In the course of my "Imperfect Union" series, I spilled more than enough ink (or pixels, or whatever it is I'm spilling these days) on the vagaries and potential vagaries of the Electoral College system and its potential to award the presidency to the popular vote loser. (This has happened four time in U.S. history, most recently in 2000).
After losing two in a row, Republicans are going through some soul-searching about how to do better, but in case they can't actually gain votes, they are hatching a plan to win future elections by changing the way the Electoral College system operates.
The Huffington Post has the details. The short version is this. A bill is advancing in the Virginia Legislature to change the way Virginia's electoral votes are allocated. Under this bill, instead of awarding all its electoral votes to the ticket that got the most popular, Virginia would award one electoral vote to the winner of each congressional districts and two more electoral votes to whichever ticket carried the most congressional districts. In 2012, Pres. Obama carried Virginia by 51-47 percent and thus received all 13 of the state's electoral votes. If this new plan had been in effect in 2012, and the popular vote had been the same, the Romney ticket would nonetheless have received 10 of Virginia's 13 E-College votes.
Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus has endorsed the idea of Republicans adopting a similar plan wherever they have the legislative votes to do it. The Huff Post ran the nationwide numbers. If every state had the "Virginia Plan" in place last year, Romney would have won the election.
This would, by the way, be constitutional The Constitution leaves up to each state to decide how to allot its electoral votes.
(Hat tip: Ray Schoch.)
