What if a candidate for statewide office needed to win a majority of counties? Each county is decided by its popular vote, and a majority of counties won in the state determine the victor—a form of Federalism at the state level.
Ties in states with even numbers of counties (NH has ten, for example) would probably go to the candidate with the most total votes statewide, pending other means of muddying up any process with too much clarity.
I like the idea in principle.
The practice would mitigate the effect of densely populated liberal idea ghettoes deciding elections. You can’t just win the counties with a big city in them. You must win enough counties to carry over 50% of the total.
The Texas GOP is thinking that this is a good idea.
Texas Republicans are working diligently to reverse the state’s inglorious slide into blue-state status:
Yay! Sorry. Most of the Democrats who run for elected office hate their state or America and want something less free, so I’m inclined to take an interest in ways that protect individuals and individual rights from collectivists and collectivism.
So?
If a state were to decide to use this system to allot its electoral votes, the political Left would find itself locked out of the presidency indefinitely. In perpetuity, the GOP would also maintain a supermajority in the US Senate and governor’s offices. The lower chambers would continue to be messy and subject to shifts in one direction or the other.
No, I doubt the idea would survive the media carpet bombing or the so-called justice system. But it’s a nifty idea to deal with a problem we discuss often. How do rural majorities protect their rights from electoral discrimination created by densely populated, primarily progressive cities?
If the landowners are not permitted to control the government that rules them simply because they own land, then why do what amounts to renters who own no land have the right to control them and their land? Yes, every legal vote should count, but absent the valve of a Republic, Democracy is nothing more than mob rule, which is why Democrats can’t shut up about it (democracy, I mean).
States like California, New York, Oregon, Washington State, Arizona, and New Mexico – to name but a few) would all turn Red at the state level overnight under such a scheme. No, those states will never vote on putting such a plan into place, but it makes me smile thinking about the left losing its mind anywhere it is tried.
I hope Texas finds a way to pass it and defend it. We don’t need a Blue Texas.
