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Democratic Panic du Jour: Rigging the Electoral College

Republicans don't look ready to push for damaging electoral college reforms.
Congressional clerks pass the Electoral College certificate from the state of Ohio while unsealing and organizing all the votes from the 50 states in the House of Representatives chamber at the U.S. Capitol January 4, 2013 in Washington, DC.

Congressional clerks pass the Electoral College certificate from the state of Ohio while unsealing and organizing all the votes from the 50 states in the House of Representatives chamber at the U.S. Capitol January 4, 2013 in Washington, DC.

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
David Weigel and David Knowles

From The Nation to Salon to MSNBC, the fear is building: Republicans might use their expanded control in state legislatures to rig the electoral college. Here's the scheme, as explained by Zachary Roth:

And, as Roth says, it gets worse: The 2011 gerrymanders that packed Democrats into a small number of urban-centered districts produced maps that would give electoral vote wins to Republicans even if they lost the popular vote in their states. Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania—all of them won by Barack Obama, all of them carved up into mostly-Republican congressional districts as Democrats were ghettoized in Detroit, Cleveland, Columbus, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh.