We’ve been following the story of Republicans in the states pushing to change the rules for electing a president. The pattern is that when a state in under Republican control at the state level but tends to vote Democratic for president, those state Republicans want to divide their state’s electoral college vote, typically by congressional district. They’re especially eager to do that, since their redistricting campaign in 2010 resulted in millions more votes for Democrats in Congress but 33 more Republicans in office.
Today I noticed that the question has reached our nation’s reddest state, Oklahoma. Will Republicans there change their rules so the electoral college is divided by congressional district? Um, no. From the Shawnee, Oklahoma, News-Star:
District 17 Senator Ron Sharp, a [R]epublican, said he had not seen any legislation relating to this filed for this session of state legislature. He added that if any came up he would likely oppose it.
“I would be very hesitant about something like that,” Sharp said.
He explained the Electoral College is historical, and that it maintains our two party system. Countries with more than two parties are typically very unstable, he added.
For the record, Oklahoma is sending an all-Republican delegation to Congress this year, but they had a Democratic member last time. If Oklahoma divided its votes by district, a Democratic presidential candidate could conceivably stand to gain. Likewise, the state went for Mitt Romney by 67-33 percent, so if Oklahoma spilt the electoral college proportionally, a Democrat for president would gain quite a lot.
Laura Conaway