Thursday, September 27, 2007

I never lied to you, I've always been cool, I wana be elected,



As we've written about here before, there's a lovely new initiative here in CA to take electoral votes away from any Democratic candidates:
  • Under the guise of “reform,” Republican operatives are funding a scheme to change the way California allocates electoral votes in the 2008 Presidential election by putting an initiative on the June ballot.
  • Instead of awarding all 55 of California’s electoral votes to the Presidential candidate who wins the statewide vote, this Republican scheme would award votes one-at-a-time, based on the candidate who wins each of the state’s Congressional districts.
Thing is, this would be OK, if every state in the US did it at the same time. But the Republicans will never support that. Why, imagine, they might not get every one of Texas' 34 electoral votes.

Here's the real deal, from the Office of the Federal Registrar:
There are 48 States that have a winner-takes-all rule for the Electoral College. In these States, whichever candidate receives a majority of the vote, or a plurality of the popular vote (less than 50 percent but more than any other candidate) takes all of the State's electoral votes.

Only two States, Nebraska and Maine, do not follow the winner-takes-all rule. In those States, there could be a split of electoral votes among candidates through the State's system for proportional allocation of votes. For example, Maine has four electoral votes and two Congressional districts. It awards one electoral vote per Congressional district and two by the state-wide, "at-large" vote. It is possible for Candidate A to win the first district and receive one electoral vote, Candidate B to win the second district and receive one electoral vote, and Candidate C, who finished a close second in both the first and second districts, to win the two at-large electoral votes. Although this is a possible scenario, it has not actually occurred in recent elections.

So sure, popular majority in elections might be a great idea. Why, imagine what might have happened in 2000 if . . . well, I'm sure the Republicans don't want you to think about that.

"Winner Take All" is really a stupid idea, one that we've been stuck with for too long. But to claim it is unfair in only one state is blatant hypocrisy.

Read the entire article at Fair Election Reform. It spells the whole ugly thing out, including the Giuliani connection, and the SwiftBoatBastards connection.

Omigawd, these people are ugly and sick.

No comments: