Think your vote counts? Think again.

 

The Electoral College. It's suppose to give the appearance of an obvious winner by way of awarding states in total to the Presidential candidate who manages to get one more vote than the other guy. My state, Pennsylvania has recently begun discussions about awarding our electoral college votes proportionally. A few states currently do this. And I've come to think it makes a lot of sense. The map above represents the county by county votes for Mitt Romney and Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election. Gov. Romney is represented in red. If you didn't know any better, you might assume he won handily. He didn't. Although he won the majority of counties, we don't award electoral votes by winning counties. Neither am I suggesting we do. But if you live in Pennsylvania like me and you voted for Mitt Romney, your vote was ignored. Never mind that millions on Pennsylvanians voted for Romney. The former Massachusetts Governor was awarded "0" electoral votes. In other words, our votes were ignored. There's no other way to look at it. Had votes been awarded proportionally, Barack Obama would have received 12 electoral votes and Mitt Romney, 8. Sounds fair to me. Mr. Obama didn't earn 100% of the votes, so why should get them?

Republicans have virtually no chance of winning states like California and New York. These two electoral laden states give Democrats a tremendous advantage in national elections. It's no wonder the Dems don't want to make any changes. They're already calling possible proportional distribution of electoral votes "vote rigging". Uh huh. What they really mean is, the system as it currently works to their advantage. So why would they want it changed? As it now stands, Florida and Ohio usually decide Presidential elections. Virtually every other state is pretty much spoken for. So why bother voting if you don't live in the Sunshine or Buckeye state?

Even if proportional votes were awarded in every state, Barack Obama still would have won in November - though it would have much closer and more accurately represented the voting wishes of the American populous. Plus every voter in every state would have their vote actually matter. So proportional voting isn't about changing election results, it's about registering and making every one's vote count. That's usually the Democrat's rally cry. But not in this case because it doesn't work to their advantage. I could make the argument that NOT to enact proportional distribution of electoral votes is racist. (There's that word) Think about it. Philadelphia has a large black voting population. Pittsburgh is overly represented in a similar way. Blacks vote consistently and overwhelmingly Democratic. Because of a large population in those two cities, as they go - Pennsylvania goes. Since Republicans do quite well in the state outside of those two regions, white votes go unrecognized and therefore - unrewarded. Philly and Pittsburgh essential decide who gets all 20 electoral votes. Hardly seems fair, does it? Proportional votes would solve this problem.

The status quo in politics usually wins. So I'm not optimistic these changes are on the verge of happening. Still, the GOP currently holds the Governor and state assembly's in the Keystone state. So if it were ever to happen, now would be a good time. And if the Dems have taught us anything, it's that once you obtain political advantage - use it!