The Democratic Voice

By William Crandell

The Republicans have come up with a new way to suppress the votes of minorities and ignore the will of the people. This time they are attempting to manipulate the Electoral College and lend more of a voice to rural America,  which they believe will always support them and their apple-pie vision of our country. Once again the GOP is using deceitful methods to seize control of our government and destabilize our Electoral College by removing the ability for Americans to choose their leadership.
Referred to as the Red Map strategy, the idea is to award the electoral vote of a federal district to the candidate who won that district and get rid of the old “winner take all” system. That may sound good on paper except for all of the gerrymandering that has been going on in Michigan and in other states. For the past two years, Republicans have been drawing district lines around areas that tend to vote conservative and essentially guaranteeing that they will always support their party. They have also been stuffing Democrats into small districts and, in the case of Michigan, the Republicans now hold more districts than the Democrats. In upcoming elections the GOP will control the state even though the majority of our population does not support them and it is a transparent attempt to turn our traditionally blue state into a red state.
Recently re-elected Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus has endorsed this strategy on a national level and will be working to get similar proposals passed in other states. A recent attempt to rig the Electoral College in Virginia made headline news and there has been a tremendous outcry from progressives throughout the country. But Red Map bills either have or will be introduced in key battleground states such as Ohio, Wisconsin and Florida — all of which voted for Obama in the last two elections, proving once again how out-of-touch and elitist the national Republicans really are.
Under this new proposal, Mitt Romney would have won the last election even though he had lost the popular election by 5 million votes. Obama was the clear winner in Michigan receiving 57 percent of the popular vote, but still would have lost under this scam. The whole idea of this strategy is to suppress the urban vote which translates to the minority vote and any other group the party has been alienating over the past two elections. By doing this, the GOP will be able to manipulate future elections and guarantee that no more liberals are elected into office.
This is just another effort to curb those with differing opinions and circumvent the political process of our nation. They don’t like the outcome of the last election, so now they will ignore the constitution and change the rules to serve their needs. Instead of figuring out how to regain the trust of the American people, they have come up with a new way to deceive them. Members of the Republican Party are currently embracing a win-at-all-cost attitude even if that means enlisting further corruption to accomplish their agenda. That kind of attitude is not good for our country and I wonder what it is saying to future generations? As Americans, do we really want people governing us who feel stealing elections is the right thing to do? If so, how honest do you think they’ll be once they are in office?
If the GOP wants to take back this country in 2016, they need to earn it by accepting the fact that the face of America is changing and they need to change with it.