by the end of the year, we had gone from six months to nine months. 262 days. 262 days of checking the mail, logging into your account, checking your e-mail, waiting to hear back. in september of last year, the wife of one iraq war veteran posted a video to youtube that she titled the va doesn t care. in the video, she said her family had filed her husband s disability claim when their baby was six weeks old. around the time of their child s second birthday, she said she was tired of waiting to hear back. she posted the video. the video garnered enough attention online that the va responded to her with their own video. but look at the response. recently the spouse of a veteran posted a video to youtube asking many of the same questions we often see from veterans, their families, and survivors. so we thought this was a really good opportunity to respond so veterans don t feel like they have to post a video to youtube just to get information. personally, i understand your frustration.
candidate would receive electoral votes based on each district won instead of based on the overall popular vote in the state. the strategy? large pockets of typically democratic voters, including minorities in urban areas would therefore have weakened influence. they would only help democrats win electoral votes in specific districts. how would such electoral rigging have changed the outcome last november? instead of an obama victory of 332 to 206, mitt romney would be president with 273 votes to obama s 262. even though president obama won more than three million more votes than mitt romney under this proposed system he would have lost the election. virginia governor bob mcdonald shot down a similar proposal in his state last week, but michigan governor rick snyder says he is open to the idea. in republican statehouses, a new motto perhaps. if at first you don t succeed, cheat. joining the panel now is president of the brennan center
this was being considered in states like virginia, michigan, pennsylvania, the electoral votes would be apportioned by congressional district. and just to show you how much things would end up changing, due to all the gerrymandering with the concentration of a lot of democratic votes in urban areas to a handful of congressional districts, mitt romney would have had more electoral votes in the state of virginia, nine to barack obama s four, even though barack obama won the state by four percentage points. and 150,000 overall votes. that s the state of virginia and overall, you look at the numbers, romney would have gotten 273, obama, 262, if it had gone that way nationwide. that s an extraordinary change. but the question, this constitutional? it is. states are allowed to decide how their electoral votes are divvied up. two states already do this by
received 52% of the i m sorry, i meant pennsylvania, not florida, earlier. and all 20 of pennsylvania s electoral votes. under that change presented, president obama s 52% of the vote would have won him a grand total of 12 votes. mitt romney s 47% of the popular vote would have won him 8 electoral votes. in 2012, president obama won 51% of the vote, mitt romney got 47% of the popular vote. the president won 332 electoral votes to mitt romney s 206. but if the one district, one electoral vote plan applied in all states, president obama would have won 262 electoral votes and mitt romney would have won 273. in the presidential election. now, the good news here is that a lot of republicans do not want to win this way. today, virginia governor bob mcdonald s communication director issued this statement, saying the government does not support this legislation, he
i think these are patterns we ve seen a long time ago. when people say this is an effort to steal the election, an attempt by the republicans here, is what they mean. if the electoral votes were divided by congressional district, we d be reporting on mitt romney s first week in the white house tonight. here is a map from the 2012 presidential race of states, obama versus romney won. if the republican plan was put in place nationally this past year, you would have to replace that map with this one. all those districts in red are all electoral points for mitt romney. what does this mean? it means even though barack obama won by nearly five million votes and carried the electoral college by 332 to 206, if the republican plan was in place, he would have lost to romney 262 to 276. what do you think would happen? let me ask you. how active is the naacp, mr. shelton, in fighting this? are you in the courts in this? are you out in the legislatures? how hot are you getting on this thing?