By Tribune-Review

Published: Saturday, February 16, 2013, 9:00 p.m.
Updated: Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Electoral College scam

I thought I had seen it all when the Republicans tried to force everyone to use state-issued photo identification to vote in the November election, but this new win-at-all-costs scheme takes real brass.

The GOP is attempting to pass a bill in the Pennsylvania Legislature to change the state's Electoral College voting method. It attempts to strip the votes of the majority and transfer that power to the minority.

Our time-tested method gives our electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in Pennsylvania. The new bill circumvents the majority statewide vote of all Pennsylvanians and provides all but two electoral votes based on congressional districts. This is being done for one reason: There aren't enough votes in rural Pennsylvania to conquer the urban vote, which usually goes Democrat.

Pennsylvania has 20 electoral votes. There are 12 congressional districts held by Republicans; Democrats hold six and the remaining two come from our senators. All these votes go to the presidential candidate who gets the statewide majority vote.

This new Republican “district-by-district” plan would give the Republican presidential candidate a clear advantage with 12 Republican districts. If this plan goes through, the “losing” GOP candidate would get 12 electoral votes, while the Democrat who won the statewide vote would get the rest.

That's all we need — point spreads in the Electoral College. Anybody want to book odds on who will win the next Pennsylvania electoral vote if this new scam passes?

This is such a blatant rip-off. It shamed Republicans in Virginia and other states so badly that they abandoned similar legislation.

Raymond Anthony

Fawn Township

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