Competing Statewide Ballot Initiatives For California's Electoral Votes

Republican operatives are circulating a ballot initiative that could radically change the dynamics of the 2008 presidential electoral map by assigning California's 55 electoral votes to that candidate which carries each of the state's congressional districts and not the statewide plurality. In 2004, President Bush carried 22 of California's 53 congressional districts while losing statewide 44% to 54% to Senator John Kerry. If the Republicans' initiative had been in effect Bush would have won 19 more electoral votes (almost as many as Ohio's 20 votes, which decided the 2004 Presidential election).

This week, Democratic operatives struck back with a competing ballot initiative of their own that would also re-assign the manner in which California apportions it's electoral votes for President; this time to the winner of the popular vote. However, the Democratic measure would have the impact of eliminating the effect of the electoral college altogether by asserting that after states with 270 (a majority of the 538 electoral votes up for grabs) have also agreed to do the same thing, California would assign it's electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote, regardless of which candidate won a plurality in the state. This would guarantee that the winner of the popular vote would always win the electoral vote and be elected President, which did NOT happen in 2000 (Gore won the popular vote, and Bush wonwas declared the winner of the electoral vote) and occurred three other times in the 19th century.

Current polling on the Republican measure has it ahead 47% to 35%, which although sounds scary, is actually pretty good news, because it's rare for any ballot measure to pass which does not BEGIN with initial poll numbers in the 55-60% range. The Democrats' measure is the second effort to get the Nationa's largest state to join the "popular vote" movement. Last year, the Legislature passed a bill to do this but the measure was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger.