Why this story isn’t getting more attention, I don’t know. But Republicans are openly seeking to rig the 2016 elections. RNC Chair Reince Priebus is encouraging Republicans who control the government in Democratic-leaning states–PA, OH, WI, MI especially–to overhaul their electoral systems and end winner-take-all distribution of electoral votes. Of course Republicans completely oppose doing this nationally. It is a naked and cynical attempt to rig the election. Rather than broaden their message to appeal to young and non-white voters, Republicans are looking to commit the greatest suppression of votes since the Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed.

There are essentially two proposals to do this. The first would distribute votes proportionally. If the Democratic candidate won 53% of the vote in Pennsylvania, 53% of the electoral votes go to the Democratic candidate. The second is to distribute them by congressional district, with the 2 at-large votes going to the popular vote winner. With the Republicans having gerrymandered these states to the extreme, it means that the same Democratic candidate winning 53% of the vote might only get 45% of the electoral votes.

I mention Pennsylvania because it is taking the lead here. PA House Bill 94 offers up the second plan, another PA legislator supports the first. This very well could happen and yet no one is paying attention.

This isn’t without risks for Republicans. Under the proportional plan, neither party would ever pay one bit of attention to a state again. Spending money there wouldn’t be worth the marginal gain of one or two electoral votes. Under the congressional district plan, every congressional election becomes nationalized. Huge money pours into these districts and some of these legislators, who are gerrymandered into 60% districts while Democratic legislators are in 90% districts, will lose their jobs. Normally, a politician’s first goal is to preserve their own job. But with this Tea Party bunch, I’m not so sure. Some of these people are true hard-core fanatics and will gladly see the loss of their own seat as worth the price.

A few other problems for Republicans. It’s not clear to me how excited they will be to have their state policies dictated from the RNC. But they might not care. Also, such a blatantly undemocratic move I think would cost Republicans a lot of respect nationally, including among the Beltway elite who want to fawn over their every move. Even the David Brooks’ of the world would have a hard time with this. Not that the Tea Party types care. It’s also hard to see how this does not become a giant issue in the 2016 election as well, with Republicans having to defend this at every stop. And of course, as soon as Democrats take over these statehouses again, it will all change back. Let’s hope that’s in 2014, although historically that seems unlikely. But enormous money is going to pour into these states in the midterms because they will have become so important for 2016.

Of course, all of this is completely legal. The Constitution allows states to decide these matters for themselves. So there’s no reasonable legal challenge here.

And in the post-election haze, when many Democratic voters are happy that Obama was re-elected and are thinking about what policies might get passed on guns or immigration, Republicans are seeking to slam through nation-changing legislation on the state level. We are all like the Michigan AFL-CIO, completely unaware that Rick Snyder and Michigan Republicans are going to make the state right-to-work overnight.

This is very likely the biggest political story of the next 4 years. It is entirely possible that a Democratic candidate could win 55% of the vote in 2016 and lose the election.