CA Legislature tries tinkering with Electoral College

[foofighter20x]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070824/ap_on_el_ge/california_votes

[jpa]

I've been helping locally to get this passed.

If this passed and RP got the nomination, the general election would be a cakewalk.

[LizF]

Wow...makes you wonder how many past Presidential elections would have turned out differently.

Will be interesting to see what happens.

[foofighter20x]

Any state that splits their vote like that is asking to be made irrelevant.

Neither of the two top candidates will campaign there since they only get a net benefit of 2 votes.

Besides, in a state that leans that heavily one way, is it really worth it for either of them? Foregone conclusion.

[jpa]

uhh... CA is currently irrelevant *because* we arent split up. If we did split by county, the national campaign would have to come here.

A split up CA would have more delegates for R than most states. GOP could get 40% of our 55 delegates. And we do have a republican governor...

[foofighter20x]

Nah... CA is irrelevent cause it leans left so hard.

If it was a battleground, woo-hooo... You'd all be movie stars every 4 years.

Like I said above, CA is a foregone conclusion: Dems.

Why campaign there if you know you will get none of the votes?
Once it changes: why campaign there when if you do, the only gain you will get is 2 votes over the other guy?

Hate to break it to ya, but you guys got to big and leaned too far one way to and thus became irrelevant any way you cut it except when it's darn near 50-50 and you get get ALL the votes if ya win.

[jpa]

Its 40/30/30 (D/R/Independant) here.

We have 19 republican congressmen. We have a republican governor.

GOP could pick up 20 delegates if CA was split by district. (where did you get 2?) That is bigger than most states.

[foofighter20x]

Its 40/30/30 (D/R/Independant) here.

We have 19 republican congressmen. We have a republican governor.

GOP could pick up 20 delegates if CA was split by district. (where did you get 2?) That is bigger than most states.

Sorry.. was thinking like a near even split with the 2 state seats for the dem being the kicker... I got the old proportionality to the popular vote that Colorado tried to pass back in 2004 on my brain for some reason.


Even so, spliting the vote like that makes the state as a whole generally not worth the effort.

[american.swan]

I don't think this is a very good idea.

It still excludes third parties. Such as Ron Paul running as a third party.

I think it would be better to devide the electorial votes based on percentage of the popular vote.

So if the Dems got 60% of the vote, the dems get 60% of the 55 delegates.
Then 38% of the 55 delegates goes to the Republicans.
And the last 2% of the delegates goes to the third party winner. (so a third party candidate would have to get at least 1/55th of the popular vote to get any electorial votes)

Honestly, I think many states should adopt the "ballot inititives" that California has. The common person should be able with not a lot of work, get some good idea on the ballot.

[NCGOPer_for_Paul]

California did this to counter states like Maryland and North Carolina who tried to tie their electoral votes to the National popular vote.

BTW, Maine and Nebraska already do this.

[jpa]

This does not exclude 3rd parties. A 3rd party could campaign in a few districts (small geographically) and pick up more delegates than campaigning the whole state of wyoming or montana.

I agree scrapping the Electorial College is better, but this is a step in the right direction.

[Paulitician]

Please note that California is the second biggest contributor to the Ron Paul campaign in terms of donations. I wouldn't exactly write the state off... I'm sanguine. I think Ron Paul can convert a lot of moderate Democrats and especially Independents or apathetic voters. California has quite a few, big liberal cities but it also has its more conservative counties. I know in the central valley, where I live, it's somewhat conservative.

[american.swan]

This does not exclude 3rd parties. A 3rd party could campaign in a few districts (small geographically) and pick up more delegates than campaigning the whole state of wyoming or montana.

I agree scrapping the Electorial College is better, but this is a step in the right direction.

For argument sake lets say your right about the montana, few districts stuff. Then I think it is so important to have independant commissions who don't give a crap to make up the districts. Just my thinking.

[foofighter20x]

I like the electoral college and think it should be kept in place.

What I don't like is the winner take all system.

I'd rather have it that no one campaigns for president and the EC actually has to choose somebody instead of rubberstamping their state's popular vote.

[american.swan]

I like the electoral college and think it should be kept in place.

What I don't like is the winner take all system.

I'd rather have it that no one campaigns for president and the EC actually has to choose somebody instead of rubberstamping their state's popular vote.

I like the electoral college too, not sure why I think that. I also don't like the winner take all approach and it also bothers me that some states have laws stating that you MUST vote with the crowd.

