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Two lawmakers want to split state's electoral votes by House district
AP ^
| 12/1/4
Posted on 12/01/2004 6:14:40 PM PST by SmithL
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To: dyed_in_the_wool
The county by county map is immaterial. Congressional districts are apportioned by population, not by county. Here in Illinois, Cook County has half of Illinois' 19 congressional districts either inside it entirely or comprising part of them. The other half are the rest of the state, with some districts having a dozen or more counties in them.
101
posted on
12/02/2004 8:56:38 AM PST
by
RonF
To: Soul Seeker
What's to stop Dems from making every block of San Francisco a congressional district and unifying the conservative blocks of the state into one?The law. Congressional districts are apportioned by population, and the law does not allow very much variation among them in any given state. You can't put 1000 liberals in one district and 1,000,000 conservatives in another.
102
posted on
12/02/2004 8:58:59 AM PST
by
RonF
To: SmithL
If this would pass, it would be years before a lib would be elected again. Without CA it would be easy...
To: RobFromGa; dpwiener
(with the proviso that redistricting reform is essential to prevent gerrymandering)
I don't know how that can be accomplished. If you don't take politics into account when drawing the lines, what do you use? A dartboard? Even trying to be apolitical in these lines is political.
No kidding. Districting is the most difficult political fight.
My modest proposal is to start with a population density map. Draw districts starting with the highest density areas, which encompass (to within say 1%) the same number of people, and move outward from that high-density area doing so. One can use smaller political units' (counties, cities, townships, etc.) boundaries as guides for the District border.
There are two problems with redistricting: gettting the will, and doing it in an evenhanded manner.
104
posted on
12/02/2004 9:16:48 AM PST
by
Chemist_Geek
("Drill, R&D, and conserve" should be our watchwords! Energy independence for America!)
To: SmithL
YES!
As a California resident in a district that hasn't gone for a Democratic presidential candidate in decades, this is a long overdue proposal. I am sick and tired of the electoral votes from Conservative California being usurped by the libbies in the Bay Area and LA. California was once recognized as a conservative state...let's make it so again.
To: Chemist_Geek
Draw districts starting with the highest density areas,... and move outwardSince the Dems could also be called the "urban herd" who flock to these high-density areas, grouping them all together would be seen as political. The Dems would argue that all the urban districts should be 52-48 liberal (by breaking up the urban areas into slivers to go with each slice of suburban area) and the rest catch-all rural districts that are 75% GOP.
I don't believe that there exists an apolitical solution.
106
posted on
12/02/2004 9:49:40 AM PST
by
RobFromGa
(End the Filibuster for Judicial appointments in January 05)
To: HostileTerritory
There's also nothing to stop states from subdividing counties like mad to prop up their totals. No, but there is something to keep states from subdividing their congressional districts -- the Constitution. Any system that apportions the electoral votes would have to be based either on (a) the congressional districts since electoral votes = number of congressional districts plus 2; or (b) percentage of popular vote in the state. In either case, based on recent election trends, republican candidates would syphon off more electoral votes from blue states than dems would from red states.
107
posted on
12/02/2004 10:26:17 AM PST
by
VRWCmember
("The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left." Eccl. 10:2)
To: HostileTerritory
"Bush carried NC-13? I'd assumed otherwise but hadn't looked it up."
I don't know for certain, but I believe that he probably did, since (i) Bush got 50% within the lines of the 13th CD in 2000; (ii) the Bush percentage improved from 2000 by 2.5% in Granville County, 2% in Person County, 1% in Caswell County and 3% in Rockingham County; and (iii) while the Bush percentage decreased by 2.5% in Wake County, 1.5% in Guilford County and less than 1% in Alamance County, most voters in these counties are in other congressional districts and I do not believe that Bush's percentage decrease in these counties makes up for the Bush pick-up in the other 4 counties. We'll have to wait for someone with access to precinct-level data to do the analysis; I'm sure it will be up in Dave Leip's uselectionatlas.com sometime soon.
108
posted on
12/02/2004 10:27:46 AM PST
by
AuH2ORepublican
(Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.)
To: SmithL
A map showing county-by-county voting results is one thing. A map showing voting results by congressional district is something else entirely. Personally, I think this is a great idea. But I wonder just how much it will matter in the end? Is there a map available that shows the voting results for the 2004 presidential election broken down by congressional district?
To: frannie
Wouldn't that give us the number of electoral votes for each candidate?
