by Lowell
This bill (click on image to “embiggen”) by Virginia Del. Randy Minchew (R) probably won’t pass the State Senate, and even if it did it would be vetoed in a nanosecond by Gov. Terry McAuliffe. Still, it’s highly revealing (along with their attempts to suppress voting, gerrymander districts in their own favor, allow the super-rich to buy our government, etc.) about Republicans’ contempt for democracy, and more to the point, their anxiety over losing Virginia a third straight presidential election.
Along these same lines, see Electoral College-Rigging Bill Makes Comeback in Michigan (“The plan that would have given Mitt Romney most of Michigan’s electoral votes, despite losing the state.”); Bill to change Electoral College system in PA introduced; Gaming the System: How the Republicans are trying to cheat their way to the White House (“The new motto of the Republican Party seems to be, “If you can’t win, rig the game.” In just the past few years, we’ve seen Republicans push voter ID laws that are meant to prevent young people, low-income people and people of color from having their say in elections. They have tried to keep likely Democratic voters from the polls by placing limits on voter registration and early voting. And Republican gerrymandering has become all too familiar: just this year, Virginia Republicans pulled a ‘dirty trick’, trying to redistrict their state while the Democrats’ backs were turned. Now, Republicans have a new plan: rigging the Electoral College.”).
So again, Del. Minchew’s bill isn’t going anywhere in Virginia this year, but it gives us a great window against how the anti-democratic (small “d”) party thinks. It also tells us that they’re assuming they’re likely to lose Virginia yet again, which is why they want to divide up the state’s electoral votes, rather than giving them all to Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders…
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