No Dirty Tricks - Join With Courage Campaign!

Republican lawyers have proposed a ballot initiative that would split California's electoral votes and give the equivalent of Ohio to the GOP nominee. The Courage Campaign and the netroots are fighting this dirty trick. Join them at www.couragecampaign.org/nodirtytricks.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• dirty
• tricks
• california
• electoral
• college
• 2008
• presidential
• election
• courage
• campaign

[ddayen]

actually, in the sense that it is selectively administered and greatly increases the possibility for the winner of the popular vote to lose the election, I'd go ahead with yes, it is undemocratic. Then again, so is the electoral college, in that it's a gross violation of one person, one vote. But certainly this is not reform.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled recess.

[Malacandra]

You've got to hand it to the GOP: they never stop thinking of new ways of stacking the deck.

[mcj3691]

Emjay711, you are seeing it wrong because the ONLY state the republicans are trying to get this passed in is California, which is a democratic leaning state. If they truly wanted reform, they would propose it nationally in every state. But you'll never see them do that. If every state had this, the odds of there ever being another republican president would go way way down.

[swamimans]

dont raise my taxes for the state employees. my income has gone down by 50 percent. so why cant state employees share the pain. fuck campaign courage.

[12patriot12]

I think this illustrates the flawed logic of tying electoral votes to Congressional districts. Congressional districts are gerrymandered based on the most recent census, which is taken every ten years. Is it appropriate to allow our Presidential electios to be decided by politically skewed Congressional redistricting, based on a census taken years ago?

[TyredUvBS]

Open primary states are closing, closed primary states are requiring declaration of party affiliation earlier than ever in the history of US elections. There needs to be true election reform to bring about fairness and votes that count in EVERY state, not just a few.

[Emjay711]

I was being sarcastic. I looked in every poll I could find and RP wasn't even making a bump. Regardless of how nice or how effective of a leader he might be, he stands NO CHANCE of getting the nomination next year. Well, maybe if the top 5 candidates died in a plane crash.

[greenbean1984]

i dont want to be rude but are joking? "who is ron paul?" just type his name in here on youtube. he's running for president in 2008.

[BastardJack]

You know I'd like to see the actual proposal, I wasn't able to find a copy on the website. I'm definatly pro liberal, but I'd really prefer to make my own assesments.

[Emjay711]

I looked it up. If the whole country switched to district based electoral votes, the Republicans would benefit: read on...

In 2004 Bush had 286 electoral votes; Kerry 252. Under the district by district method, Bush would have gotten 323; Kerry 213.

And in 2000, Bush had 271 electoral votes; Gore 266. A district by district count would have given Bush 291 votes; Gore 244.

[Emjay711]

Who is that?

[Emjay711]

That's what I thought at first, but that is not the case. The electoral votes are divided by Congressional District, NOT by county. Each Congressional District has about the same population. Each district gets 1 electoral vote and the candidate that wins the state overall, gets 2 more electoral votes which accounts for all of the states votes in the Electoral College.

[BastardJack]

Giving small counties the same number of votes as large counties is ridiculous. Should 5,000 voters from one county count for the same number of votes as a country with 5,000,000 votes? Its not about republicans or democrates its about bad administrative planning. Its a bad idea that doesn't reflect the majority of voters in a state period.