Last updated on February 7th, 2013 at 04:15 pm
One of the benefits of living in a democracy is knowing, with relative certainty, that the people choose a representative to lead the country through the electoral process, and although not every voter is pleased with the results of an election, they can rest easy the leader was chosen by the people and not appointed by special interests. Republicans hate democracy and fair elections, and to ensure future presidents are chosen by conservative fascist committee, they have been on a two-and-a-half year crusade to rig the electoral process to guarantee a Republican will win the White House with fewer votes than their opponent. In the last election, although Democrats garnered 1.4 million more votes than Republicans, redistricting and gerrymandering enabled the GOP to hang on to the House of Representatives. Republicans are notorious for using revolting tactics to win elections, and the current coup d’état by electoral college rigging is a travesty, but like every dirty trick Republicans use to steal elections, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is behind Electoral College rigging efforts in Republican-controlled states that overwhelmingly voted for President Obama.
The current Republican assault on the democratic process began during the 2010 midterm elections when dark money groups helped Republicans pick up 675 legislative seats and gain complete control of 12 state legislatures, and the result was the GOP redrawing lines for four times as many congressional districts as Democrats. In early 2010, Karl Rove laid out the Republican approach to redistricting in a Wall Street Journal article titled, “He who controls redistricting can control Congress” and his words were prophetic as Republicans held the House of Representatives despite earning 1.4 million fewer votes than Democrats. Once Republicans controlled state legislatures, they had free rein to begin redistricting to tilt elections in Republicans’ favor, and it was ALEC that provided Republican governors and state legislators with the redistricting tactic to rig Electoral College votes and guarantee a Republican will always be president.
The corporate-controlled ALEC was instrumental in pushing redistricting tactics spearheaded by a former national Republican Party lawyer, Mark Brayden, who gave a presentation on redistricting to members of ALEC’s Public Safety and Elections Task Force in December 2010. Wisconsin Senate majority leader, Scott Fitzgerald, a member of that Task Force and former ALEC state chair, received an email invitation in January 2011 for an ALEC “special” conference call with other Wisconsin Republicans to discuss the legality of redistricting; Fitzgerald led the redistricting effort in Wisconsin, and no Democrats were invited to the secret ALEC conference call. Despite being sharply criticized by a court for developing redistricting maps in Wisconsin under a “veil of secrecy,” the new maps have taken effect and the majority of Congressional districts are now out-of-step with statewide voting patterns.
With new redistricting in place, Republicans plan to allocate electoral votes so that the lion’s share of the state’s electors would go, one by one, to the presidential candidate who won each individual congressional district, but only in blue states. For example, in Michigan where President Obama won by nearly 10 points in 2012, Willard Romney would have received 9 of the state’s 16 electoral votes because he received more votes than the President in nine of the state’s congressional districts. It is precisely how Republicans in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Virginia, and Wisconsin plan on handing a Republican the White House if the despicable electoral rigging is allowed to reach fruition.
ALEC has been directing Republican-controlled state legislatures in various schemes to sway elections in favor of ALEC’s candidates since the 2010 midterm elections, and Republican National Committee chairman, Reince Priebus, made it clear he wants Republicans to use every dirty trick and bit of power they retain to rig the electoral process as part of a national strategy to hand Republicans victories even when they lose elections. Last week, Priebus urged Republican governors and legislators to rig the Electoral College by changing the rules for distributing Electoral College votes, and that is how democracy dies at the hands of ALEC and their Republican lackeys.
Republicans have to cheat to seize control of the nation because in a democratic process, their policies will never garner support from the voters, and although the latest ploy to subvert the Electoral College is just now gaining steam, it is part of ALEC’s long term strategy to appoint leaders their corporate masters demand. ALEC’s redistricting push began in late 2010 after dirty money from Karl Rove-types swept Republicans into state legislatures and governor’s mansions, and it is from those states that elected President Obama where the GOP’s coup d’état will have its greatest effect and ensure a permanent Republican president.
If any American thinks for a minute that there are limits to Republican fascists’ efforts to rig elections in their favor, they are blind, because ALEC and the Republican Party are threatening more than Democratic Presidents, congressional seats, state legislatures and governors; they threaten the existence of democracy itself. Americans should be repulsed and mortified it is even possible for ALEC and Republicans to impede the will of the people in choosing their president, but that is the price Democrats pay for sitting out the 2010 midterm elections, because now they will learn the hard way that “elections have consequences” and democracy can die.
Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn't look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
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