Will the GOP rig the electoral college?

[Devils30]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/01/15/the-gops-big-electoral-vote-gambit-explained/

It's very disturbing and I think a violation of Equal Protection/one person one vote. That being said this could just be a trial balloon being floated and no editorials or anyone sane will endorse this. I know legislatures did this before 1820 but that was well before the 14th amendment was enacted.

[Devils30]

The problem is the states being talked about (PA, WI) have very very thin GOP majorities. VA was not one of Obama's first 270 electoral votes so that could easily hurt the party there as well.

[Devils30]

 [/quote]

1. It's not "rigging" the electoral college.
2. How would that be unconstitutional?  I'm not in favor of it, but Nebraska and Maine already do this.  If anything, it gets closer to the one person-one vote concept than the current system.
[/quote]

1. Yes it is, having the GOP candidates get every electoral vote in red leaning swing states but Dems winning a state with 52% like PA and getting 35% of the ev is a blatant rigging of the system. Don't even bullsh** me here.
2. ME and NE dont really have Voting Rights Act issues so it's never been a big deal. Plus, no one has ever brought this issue to the Supreme Court. The constitution lets legislatures allocate electoral votes as they choose but its unclear if this would also be allowed in violation of EP or the Voting Rights Act.
  As for the VRA, packing a lot of minorities into these safe districts makes for reduced influence on the election outcome and very well could violate the retrogression prong of section 2. If Obama wins 92% in an urban philly district its only 1 electoral vote but 50.1% for the GOP in a bunch of suburban districts will net the same thing. Tell me how this is not an EP violation?
   The electoral college isn't the fairest thing in general but there is one key distinction with allocating  EV by state or district. A state has FIXED borders, a district does not.

[Devils30]

Gerrymandering for the House districts is one thing. There is no deeply routed tradition of gerrymandering presidential elections. Plus, in each house district everyone is voting for one office and no one outside the district votes. This scheme would violate EP by having someone's vote for the SAME office count differently.

[Devils30]

The GOP plan could backfire down the road in those midwestern states. With someone like Christie it's not difficult to see him run strong in PA, MI, WI while struggling to gain in VA as the state has seen growth from the types who are base Democrats.
It's possible in 12 years that VA, NC lean D while WI, PA move right toward the national average. It really only takes a small PVI shift to do so.

[Devils30]

The electoral college is of course undemocratic in that it allows small states to have a bigger impact. However, there is little precedent of someone winning 13 of 20 ev like what the Pennsylvania plan would have done while losing the statewide vote. Allowing each state to have disproportionate weight is one thing but allowing a candidate who loses a state to win an overwhelming majority of ev is ripe for an equal protection challenge.