Electoral Nonsense
Can we just kill it already
We all know technically the US President is elected via the electoral college. So despite say…3 million more Americans voting for a hypothetical woman named Hillary, a rac(p)ist could become President of the United States despite being molly-whopped by 3 mil. Such a cool process we got here. And every 4 years, our collective fate seems to hang in the balance and at the hands of a few random rural (white) voters in a select number of states.
Hence Trump’s perfect call to find 11,000 votes in Georgia.
What you may not know is why we have this ridiculous system and the answer is simple. Racism. Or even more so, slavery. A brief history lesson:
The Electoral College was designed to give Southern states more political power by counting enslaved people as three-fifths of a person for representation. This compromise boosted the influence of slaveholding states in presidential elections, allowing them to protect their interests, aka slavery.
This system sucks. The end. I could stop there but you may wonder why I’m ranting about it on a random Friday in September. Well— republican shenanigans. Again.
Most states do a true electoral system where winner takes all. So if I win Kentucky—ya right— that is 8 electoral votes in my path to 270. Some states, however, do a bifurcated electoral system where they allot according to a district. One such state is Nebraska.
Nebraska allocates its electoral votes by congressional district. The swing district around Omaha often goes to Democrats in an otherwise red state. Basically, Omaha is the Louisville of Nebraska, sorta.
After a debate smackdown and it becoming more likely VP Harris can pull of this election, Republicans are running skurrrrrred. With VP polling ahead in some of those precious swing states (again bleh) every electoral vote matters and they need to strip Nebraska’s most diverse district (Omaha) from having their vote count.
Enter Shenanigans.
Senator Lindsey Graham OF SOUTH CAROLINA on behalf of Former President Citrus, has been meeting with the republican Governor of Nebraska urging him to call a special session to change how they count votes— to ensure Trump gets ALL the votes instead of some. The ONE electoral vote for VP Harris could be a huge deal.
If VP Harris wins Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin but loses the other 'special' states, she and Trump would be tied at 269 Electoral College votes under a winner-take-all setup in Nebraska with Trump winning the state. IF that happened the election goes to the House of Representatives and each state delegation would get to vote. Unfortunately, and by design thanks to racist gerrymandering, republicans hold a majority of delegations, even though the House majority could change hands after the November election.
269 to 269 = not good.
So the skurrrrred republicans are pushing to change the law maybe next week. But Why now?
MORE SHENANIGANS!
The only other state that apportions votes this way is Maine. When this proposal for Nebraska had traction earlier this year, Maine’s democratic leader signaled they could switch to winner take all as well— which would probably shift a point to democrats. But, after the Nebraska effort failed it kinda died.
But now…they skurrred.
And as shenanigans go— they WAITED for it to be TOO LATE for Maine to change their own laws to combat them. Maine law would need 90 days from signature (unless they get 2/3 of a vote) so… with 46 days until the election the math doesn’t math.
Elections and who runs this country should NOT be dictated by gamesmanship and a select few states. The electoral college, based on slavery, got us into this position and white supremacy is why it remains. Other democracies laugh at us, and we just have to sit and take it…for now.
