Top Republican Distances Himself From GOP’s Election-Rigging Plan

By Igor Volsky/Think Progress

Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) distanced himself from his party’s effort to rig the election by appropriating electoral votes based on gerrymandered Congressional districts, telling MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Friday that he opposes the effort.

Republican party leaders in Virginia,Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan have proposed legislation that would change how most electoral votes are allocated, awarding more electoral votes to the winner of individual Congressional districts, rather than the winner of the state as a whole. Since Republicans plan to implement the proposal in states that are heavily gerrymandered to favor the GOP, the resulting maps would guarantee that Republican candidates would win a majority of each state’s electoral votes, even if the Democratic candidate wins the state as a whole.

A growing number of Republicans have rejected the plan. Barbour has now joined their ranks:

ANDREA MITCHELL (HOST): If it were done nationally, Mitt Romney would have been taking the oath of office on Monday.

BARBOUR: That’s true this time. Other time it might have been just the opposite. I’m a traditionalist myself. I really am a conservative. I’m a little bit skeptical of this. [...]

MITCHELL: Doesn’t it make it look as though the Republicans are trying to sort of game the system? [...]

BARBOUR: As I said, I would not be for it. I don’t think there’s any sort of national movement, and you have sort of convinced me that in Virginia there may not be even state movement. It may be an isolated legislator.

Watch it:

During Barbour’s appearance, Mitchell suggested that Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) would also publicly oppose the election rigging scheme.