Republican Move to Change California's Electoral College Votes for President Has "Early Support"--But Less Than 50%-- According to Field Poll

"Under current rules in presidential elections, the candidate winning California’s statewide popular vote is awarded all 55 of California’s electoral votes. This is called the winner-take-all system. A ballot initiative has been proposed to change this to a system that would allocate the state’s electoral votes on a district-by-district basis, according to which candidate gets the most votes in each congressional district. Generally speaking, which method of allocating California’s electoral votes do you prefer – the current winner-take-all method or the proposed district-by-district method?"

The results from that question show 47% of all registered voters in support, 35% opposed, and 18% having no opinion. There is, even without more information, a high division along party lines. Democrats are divided, with 41% in support and 42% opposed. Republicans are in support 57% to 28%. "Non-partisan/others" are in favor 43% to 34%. There are higher levels of the non-partisan/others who are undecided--23% according to the responses to this question.

The Field Poll then asked a follow-up question which has some, but by no means all of the information that voters may consider highly pertinent in making a decision:

"Democratic candidates have comfortably carried California in each of the past 4 presidential elections and under the current winner-take-all system, each was awarded all of the state’s electoral votes. If California had been using the proposed district-by-district allocation method in these elections, the Republican candidate would have been awarded as many as twenty-two of the state’s electoral votes, since a number of the state’s congressional districts favor Republican candidates. Does this make you more inclined or less inclined to want to change the state’s current winner-take-all system to a district-by-district allocation method?"

The results show that overall 38% of registered voters responded that with this information they were more likely to support the change, 31% were less likely to support it, and that it had no effect on 23% with another 8% having no opinion. Looking under the hood, this information intensifies the partisan divide, with Democrats by 43% to 27% being less inclined to vote for it, Republicans by 61% to 14% being more inclined to vote for it, and the non-partisan/other voters being less inclined by 35% to 26%.

After both of these questions, support rises from 47% to 49%, within the range of error of the poll, but opposition increases from 35% to 42%. Democrats are now more clearly opposed by 53% to 41%. Republicans are now more strongly in support by 70% to 24%. The non-partisan/other voters are at a similar level of opposition as Democrats by a margin of 51% to 37%.

It is widely accepted, and statistical history shows, that it is easier to defeat an initiative than it is to pass one. All that a campaign against an initiative needs to do is to raise doubts in voters' minds and, if successful, most of them will vote against a ballot proposition. This is especially true if there is an organized and well funded campaign. As such, most winning ballot measures need to start out significantly higher than 50%--usually in the 60's or 70's.

The missing piece of information here is that I firmly believe will sway most voters is that this is being done in California but not other states, especially strong Republican ones, which will retain their winner take all methods. This ballot proposition is nothing more than a thinly disguised dilution of Democratic electoral votes with California playing by a different set of rules than all but two other small states that have had their rules in place for years. It is a cynical attempt to change the rules of the game in June for a November election.

The wild card in all of this is that it will be appearing in the middle of a sandwich of elections next year. Without presidential candidates appearing on the June primary ballot and voters being fatigued by a February presidential primary, turnout may be low--more like a special election. Normally low turnouts help the Republican/conservative side in an election. It also results in an electorate that may be paying more attention to measure on the ballot and are able to see below the initial surface appeal of a measure.

If voters get as angry as I am about this, the electorate may be more like the one that turned out in the 2005 special election and defeated all ballot propositions. But we should take none of this for granted and leave nothing to chance. This may decide the November 2008 election. There may be a lot of national money on this.