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Adopt nonpartisan redistricting
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Poor Steve Pfeifer. He seems to think the party of the losing presidential candidate should get to pick the winner of the election. ("The Electoral System," Jan. 31). In a sense, though, he is right. After all, it was that "Electoral College anachronism" that delivered a George Bush victory in 2000, even though Al Gore won the nationwide popular vote.
If this election has taught us anything, it's not that the Electoral College needs to be abandoned. The real lesson is that we need to reform our process of redistricting, and end the political gerrymandering of congressional districts.
Statewide, 70,000 more people voted for Democratic congressional candidates than Republican; yet Republicans still won 13 of 18 seats in the House of Representatives. When a majority of voters in the state vote for Democrats, yet Republicans win a majority of seats in the House, that's a bastardization of the electoral process. To base the presidential electoral votes of the state on that result is even further from true democracy.
Political rigging of our congressional districts gave us this skewed result. It's time the state adopt a nonpartisan means of redistricting.
PATRICK KOPRIVA
Delmont
First Published February 6, 2013 12:00 am
