It was shaping up to be a compelling
political struggle over California's presidential electors , that elite group of 55 individuals who will cast their votes for the president and vice president of the United States in mid-December 2008. These are members of the Electoral College, consisting of 538 voters from all the states who will collectively choose the country's next leaders.
Here's a bit of background. First, California has a winner-take-all system where the presidential/vice presidential candidates who receive a majority of the state's popular vote on November 4, 2008, will get all 55 electoral votes. Those 55 electors represent the 53 congressional districts plus two senators. Next, Democratic candidates have carried the state for the last four presidential elections, clearly making California a blue state. But the state is not totally blue (PDF) . For example, in the 2004 presidential election, President Bush got 0 electoral votes from California. Under the proposed system, plenty of congressional districts voted Republican and Bush would have received 22 electoral votes. Yes, those 55 votes are huge, representing more than 10% of the entire Electoral College total, equivalent to Illinois, Ohio and Virginia combined.
So, it would seem natural and strategic for the GOP to examine some options to relinquishing all of California's votes to a Democratic ticket. One option surfaced in August. It was an initiative to be voted on by California voters in June called the Presidential Election Reform Act. It would allocate electoral votes according to the plurality vote in each congressional district. And whichever party wins the plurality of statewide votes gets the two electors representing the state as a whole. Only Maine and Nebraska allocate their electoral votes by congressional district.
In late August, the Field Poll (PDF) showed some early support for the initiative which was drafted by a legal counsel to Governor Schwarzenegger. Although the governor is reported to be cool to the idea, the poll showed interest from 47% of California's registered voters with 35% opposing. Then last week, a question was raised about the role of a Missouri attorney in the fundraising efforts for the initiative.
On Saturday, the Associated Press reported that the proposed ballot measure suffered potentially fatal setbacks and the initiative committee's spokesman resigned. Considering that the Republicans had so much to gain from gathering just a few of California's electoral votes for president, more questions need to be asked about why the nascent opportunity apparently has slipped away. Just think that if the next election is as close as the 2000 contest between Gore and Bush, how powerful could those Golden State electoral votes have become?
