Pennsylvania Republicans have introduced a bill to ensure that Republican presidential candidates win the lion's share of the state's electoral votes in the future, regardless of how the people actually vote. In fact, Reince Priebus, the chair of the Republican National Committee, is among those in the GOP who have proposed using this method to sabotage the presidential election in other blue states, as well, such as Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio. Under the Republican system, Mitt Romney would have won the presidential election last year despite losing the popular vote by four points and losing every swing state but one.

Yes, this is happening in America. TPM calls it "nuclear gerrymandering." Ian Millhiser writes about the Pennsylvania bill at ThinkProgress:

Under their bill, the winner of Pennsylvania as a whole will receive only 2 of the state's 20 electoral votes, while "[e]ach of the remaining presidential electors shall be elected in the presidential elector's congressional district."

Pennsylvania is a blue state that voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in every single presidential race for the last two decades, so implementing the GOP election-rigging plan in Pennsylvania would make it much harder for a Democrat to be elected to the White House. Moreover, because of gerrymandering, it is overwhelmingly likely that the Republican candidate will win a majority of Pennsylvania's electoral votes even if the Democrat wins the state by a very comfortable margin. Despite the fact that President Obama won Pennsylvania by more than 5 points last November, Democrats carried only 5 of the state's 18 congressional seats. Accordingly, Obama would have likely won only 7 of the state's 20 electoral votes if the GOP vote rigging plan had been in effect last year.

This is part of a pattern: Far right Republicans, handed temporary control of state governments by the voters in 2010, are pulling out the stops to game the electoral system to make sure Republicans win future elections, no matter what the people want. We saw this in the many voter suppression measures adopted in 2011 and 2012, including in Pennsylvania. Fortunately, many of those voter suppression laws were put on hold by the courts, at least for 2012. Moreover, in at least some places last fall, so many people showed up to vote against the far right agenda that they were able to overcome the intended impact of voter suppression measures.

But the Electoral College scheme represents a massive escalation in the GOP war against electoral democracy. It is a transparent power grab, one clearly designed to help them "win" the most powerful office in the United States even when the American people thoroughly reject their presidential candidate. The GOP has driven itself so far to the right that it now has only two ways to win office: either substantially change its central policies in order to make them palatable to the majority of voters, or make sure that the majority of voters who disagree with them are stripped of the ability to elect the candidates of their choice. Which path will the GOP choose?

This scheme should never be seriously considered but should instead be immediately repudiated by both political parties. Otherwise, we face a moment that will test our democracy and require all Americans to stake a stand.

UPDATE: Back in March, we turned our attention to the 47th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. In the months since, we’ve crisscrossed the nation and detailed how the fights of 50 years ago are being resurrected today. The Atlantic’s Andrew Cohen yesterday offered his own telling, invoking Dr. King’s famous quote, “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice,” to break down the dangerous myths and machinations of voter suppression, concluding that “[t]hese new laws seek to bend the arc backward again, to take away from people their effective right to vote.” It’s important that we remain vigilant over the next nine weeks, so that on November 6 eligible Americans are able to cast a vote and have it count. In the words of LBJ, “Then with his vote and his voice he is equipped with a very potent weapon to guarantee his own dignity.” Click here and here for more from Andrew Cohen.

March 7, 2012 marked the 47th anniversary of the “Bloody Sunday” when voting rights marchers were beaten in their attempt to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama.

NAACP President Ben Jealous joined activists from then and now in marking the occasion with another march, saying protest is just as necessary now as it was then.

"We need people to understand that not only is history not very distant, but we stand on the precipice of repeating it," Jealous said.

The NAACP leader said strict voter ID laws that won't allow people to vote without a driver's license or passport are unnecessary and will make it difficult -- and in some cases impossible -- for 5 million people to vote.

"We need to make sure that the principle of one person, one vote, is respected," he said.

Last fall’s The Right to Vote under Attack: The Campaign to Keep Millions of Americans from the Ballot Box, a Right Wing Watch: In Focus report by PFAW Foundation, details how the fights of 50 years ago are being resurrected today. Indeed we’ve seen the strict laws that Jealous mentions pushed in states including Virginia, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Texas, among others, along with the rise of the American Legislative Exchange Council.

Following what happened in Virginia, Washington Post editorialized against strict ID.

Even if Republican lawmakers aren’t personally acquainted with people who don’t carry ID, they exist. And provided they are legally registered to vote, they should be allowed to cast their ballots — without encumbrances manufactured by the state.

Ari Berman wrote in Rolling Stone about what he believes are the political motivations and consequences.

