A Ballot Proposition Changing the Rules in California to Give Republicans a Better Chance to Keep the Presidency

What if they are aiming to qualify this for the June primary election, which is likely to be low turnout?

Yes Frank! As the proponent, the plan is to submit it to the voters for the June 2008 ballot to take effect for the 2008 presdential elections.
Los Angeles and the Bay areas run this state.
Winner take all by Congressional Districts give independents like Ralph Nader, third parties, and rural counties a voice in the election of the president.
ElectoralReformCalifornia.com is our website.

Democrats should respond with an initiative awarding all of its electoral votes to the nationwide popular vote winner, and this initiative should invalidate the electoral votes by congressional district idea.
It would be a simple campaign--if this had been in effet in 2000, Gore would have been president, not Bush.

Oh God Publius .. Gore as pres? Green Gore? This will shake the dems up bad. A level playing field? Can't allow that. You watch what happens to the rules if the dems get the white house. Talk about rules (and taxes) changing. Repubs will never have a chance again. Pass me the gun oil.

Actually if we really had a direct popular vote (which would be the result of publius's suggestion) they would probably still be recounting Bush vs Gore.

Gore won by over 500,000 votes. No recount would be necessary at that level. As for Gore as President, he would not
of blown off reports of Al Queda attacking the US since the real danger, as we all know, was rogue nations lauching a missle at us which required a NMD, nor
would Gore have attacked Iraq (which he said at the time). Nor would there have been the tax cuts which will double our national debt from 5trillion to 10 trillion by the time Bush is out of office. Since the Social Security deficit is 3 trillion or so over 75 years, if this money had been used to handle this deficit, we wouldn't have a problem.

What Republicans do is created problems so that the only solution is for middle and lower class Americans to suffer
to solve them (how many people earning over $100,000 a year have children in Iraq? Who is going to suffer most from Social Security cutbacks? Not George Bush and his friends). Republicans have played the religiousity card to create a coalition of the truely wealthy (one percent of the population but over 50 percent of those who give to campaigns) with those concerned with the role of God in public life. Well, guess what? Put not yee faith in princes, and those people are the ones getting it the worst. Bush will go down as the second-worst American president (Buchanan still needs to be considered the worst).

Tony – Be honest. Congressional district allocation is nothing more than a power play by the minority party in a given state. The Republicans are trying it in California by initiative and the Democrats are trying it in North Carolina (a red state on the presidential level) by legislation. Perhaps you can explain to me that if LA and the Bay areas run this state then how did Dukemejian, Wilson, and Schwarzenegger all get elected TWICE without doing well in either of those regions?

Tom – Actually a national popular vote for President would make a recount LESS likely. The 2000 crisis in Florida only occurred because 260 votes determined the President. As publius mentioned, the overall popular vote lead was more than 500,000. There is no way either party would attempt a recount of that size. The irony is that the same thing that happened to Gore in 2000 almost happened to Bush in 2004. Bush won the popular vote by 3.5 million and yet if 60,000 votes switch in Ohio, he would have lost the Electoral College.

The non-partisan solution is to move to a direct national popular vote. Candidates would compete for every vote whether urban, rural, or suburban. That is what happens in Governor’s races and it’s also how presidential candidate’s campaign in battleground states. They don’t care where a vote comes from; they are all of equal value. It would also eliminate the exclusive focus on battleground states because winning votes, and not states, would be important.

I love the idea and I hope voters vote in favor it when election comes around. This is such a great idea, not sure why no one else have proposed it before

I'm not a fan of this idea (it makes gerrymandering even MORE powerful), but just to be fair & factual this is an idea being pushed simultaneously (and much more successfully) by the Democrats in North Carolina.

Publius: the initiative you propose would not make any difference compared to the current system, as it would only apply to CA.

I'm not a fan of this idea (it makes gerrymandering even MORE powerful), but just to be fair & factual this is an idea being pushed simultaneously (and much more successfully) by the Democrats in North Carolina.

Publius: the initiative you propose would not make any difference compared to the current system, as it would only apply to CA.

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