Can't Win? Change the Rules, it's the Republican Way!

Regardless of your political affiliation, if you are a supporter of fair elections, if you believe that the person with the most votes should win, if you are believer in democracy, then you have little choice than to condemn the recent actions of the Republican party.

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The Republicans are unhappy with the last Presidential election.  They wanted to win.  Unfortunately for them, more people voted for President Obama.  In fact, President Obama won the national popular vote by nearly five million votes. A pretty firm margin of victory by any accounting.

But that still doesn't satisfy the Republican party. You know those guys, the white dudes who love tax breaks for the rich and are constantly trying to keep traditionally Democratic voters from casting ballots.

But since those tactics didn't work, they want to follow Josef Stalin's advice ( "You know, comrades,... I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this — who will count the votes, and how.") and are now trying to change the way that votes are counted. 

The tool they are using is the U.S. Constitution itself.  In Article 2, Section 1, the U.S. Constitution states:

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

That means the way that the electors are allocated to candidates in each of the states is determined by the states themselves, not the Federal Government.  All but two states are "winner take all".  You win the popular vote in that state, you win all their votes in the Electoral College.

The exceptions are Maine and Nebraska. In those states only two of their electoral votes go to the candidate who wins the popular vote.  Each additional electoral vote goes to the candidate with the most votes in each congressional district.

The Republicans crunched the post-election numbers and suddenly fell in love with this idea.  You know why?  Because if this was the method used in the rest of the country for the 2012 election, we would all be talking about the recent inauguration of President Romney. That right, President Romney, even though he was nearly five million votes short in the national popular vote.

In its simplest terms, the Republicans want to take the Presidential election out of the hands of the voters and put it in the hands of those gerrymandering hacks who redraw congressional districts every 10 years to gain political advantage.    In the end I honestly don't care what political party you belong to just as long as you have the sense of fairness, the moral fiber to proclaim that in a democracy, the person with the most votes should win. These guys a shameless and need to be stopped.

GEEK ALERT --

A footnote: Am I the only one who heard/read about the Republican's attempts and thought of the Kobayashi Maru simulation and Captain Kirk's unique approach to solving it?

Saavik: "Sir, may I ask you a question?"

Kirk: "What's on your mind, Lieutenant?"

Saavik: "The Kobayashi Maru, sir."

Kirk: "Are you asking me if we're playing out that scenario now?"

Saavik: "On the test, sir. Will you tell me what you did? I would really like to know."

McCoy: "Lieutenant, you are looking at the only Starfleet cadet who ever beat the no-win scenario."

Saavik: "How?"

Kirk: "I reprogrammed the simulation so it was possible to rescue the ship."

Saavik: "What?"

David: "He cheated."

Kirk: "I changed the conditions of the test. Got a commendation for original thinking. I don't like to lose."

Hey Republican Party!  I know Jim Kirk.  Jim Kirk is a hero of mine.  Let me tell you, you are no Jim Kirk.