The GOP plan to undemocratically rig (gerrymander) the Electoral College in such a way that a popular vote loser could consistently win the presidency is proof that it’s time to dump the Electoral College and implement (via a constitutional amendment) the election of the president based on the national popular vote.

I had hoped that the recent election would have provoked the GOP to reflect on its future and how it needs to transform itself to become once again — as it was in the past — the loyal opposition that could also responsibly govern (think Eisenhower, even — ugh — Nixon). But instead it is doubling down on the fraud and dirty tricks approach. Horrible. It’s as if the GOP motto is, “Who needs democracy?” 

Both parties have long been guilty of gerrymandering, but this is the first time this blatantly undemocratic process has been explicitly and openly advocated as a strategy to rig the Electoral College with the aim of winning national elections.

Here’s John Nichols writing in the Nation magazine about strategies to counter this assault on our democracy.

Three Strategies to Block the Gerrymandering of the Electoral College

John Nichols on January 25, 2013

As Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus promotes one of the most blatant assaults on democracy in modern times—a scheme to gerrymander the Electoral College so that the loser of the popular vote could win key states and the presidency—the number-one question from frustrated citizens is: What can we do about it?

After so many assaults on voting rights and the electoral process itself have been advanced, it is easy to imagine that Priebus, Karl Rove and their team could get away even with so audacious an initiative as the rigging of presidential elections.

Read full article here.