TruthOut10
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- Dec 3, 2012
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FLASHBACK: Republicans Opposed Electoral Vote Rigging In 2004, Calling It A Really Stupid Idea
Nearly a decade before the GOP responded to President Obamas re-election by proposing to rig the Electoral College in states like Pennsylvania and Virginia, Republicans vehemently opposed the plan and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting its implementation.
In 2004, when Colorado was still a red state and then-President Bush was locked in a tight race with Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), the state had a ballot initiative that would have shifted its allocation of electoral votes from winner-take-all to proportional. Under the proposal, for example, even if Bush had won 60 percent of the vote, he still would only get 5 of the states 9 electoral votes instead of all 9.
However, the proposed Electoral College rig ended up getting trounced for one reason: Republicans strongly opposed the idea.
The push against Amendment 36, which failed by a 2-to-1 margin, was led by Republican Gov. Bill Owens, who lambasted the idea as a transparently partisan movement. Owens detailed his opposition in a USA Today op-ed:
FLASHBACK: Republicans Opposed Electoral Vote Rigging In 2004, Calling It 'A Really Stupid Idea' | ThinkProgress
Nearly a decade before the GOP responded to President Obamas re-election by proposing to rig the Electoral College in states like Pennsylvania and Virginia, Republicans vehemently opposed the plan and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting its implementation.
In 2004, when Colorado was still a red state and then-President Bush was locked in a tight race with Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), the state had a ballot initiative that would have shifted its allocation of electoral votes from winner-take-all to proportional. Under the proposal, for example, even if Bush had won 60 percent of the vote, he still would only get 5 of the states 9 electoral votes instead of all 9.
However, the proposed Electoral College rig ended up getting trounced for one reason: Republicans strongly opposed the idea.
The push against Amendment 36, which failed by a 2-to-1 margin, was led by Republican Gov. Bill Owens, who lambasted the idea as a transparently partisan movement. Owens detailed his opposition in a USA Today op-ed:
FLASHBACK: Republicans Opposed Electoral Vote Rigging In 2004, Calling It 'A Really Stupid Idea' | ThinkProgress