I hope this makes sense. I can't explain very well what I'm trying to say. It makes sense to some degree, but it doesn't work out that way. To assume it would work out that way assumes completely perfect extension of presidential coattails to each congressional race. Instead, districts will often return their incumbant house representative to congress while voting for the presidential candidate of the other party. Such ballot splitting occurs at the senate level sometimes as well, but is much more common in the house.
110
posted on
12/02/2004 10:38:18 AM PST
by
VRWCmember
("The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left." Eccl. 10:2)
To: Cooltouch
All right... who's gonna post the map?
111
posted on
12/02/2004 10:48:55 AM PST
by
Tuxedo
(Not now John, we gotta get on with the film show)
To: VRWCmember
Well, in that post I was responding to one particularly out-there suggestion to apportion them by county.
To: Cooltouch
"Is there a map available that shows the voting results for the 2004 presidential election broken down by congressional district?"
Not yet, but there will be one (hopefully) soon at www.uselectionatlas.com That site has a 2000 map showing presidential vote by CD. I would post it if I only knew how.
113
posted on
12/02/2004 1:25:28 PM PST
by
AuH2ORepublican
(Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.)
To: tom h
"I don't recall a lot about these votes but they were not directly for Kennedy or any other candidate, but the media have always placed them in the Kennedy national vote total so as to give Kennedy more votes nationally than Nixon."
That was only in Alabama, where several of the Democrat electors were "free Democrats" (or some such term) who had not pledged to vote for Kennedy and went on to vote for Sen. Harry Byrd. In Mississippi and Louisiana, the there were three main slates of electors: Republicans, Democrats and "Unpledged Democratic Electors." People who voted for the Unpledged Electors have their votes recorded as such on every source I have seen, and in fact the Unpledged slate in Mississippi received more votes than either the Kennedy or Nixon slates and thus the Unpledged slate was elected as the electors from MS (they, too, voted for Byrd).
It is uncertain whether Nixon would have received more votes than Kennedy nationwide had Alabama listed a slate of "Unpledged Democratic Electors" like MS and LA did. However, had that happended, Nixon would have probably carried Alabama, although it wouldn't be enough to keep Kennedy below the required 269 electoral votes (back then) for victory.
114
posted on
12/02/2004 1:42:50 PM PST
by
AuH2ORepublican
(Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.)
To: SmithL
115
posted on
12/02/2004 5:36:48 PM PST
by
djreece
To: RonF
God, I'm sick of people fighting here over a proposition that will never get past the RATS anyway. And I'm sick of that 'federalism' argument. States ought to be able to do what they want. It's not a top-down thing--it's CALIFORNIA trying to do it, not the U.S. It's a STATE initiative. They get to choose how they determine electors. As long as each vote is roughly proportional in impact and the districts are fairly apportioned, it'll be fine Constitutionally. It's already done in some states.
116
posted on
12/02/2004 5:38:59 PM PST
by
LibertarianInExile
(NO BLOOD FOR CHOCOLATE! Get the UN-ignoring, unilateralist Frogs out of Ivory Coast!)
To: RobFromGa
Yep.
My read is that the electoral college is the last remnant of our republic. Screw with that and we'll see some lawsuits filed about Article IV, Section 4.
117
posted on
12/02/2004 5:40:19 PM PST
by
gortklattu
(check out thotline dot com)
To: Perdogg
Read Article II of the US Constitution : The State shall determine how electors are chosen. Frankly, the legislator, if wanted too, could deny the public the right to vote in a Presidential election.
What if a majority of states have Democrat control legislatures and permanently do away with presidential elections ? somehow I dont think Scalia and Thomas would support "state's rights"
To: Grand_Capitalism_04
It would be upheld. This was upheld this is Bush V Gore.
The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States unless and until the state legislature chooses a statewide election as the means to implement its power to appoint members of the Electoral College. U.S. Const., Art. II, §1. This is the source for the statement in McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U.S. 1, 35 (1892), that the State legislatures power to select the manner for appointing electors is plenary; it may, if it so chooses, select the electors itself, which indeed was the manner used by State legislatures in several States for many years after the Framing of our Constitution. Id., at 2833.
119
posted on
12/02/2004 6:30:38 PM PST
by
Perdogg
(W stands for Winner)
To: Sthitch; pepperdog
Our founding Father's were mute on how the electors should be chosen Initially many states elected congressmen the same way 48 states now choose electors, that is sans districts.
That 1876 election was quite a doozy, The new state of Colorado simply skipped an election and simply appointed the (R) electors.
One could argue if it was "fair", but it was certainly constitutional.
120
posted on
12/02/2004 8:15:25 PM PST
by
TeleStraightShooter
(The illogical Left in our country wants to do for Iraq what the USA did for Liberia: FORGET IT!)
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