Electoral College Florida

Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford (R) poured cold water on a Republican plan to rig the Electoral College that is being considered in a number of states to all but ensure that the next president will be a Republican.

A number of states that have voted consistently for Democrats at a national level but are currently controlled by Republicans at a state level, such as Virginia and Pennsylvania, are considering a change to the way they dole out presidential electoral votes. Currently, every state, except for Nebraska and Maine, uses a winner-take-all system. But a handful of Republican-controlled blue states are looking at a system of appropriating electoral votes by congressional district, based on maps gerrymandered to the GOP’s favor.

One possible state where this could happen is Florida, which has voted Democratic the last two presidential elections but is currently run by Republicans. However, Weatherford announced on Thursday that he opposed such a move. The Miami Herald has more:

Florida, the largest swing state, won’t go along with changing the Electoral College if Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford has any say (and he has a major say).

“To me, that’s like saying in a football game, ‘We should have only three quarters, because we were winning after three quarters and the beat us in the fourth, ” Weatherford, a Republican, told the Herald/Times. “I don’t think we need to change the rules of the game, I think we need to get better.”

Fellow Republican leader, Senate President Don Gaetz, wasn’t favorable to the plan either. He said he would prefer a more progressive proposal: abolishing the Electoral College and replacing it with a national popular vote. Said Gaetz, “The farmer standing in his field in North Dakota should be just as important as the factory worker in Ohio.”