March 2012:

Since the 2010 election, Republicans have waged an unprecedented war on voting, with the unspoken but unmistakable goal of preventing millions of mostly Democratic voters, including students, minorities, immigrants, ex-convicts and the elderly, from casting ballots in 2012. More than a dozen states, from Texas to Wisconsin and Florida, have passed laws designed to impede voters at every step of the electoral process, whether by requiring birth certificates to register to vote, restricting voter registration drives, curtailing early voting, requiring government-issued IDs to cast a ballot, or disenfranchising ex-felons.

Within days, the crucial battlegrounds of Pennsylvania and Virginia will become the latest GOP states to pass legislation erecting new barriers to voting. If, as expected, the new laws lead to fewer Democrats casting ballots in November, both states could favor Republicans, possibly shifting the balance of power in Congress and denying Barack Obama a second term.

August 2011:

Republicans have long tried to drive Democratic voters away from the polls. "I don't want everybody to vote," the influential conservative activist Paul Weyrich told a gathering of evangelical leaders in 1980. "As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." But since the 2010 election, thanks to a conservative advocacy group founded by Weyrich, the GOP's effort to disrupt voting rights has been more widespread and effective than ever. In a systematic campaign orchestrated by the American Legislative Exchange Council – and funded in part by David and Charles Koch, the billionaire brothers who bankrolled the Tea Party – 38 states introduced legislation this year designed to impede voters at every step of the electoral process.

Then there’s Roll Call.

Rock the Vote is one of several dozen organizations, from civil rights groups to Latino, labor and women’s groups, that have launched a multipart campaign to push back against new registration rules for voters that have been enacted in many states. The fight over voter access has triggered state-level lobbying, ballot initiatives and lawsuits, and the issue will likely land before the Supreme Court.

Voting rights activists are responding to a wave of state laws enacted after the 2010 elections, which ushered in GOP majorities in more than two dozen state legislatures. Voting rights advocates have struggled to gain traction amid public indifference and more visible collective bargaining fights, but they are starting to win attention at the Justice Department and on Capitol Hill.

However voter ID is resolved, it’s clear that it’s an issue of national concern, not one isolated to a few states.

Or even international. Jealous and the NAACP have put the issue before the United Nations Human Rights Council. Click here to read their report, Defending Democracy: Confronting Modern Barriers to Voting Rights in America.

UPDATE: Judge David Flanagan made permanent his earlier injunction in the case brought by the Milwaukee NAACP and Voces de la Frontera, joining a permanent injunction issued by Judge Richard Niess in the League of Women Voters case. Now both courts would have to lift their blocking orders in order for Act 23 (aka AB 7) to be reinstated. With appeals pending, and no further rulings expected until after November, it is virtually guaranteed that the ID requirement will not apply in the general election.

You heard the good news from Connecticut and Louisiana. Now it’s Wisconsin’s turn.

Voter ID is likely off the table for the recall election!

Last May, Wisconsin Governor and ALEC Alum Scott Walker signed Act 23 (aka AB 7), a voter ID law that also counts ALEC affiliated legislators among its sponsors. It has been challenged in two cases: one brought before Dane County Circuit Judge Richard Niess by the League of Women Voters, and the other brought before Dane County Circuit Judge David Flanagan by the Milwaukee NAACP and Voces de la Frontera.

Back on April 16, the state Supreme Court refused to immediately take up the pair of cases, sending them back to regular order in the lower appeals courts.

NAACP and Voces got their ruling on April 25, where a temporary injunction will stand at least until late June and the conclusion of post-trial briefing before Judge Flanagan. The LWV ruling came on April 26, where Judge Niess’s permanent injunction remains in force pending appeal.

Though the battle is far from over, since no further rulings are likely prior to June 5, voter ID mostly likely won’t be required when voters go to the polls for the general recall election.

These are the cases furthest along, but other challenges are being mounted, including from the Advancement Project and ACLU. On April 23, the ACLU plaintiffs filed a motion for preliminary injunction and an expert report.

Defenders of Wisconsin’s Act 23 (aka AB 7), a voter ID law sponsored by ALEC affiliated legislators and signed by ALEC alum Scott Walker, were dealt a blow last week when State Representatives Robin Vos and Bob Ziegelbauer were forced to end their attempt to intervene in court on behalf of the law. The Government Accountability Board determined that they received legal services in a manner inconsistent with the state ethics code.

Representatives Vos, himself an ALEC State Chair, and Ziegelbauer previously refused to state where they received political funds to cover their legal fees, but yesterday a Republican National Committee spokesperson revealed that the RNC was footing the bill.

Scot Ross, One Wisconsin Now:

The RNC involvement in this state lawsuit clearly reveals a strategy to use Wisconsin state legislators as pawns to advance legislation to suppress voting and gain partisan advantage in this battleground state.

For more information, check out The Right to Vote under Attack: The Campaign to Keep Millions of Americans from the Ballot Box, a Right Wing Watch: In Focus report by PFAW Foundation.