Republicans in several blue states are currently considering a plan to rig the next presidential election by changing the way electoral votes are allocated to candidates. Under the Republican Plan, key blue states such as Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania would assign electoral votes one-each to the winner of the state’s heavily gerrymandered congressional districts. If this plan had been in effect in Michigan last year, Mitt Romney would have won 9 of the state’s 16 electoral votes, despite losing the state as a whole by nearly 10 points.
Although the Republican Plan is picking up steam among GOP lawmakers right now, several of them backed the plan during the 2012 election cycle in an attempt to rig that race for Mitt Romney. According to Michigan Rep. Pete Lund (R), however, Republicans in Michigan decided not to back the plan largely because they misjudged Romney’s chances of winning Michigan:
Rep. Pete Lund, R-Shelby Township, confirmed this week he plans to reintroduce legislation that would award all but two of Michigan’s 16 Electoral College votes according to congressional district results. The remaining two would go to the candidate winning the statewide majority.
“I believe it’s more representative of the people — closer to the actual vote,” said Lund, who proposed a similar bill in 2012. “It got no traction last year. There were people convinced Romney was going to win and this might take (electoral) votes from him.”
So Republicans were unwilling to back Lund’s plan when they thought it would benefit Democrats. Now that it’s clear that the plan rigs the election for Republicans, however, it is suddenly experiencing a renaissance.
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