Foofighter: How do you suggest the electoral college should work? What about state legislatures voting on them? I don't know? Any ideas?

[SeanEdwards]

Any state that splits their vote like that is asking to be made irrelevant.

Neither of the two top candidates will campaign there since they only get a net benefit of 2 votes.

Besides, in a state that leans that heavily one way, is it really worth it for either of them? Foregone conclusion.

Not sure I agree with that analysis at all. If California divided up it's electoral votes as is suggested, Republicans would have a LOT more reason to campaign there in the hope of winning at least part of the electoral votes available. As it is, national Republicans just ignore California since they know it's a lost cause. Then, Californians get to enjoy being victimized by national Republican leaders through such shenanigans as the Enron scam. I mean, why would anyone expect Bush to stand up to defend California voters when Bush views California as an enemy nation?

[american.swan]

Not sure I agree with that analysis at all. If California divided up it's electoral votes as is suggested, Republicans would have a LOT more reason to campaign there in the hope of winning at least part of the electoral votes available. As it is, national Republicans just ignore California since they know it's a lost cause. Then, Californians get to enjoy being victimized by national Republican leaders through such shenanigans as the Enron scam. I mean, why would anyone expect Bush to stand up to defend California voters when Bush views California as an enemy nation?

Maybe CA should pass the law just to see what happends. People seem divided as to what would happen.

Considering CA is a state that as a whole usually gives their Electoral College votes to the Dems, I would think that it would hurt them most...so the Republicans still might ignore the state figuring that they can win without it...but the Dems might campaign there more to keep as many Electoral College votes as they can.

If you look at the last few presidential elections...how would the total have changed if CA had done this earlier?

[foofighter20x]

The whole point of the EC is to pick a president that has broad regional appeal, weighted per state by population.

It started out that each elector would get two votes. One for a person from their state, one for a person not from their state. There would be no candidates seeking the office; rather, the office would seek the man. Was was supposed to happen was that the favorite son of each state would typically be the one to get all the in-state votes. The next best pick from everyone's out-of-state votes would be president. Again, no campaigning, no nominees for the office. If he got a majority, he was president. The person with the second most votes was VeeP.

That changed when the political parties organized and politicized the office. They coordinated and all agreed to vote for the party's candidate instead of leaving the electoral college to itself. This caused the crisis of 1800 when Jefferson and his running mate Burr tied. That lead to the 12th Amendment, which said one vote for pres, one for vice pres; of those two votes, one must be for a person not from your state. Instead of neutralizing the influnce of parties over the system, they entrenched it. Bad move, as we can tell now.

Ideally, it should be left up to the state legislatures, and the legislatures should take a much more active role in weeding out candidates that are going to expand federal power over that of the state. But they are too lazy and apathethic to do so. Not to mention most of them probably have the wrong concept of federalism thanks to a government-funded, public school education.

Ideally, for me, elections for POTUS would be non-partisan and the state governments would play a larger role. Remove all party influences on the election and get the legislatures paying attention, and a lot of the problems go away.

[american.swan]

The whole point of the EC is to pick a president that has broad regional appeal, weighted per state by population.

It started out that each elector would get two votes. One for a person from their state, one for a person not from their state. There would be no candidates seeking the office; rather, the office would seek the man. Was was supposed to happen was that the favorite son of each state would typically be the one to get all the in-state votes. The next best pick from everyone's out-of-state votes would be president. Again, no campaigning, no nominees for the office. If he got a majority, he was president. The person with the second most votes was VeeP.

That changed when the political parties organized and politicized the office. They coordinated and all agreed to vote for the party's candidate instead of leaving the electoral college to itself. This caused the crisis of 1800 when Jefferson and his running mate Burr tied. That lead to the 12th Amendment, which said one vote for pres, one for vice pres; of those two votes, one must be for a person not from your state. Instead of neutralizing the influnce of parties over the system, they entrenched it. Bad move, as we can tell now.

Ideally, it should be left up to the state legislatures, and the legislatures should take a much more active role in weeding out candidates that are going to expand federal power over that of the state. But they are too lazy and apathethic to do so. Not to mention most of them probably have the wrong concept of federalism thanks to a government-funded, public school education.

Ideally, for me, elections for POTUS would be non-partisan and the state governments would play a larger role. Remove all party influences on the election and get the legislatures paying attention, and a lot of the problems go away.

Cool. Hadn't thought about that in a long time.