Quick post before the big day tomorrow ...
I'm feeling pretty good about Obama's chances, but I'm still worried about the voter suppression efforts by the Republican administrations in Florida and Ohio. Florida has 12 referendums on the ballot to slow down voting, and the long lines we have seen in Ohio early voting this weekend suggest that pro-Democrat districts might not have been allotted enough voting machines by the Republican administration.
In any case, I'll be glued to my TV all night tomorrow, and I intent to fire out tweets with my thoughts/worries all night tomorrow.
One thought I keep having is how cool it would be it Obama won the Electoral College but lost the popular. Don't get me wrong, I'm not really hoping for an election that close - I'd like Obama to win by a nice wide margin. However, if he does win the Electoral College and lose the popular vote, it would change politics for the better. If Romney lost the Presidency while winning the popular vote, Republican's would go absolutely ape-shit, and they might actually push for a Constitutional amendment to get rid of the electoral college. Democrats would almost certainly go along with an amendment to abolish the Electoral College because ...
1) They still remember how the Electoral College launched the George W. Bush Presidency in 2000, even though Al Gore won the popular vote.
2) Getting rid of the Electoral College would benefit Democrats more than Republicans in general. All those low-population solid red states between the coasts have a disproportionate amount of electoral votes, because each state gets an electoral vote for each Senator regardless of the population of the state. So, even though solid-Democrat California has about 53 times the population of solid-Republican Montana ( 53 congressional districts verses 1 for Montana ) , it only has about 18 times as many electoral votes ( 55 for California verses 3 for Montana ). That basically means that a given voter in Montana has 3 times as much influence on the election as a voter in California. 3 electoral votes may not seem like much, but it does make a difference when you start to add up lots of small solid Republican states like Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Utah, Kansas, etc. Republicans get a California-level of electoral votes out of a bunch of small Republican states that have nowhere near the combined population of California.
I also believe that Democrats would have a much easier time doing Presidential campaigning in a post Electoral College nation. The Democrats could just focus most of their resources on large cities, while the Republicans would need to find a way to get out the Republican vote across vast rural areas.
However, aside from the partisan effects, a post Electoral College nation would be better for democracy in general. It would be great to cast a vote that actually -you know- counted. I'll be one of the first people in my district to vote tomorrow, but I'll cast that vote with the knowledge that it doesn't really count for anything Obama's going to win New Jersey whether I vote or not, and it's sad that the majority of Americans will be casting votes tomorrow that will be just as meaningless as mine.
In any case, my civic duty calls. I'll be out there tomorrow, and I hope you all will be too.
Rich
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