presidency.

Having largely failed in their scornful 2011-2012 attempts to steal the presidential election by way of vote suppression, the Grand Old Party is back with a new trick. This time, well ahead of the 2016 presidential election, the GOP is making a concerted effort to change how Electoral College delegates are awarded in presidential contest. Lest we forget, Americans do not directly elect the President of the United States. The President is officially chosen by the Electoral College. In most states Electoral College delegates are awarded based on the statewide vote totals that each candidate for President receives. Under the GOP’s new scheme to steal the presidency however, Electoral College delegates would be awarded based not on statewide vote totals but on the percentage of votes that a candidate receives in each of the state’s congressional districts. Would this little adjusting of the rules really alter the election results? Yes! If the proposed adjustment in how Electoral College delegates are allotted were in effect for the 2012 election, President Obama, while he won five million more votes than Willard Romney nationwide, would have lost in the Electoral College 280-258.

Congressional districts are typically gerrymandered for partisan advantage. Abolishment of the Electoral College and allowing Americans to elected the president directly is long overdue. But, deliberately devising a scheme of awarding Electoral College delegates based on gerrymandered congressional districts is a horse of different color. In states where Republicans control both the office of Governor and hold a majority in the legislature (OH, PA, WI, MI, FL) but where President Obama handily defeated Willard Romney, the plan is afoot to pull a switcheroo. The Grand Old Party has contrived a Grand Old Scheme to gerrymander the Presidency. As with vote suppression tactics, the Republican Party is openly declaring, “We can’t win. Let’s change the rules so that we can win.” Employment of such maniacal and desperate devices backfired in the lead up to the 2012 election. The GOP’s Grand Old Scheme is a snake. Republicans are foolish, at best, to assume that the coalition of voting rights organizations, organized labor, Democrats and others who successfully drove back voter ID have retired in self satisfaction.

Brent Scott

Executive Director

Vote By Mail America