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Donald Trump’s campaign would really consider it a good favor — indeed, a real demonstration of commitment to making America Trump again — if the Republicans who run Nebraska could please change state law radically to give him maybe one extra electoral vote in the 46 days left before the election. The Great Man even sent his good lickspittle friend Sen. Lindsey Graham to the governor’s mansion in Lincoln to discuss the idea with Gov. Jim Pillen (R), the state’s Republican secretary of state, and a couple dozen Republican pillbugs from the state Lege, Lincoln TV station KOLN reports.
You see, Nebraska is one of the two fun states (Maine is the other) that apportions its electoral votes partly by congressional district instead of on a winner-take-all basis like the other 48 states. Of its seven votes, two go to the statewide winner, and the other five are distributed by how the majority in each congressional district voted.
It’s pretty common for District 2, the swing district that includes Omaha, to go blue when the other four districts vote solidly Republican. Republicans have long yearned to get rid of that embarrassing blue blotch, and since 2024 could be extremely close, why not change the law with just weeks to go before the vote?
The Nebraska Examiner adds that “Several who attended the meeting said some senators who had wavered earlier showed more support now for changing Nebraska to the winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes this year.” It sure would be a lot tidier!
As NBC News explains, the change could be enough to decide an extremely close election this year:
If Vice President Kamala Harris wins Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin but loses every other swing state, she and Trump would be tied at 269 Electoral College votes under a winner-take-all setup in Nebraska with Trump winning the state. In that scenario, the race would be thrown to the U.S. House, where each state delegation would get one vote for president. Republicans hold a majority of delegations and are favored to retain it, even though the House majority could change hands after the November election.
A source told NBC News that Gov. Pillen was “receptive” to Graham’s pitch Wednesday, and that if he has enough votes in Nebraska’s weird unicameral legislature, he would call a special session to change the law.
That’s consistent with what Pillen said last week, in a statement that for all we know was also sent with an engraved invitation to the Trump campaign.
As I have consistently made clear, I strongly support statewide unity and joining 48 other states by awarding all five of our electoral college votes to the presidential candidate who wins the majority of Nebraskans’ votes. […] As I have also made clear, I am willing to convene the Legislature for a special session to fix this 30-year-old problem before the 2024 election.
Unity! Unity to solve the “problem” of too much damn representation!
Nebraska Republicans are already practicing their rationalizations for a possible change to the voting law, as the Nebraska Examiner explains. State Sen. Loren Lippincott said he was glad Graham came to remind Republican legislators that a Harris presidency would be so nightmarish that fucking around with state law is practically a moral obligation. Lippincott, apparently a voluble soul,
said he was just happy to hear Graham and others discuss the importance of making the change and push back against the idea that it’s too late to change the rules.
Like Trump, he said he was tired of Republicans worrying about what people might think. He said it was time for them to worry more about what happens if Vice President Kamala Harris wins.
“Biden received all the votes in the primary, and they chose a new candidate in the fourth quarter,” he said. “We’re not proposing to do anything illegal or unethical.”
But if they did have to do something illegal or unethical, it would obviously be Biden and Harris’s fault for making them do it.
Hey, remember how Republicans all wailed that letting people vote a bit more conveniently and safely during a pandemic constituted “widespread irregularities” that cast the “legitimacy” of the 2020 election into doubt? Haha, they don’t care if you call them hypocrites, as long as they have power.
Now, to balance things out in future years, Maine could certainly adopt winner-take all if Nebraska does. But as NBC News reports, that would have to wait for another election, because state law in Maine pretty much precludes making that change in time for this year’s election:
It takes 90 days for legislation to go into effect in Maine after it is enacted, and Thursday marked 89 days until the Electoral College is scheduled to meet on Dec. 17, meaning it’s already too late for the Maine Legislature to change to a winner-take-all system under normal rules.
State law does allow for “emergency” legislation that goes into effect immediately, but activating that provision requires a supermajority of two-thirds support in both legislative chambers.
And although Democrats hold a majority in both houses of the state Lege, they lack a supermajority, and there’s no chance that Maine Republicans would join in an emergency vote.
We sure wish we could say not to worry about this at all; at best, we can at least point out that the Nebraska Ratfuck isn’t certain to go through, and even if it does, it would only help Trump in one very particular scenario. Maybe the rats will fuck but not make any baby rats!
Really, probably almost nothing to lose sleep over. Except in that one scenario. And the best way to avoid that scenario is to mobilize so many Harris voters that the electoral total isn’t anywhere close to it.
Rats.
[KOLN / Nebraska Examiner / NBC News / NBC News]
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