Calif. could throw support to popular vote winner

AP via SFGate ^ | 8/14/8

[SmithL]

California legislators have approved legislation to circumvent the Electoral College.

But the measure could face a veto from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The bill by Senator Carole Migden, a San Francisco Democrat, would ratify an interstate agreement in which states award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote.

That would avoid a repeat of the 2000 election, when George Bush won the presidency but not the popular vote.

[ridesthemiles]

Migden needs to sober up and fast.

[Argus]

States are free to apportion their electoral votes any way their legislature decides, so this is legal. But it seems to me self-defeating to say to the voters of your own state that their majority vote doesn’t count versus the alleged majority vote of the country as a whole. That makes state sovereignty a dead letter - just rename the place The United People of America, because the states as such will have no say in choosing the chief executive of the federal government.

[sappy]

exactly. when they lose, it was due to voter disenfranchisement. when they win, there is no voter disenfranchisment, intimidation, vote rigging, machine failures etc.

[sappy]

Migden should focus on revising dui and hit and run laws for her own benefit.

[budwiesest]

elections would still focus completely on the populations centers, totally excluding the interests of those in flyover country.

Great explanation. It wouldn't be long before the excesses of the 'urban' centers (mentioned above) would cause a second revolution, which was, I think, something the founders had in the back of their minds when drafting the constitution.

[oldtimer]

The Californistan proposal will never fly.

I don't think that even the sheeple are stupid enough, along with the Supreme Court would let this happen.

Our Country is on the edge of a precipice however IMO.

[dr huer]

It makes election fraud more threatening. Will our lawyers be checking the voter roles in places such as Philadelphia or Chicago, where districts with 100 registered voters recorded 120 votes. Ballot box stuffing will be a national crime and will be vigorously attempted. One can see an administration canceling the suspect election, and remaining in power like Mugabe in Zimbabwe. How are you fixed for ammunition?

[CottonBall]

Something I think the Founding Fathers understood long before our cities had grown to their present sizes.

Their foresight was amazing. It's sad we (as a nation, that is) are close to throwing it all away.

[Ramius]

Staggering elitism. So the votes of ~Californians~ would no longer matter in California. Would the people of California really stand by while their votes were ignored?

...and they whine about ‘disenfranchising’. This effectively disenfranchises all the voters in the state and assigns the EC votes as a “me too!” along with whatever the rest of the country does. Don’t they think their votes should count?

It should be worth noting to these people that there IS NO official, certified “Popular vote” number. It’s an uncertain number compiled by journalists to approximate the total popular vote, but it is a legal fiction. There is no such number.

[goldstategop]

Ironically, it could backfire on liberals by awarding California's 55 electoral votes to John McCain even if Obama won the state. If McCain was the popular vote winner, California voters would be disenfranchised under the Democrats' own legislation, which seeks to circumvent the Constitution.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[DelphiUser]

If they had actually counted all the votes: Military, absentee, etc. then bush would have won the popular vote because most military votes go republican, and a large percentage of the absentee go republican.

Those ballots are only counted if the election is close enough for them to make a difference, in most states this was not the case, so they were not counted.

See:Presidential Election of 2000, Electoral and Popular Vote Summary for 2000, and United States presidential election, 2004

[Brilliant]

I’m all in favor of this... In California.

[ThomasThomas]

California is a winner take all state.

John McCain will not take California.

John McCain could win the national popular vote.

The electorial votes from California could give John McCain the win in a state he didn't carry.

What would happen the Democrates gave John the election with move?

[papasmurf]

I think the precipice started giving way 10 years ago.

[papasmurf]

“Their foresight was amazing.”

It truly is, nearly perfect.

[chris_bdba]

It is only going to take one time that a republican takes the blue states electoral votes and you will see these laws quickly vanish. This might be the perfect year for it? :)

[dsrtsage]

Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong. I assume this whole brouhaha stems from the 2000 election with gore winning the popular vote. For some reason I remember california going for gore. So even if they had this law, would this not have changed nothing? Or are in fact beginning to fear a turn around in voting patterns there in the near future?

[hunter112]

I'd much rather see electoral votes parcelled out by Congressional district, with the popular vote winner in a state getting the two electoral votes that correspond to the state's two Senators.

We'd bleed a little blue in the red states, but we'd make out like bandits in the rural areas of blue states.

[Minn]

That would avoid a repeat of the 2000 election, when George Bush won the presidency but not the popular vote.

So if this would have been in effect in 2000, California would have taken its electoral votes that went to Gore, and given them instead to Gore, since he won the popular vote? And this would have prevented the controversy? What am I missing?

[calcowgirl]

What more is there to say?