"Bloomberg": Another Reason Why California Should Reform the Electoral College

If there's a Bloomberg campaign, it will indeed be interesting. Has anybody ever been able to drop a half a billion of their own money on a political campaign before?

This article does a very good job of showing how a strong third candidate exposes both of the structural weaknesses of the Electoral College (I'm leaving aside, for this post, all the issues of campaigning only in swing states, etc.) The National Popular Vote plan addresses one of these: the fact that the winner of the Presidency is sometimes not the winner of the popular vote.

If NPV is implemented, we will still have a plurality election, in which a candidate can win with less than half the popular vote. IRV is the solution to that problem.

I don't think IRV can be done by interstate compact. The success of the NPV plan might open the door for IRV by Constitutional Amendment, which seems impossible now. Let's hope so.

California has led the nation on most issues and this is one issue that is important, our country is pushing for democracy in other countries but our citizens have never voted for our leader in the history of our country, it is time to eliminate the electoral college and have true democracy in voting for our leader. We also have to have the same voting machinery (what ever it is) when voting for our Fed. govt. offices. It may be paper but if so, so be it voting for our Fed offices should all be the same.

We have filed an initiative to reform the selection process to select California Electors.
Visit:: ElectoralReformCalifornia.com
The current system discourages presidential nominees from having a grassroots campaign

effort in California. The current strategy among candidates is to simply purchase television time

in the largest media markets, since the key is to win a plurality of votes statewide. By shifting to

a congressional-district system, it will be just as important to have a grassroots presence in a

Los Angeles district as it is in a Yolo County district. The initiative will give an incentive to

aggressively fight for every vote in California”.

Under current law, all of California’s 55 electors are awarded to the presidential candidate who

wins the most votes, regardless of that candidate’s margin of victory and regardless of the

geographical concentration of his or her support. There is no requirement that the electors

represent different regions of the state. In fact, the electors need not even be state residents or

registered voters. The electors are selected according to the California Elections Code, which

sets forth very different procedures for the various political parties.

The initiative would require that electors be registered voters in their respective Congressional

Districts and they would have to abide by written pledges to vote for their respective party’s

candidates for President and Vice President (provided that those candidates are alive at the

time the vote is cast). The individual electors would be selected according to the rules of their

political parties.

“The Electoral College does not function in the manner that the Founding Fathers intended,”

argued Senator Haynes. “The winner-take-all system distorts the preferences of California voters

and it is time we got rid of it.”

Tony Andrade's congressional district allocation proposal is highly problematic. Among other things:

1) By only one "safe state" like California doing it, it simply is a gift of electoral votes to the minority party, making it a reform that only Republican partisans can love -- everyone will understand that to be the case.

2) Done nationally, allocation by congressional district has a huge partisan bias because the Republican vote is more even dispersed -- George ush in 2000 would have won by some 50 electoral votes in 2000 even while losing the national popular vote. In contrast, both parties have an equal chance to win the popular vote in any given election.

3) As a reform, it leaves the great majority of voters in districts that aren't contested. It's nothing like a national popular vote where every vote is equal and every act of participation equally meaningful.

It's time to elect the president by a tested system of one person, one-vote -- a system used to elect California's governor and nearly every office of any importance in the nation.

The Electoral College has been part of our Constitution since the beginnings of the nation. While some would disagree, I personally would argue that the Electoral College system has served us essentially well for more than 200 years.

By specific design, the Electoral College system is intended NOT to apportion presidential electing power strictly along lines of population. It is one of several grand compromises placed in our Constitution that was intended to provide smaller states with a somewhat larger voice than they might have if their representation was determined on the basis of population alone. In this respect, the Electoral College is somewhat analagous to the design of the U.S. Senate, where every state has two Senators regardless of size.

I fully understand that many people do not like the Electoral College and want to see it eliminated or modified. I do not fault these people for holding opinions different from mine. My problem is with the way they want to effect the change.

The Electoral College is established directly in the Constitution. To eliminate or change the Electoral College, an amendment to the Constitution is required, pure and simple. This is the requirement that many contemporary opponents of the Electoral College choose to ignore.

The method advocated by National Popular Vote, a system of interstate electoral compacts, is, I contend, an unconstitutional backdoor attempt to amend the Constitution, and is furthermore a system that could easily result in the electoral votes of a state being cast for someone other than the winner of the state's popular vote. I cannot imagine anything more preposterous.

For example, had this system been in force in 2004 when George W. Bush won the nationwide popular vote, the electoral votes of California would have gone to Bush rather than to Kerry who won the state by a huge margin. Can anyone seriously believe that the people of California would support such a proposal that would in essence THROW OUT their popular decision? What indeed are you people smoking?

When this ill-advised proposal reached the desk of California Governor Schwartzenegger last year, he accordingly vetoed it. If it is presented to him again this year, he will probably veto it again for the same reasons. Even had it been passed into law, the constitutionality of these compacts is woefully weak.

To my well-meaning friends who want to do away with the Electoral College, please please devote your estimable energies to making the change through Constitutional Amendment, which is really the only proper way to do it. Anything less is sheer folly that is never, ever going to work.

I disagree with David Foote. The electoral college as we know it is not fixed in the Constitution. The Constitution merely tells the states to choose presidential electors any way they wish. There is nothing inconsistent with the electoral college as it would operate under the National Popular Vote compact, and the U.S. Constitution.

Rob Richie is ignorant of the history of the 1700. Our founding fathers selected represenative government rather than majority rule better known as mob rule to guide the new government. They were right. The USA is the oldest government in the world except for England.
We have come a long way to be the very best in everything that matters.
To destroy the electoral college for one man one vote is to lead us to the dictatorship of the masses by the government/business complex.
Our California reform initiative will give power back to the people especially third party and independant voters.
Wake up and smell the roses!!!!!

Let's get real here folks, as David Foote so perfectly put it...

For example, had this system been in force in 2004 when George W. Bush won the nationwide popular vote, the electoral votes of California would have gone to Bush rather than to Kerry who won the state by a huge margin. Can anyone seriously believe that the people of California would support such a proposal that would in essence THROW OUT their popular decision? What indeed are you people smoking?

When Ray Haynes, one of the most far right neo-con Republicans in CA supports something, you can bet there is more to it than he is telling you. And as you can see, there is. Let's not screw ourselves; Ray and his fellow followers are quite capable of doing it on their own, we don't need to help them!

Tom what do have against third parties and independents like Ralph Nader being elected to the four year party called the Electoral College. The reform of the Electoral College is very simple, winner take all by
Congressional District rather than Statewide winner take all. Independants in Berkley, San Francisco, etc
would have a voice.
Wake up, read, and then smell the Roses.
www.ElectoralReformCalifornia.com

What sounds like a fair idea is nothing more than a Republican trick to guarantee at least 20 additional electoral votes. This only works if it is tied to every other state doing the same thing. It amazes me how shortsighted some Democrats and progressives in office can be in bending over backwards to be fair while the GOP runs all over them.

We are not stupid and see right through this nonsense. This is yet one more republican trick to grab more power and unbalance the field towards them. Anyone who falls for this is simply naive. Do the math, all you are doing is turning 20 or so electoral votes over to the republican party. Plus it will make California irrelevant for president. I will be making sure to contribute as much as possible to NO on this. As for Mr. Bloomberg, he should compete in the regular way just like all the other candidates. He already has a hugs advantage which most of us don't: Billions of dollars, so don't ask me to feel for him.

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