Republicans sneaking to get California's and New York's electoral votes?

[cascadiance]

I posted an article on Latest Breaking News that was headlined about a bill being passed in committee that would help Donna Frye and others get elected here in California if the voter's intent was clear to make votes like the "unbubbled" votes are counted next time around.

The other thread is here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1316038

What was missed (because I had to use the article's subject line) is another bill that was considered and dropped by one vote, with indications that it will be tried again later after "modifications" is a bill by Bill Maze (Republican from Visalia) to have California (supposedly along with the three other big states - Florida, New York, and Texas) to go from winner takes all electoral votes to that of what Maine and Nebraska currently are the only states to use (and Colorado tried to do last election). Now it didn't get out of committee this time, but the fact that the Republicans are trying it at this time and that it is getting so little attention by our media is scarey to me.

The prospects of us losing the added votes from California and New York majorities are about the only things counterbalancing the inherent unDemocratic aspects of the electoral college giving more per capita representation to the lower populated (and more Republican) states.

Anyone else find any other articles in other places about efforts to change electoral college voting from winner take all in Democratic states? They need to be stopped at all costs and made visible before 2008. Not unless we throw out the electoral college altogether and just make it a straight vote by the whole nation.

[Arkana]

1. The way I see it, there are three options:

1. Leave it the way it is.
2. If CA, NE, ME, and NY do it, then the rest of the nation should do it too.
3. Abolish the electoral college altogether (which is my preferred option).

[slackmaster]

3. Option 2 makes a lot of sense

It would tend to balance out the vote. As things are here in Cali now, if you vote GOP your vote doesn't contribute to the actual selection of President. If you live in a red state like Texas and vote Democratic, your vote doesn't count.

[cascadiance]

4. Would it really balance out the vote?

Think of who *really* won these three states the last election and how many votes are totally at stake between these four states.

New York and California have by far more votes and are solidly Democratic. Florida arguably went Democratic (even though voting machines and other fraud helped them be Republican). The Texas minority votes are about the only ones the Dems would really pick up, as I'm guessing the Republicans are concerned that it would be hard to yet again get the Florida vote be bent towards the Republicans next election.

If you look at the way each state is represented in the electoral college (electoral voters = (# of reps in House) + (# of Senators)

you can see how already the smaller population states (that tend to be Republican) get an advantage there in terms of per-capita representation. Even if *all* of the states dropped their winner-take-all formula, it still would put the Democrats at a disadvantage.

In my mind the only other option to having winner-take-all in California and New York is to remove the electoral college to have a true Democratic vote of the populace. That I wouldn't mind seeing. But I don't think that's what people like Maze have in mind with this attempted "stealth" legislation.

[slackmaster]

6. I haven't tried to run the actual numbers

A lot of Dem votes get lost in a lot of red states. There are far more red states than blue.

In my mind the only other option to having winner-take-all in California and New York is to remove the electoral college to have a true Democratic vote of the populace. That I wouldn't mind seeing.

I can't envision that happening within our lifetimes.

[cascadiance]

9. But how do those electoral votes get divided?

If you have a small state that went 55% Republican that has 3 electoral votes (2 senate seats + 1 house seat), do you give 2 electoral votes to Republicans and 1 to Democrats? See how the math works there? Republicans pick up a lot more votes potentially on mere rounding differences.

And what's proposed here is just about the top four states, as if somehow because one is a red state and the other two dem states in the last election that makes things equal. The way I figure the electoral votes, if the last election were held under the new rules the vote totals would be as follows:

The actual vote difference (with winner take all)

Democrats 86
Republicans 61

and depending on rules for how you distribute "rounded" votes, which even could be picked up in some instances by folks like Nader or Badnarik, the best case for the Democrats would be:

Democrats 75
Republicans 72

and worst case might be

Democrats 73
Republicans 73
Badnarik 1 (he had 55% of a vote in California)

That's a pickup of 11 to 12.5 electoral votes by the Republicans. This proposed change for the "top four" states is anything but fair to the Democrats.

[slackmaster]

11. I see what you mean

I guess we're stuck with the present system, plus any changes the states decide to make for themselves.

[forgethell]

7. Or,

option 4: the Republicans succeed in what they are trying to do.

Just because we don't like doesn't mean the Repukes will pay any attention to us. That's what happens when you lose elections.

[apnu]

17. Yeah to #3... the E.C. is no longer necessary n/t

[aquart]

2. WHERE are these bills being considered?

[cascadiance]

5. The article I refer to in the other thread is...

here:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20050315-1736-ca-xgr-electionlaw.html

It was talking about bills before the California Assembly's election committee.

[msongs]

8. california dems in the legislature are cowards........................

arnold the austrian thug is nominating a repub to replace the resigned dem secretary of state and our cowardly democrats are NOT demanding a dem to be nominated in replacement. OUR dems are allowing the repubs to stage a coup. our dems are cowards.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/liberaltshirts.htm

[seabeyond]

10. they arent sneaking, they are doing it out in the open

and we are letting them

[cascadiance]

15. Well certainly the press is letting them "sneak" by!

I can't believe that the only mention of this bill going through committee in California was buried in this article on the other bill to help "count the votes" right to help with Donna Frye, which I wouldn't have even found if I didn't have a local interest in Donna Frye to find this article in the first place.

We really need to see what is going on and our media isn't covering. It's stuff like this that's going on in the trenches now that Americans should be aware of to keep it from screwing our Democracy more later.

[ThorsHammer]

12. Does that apply only to those states? Otherwise, it helps in OH, FL, etc

If the bill applies only to these three large, very blue states, there might be some serious trouble. I don't know how CA's balance would work out under this plan, but the GOP would still get more than they get now, 0. However, I think this plan would help Democrats if applied nationally. "Red" states like OH, FL, TX, GA, etc are actually quite purple (some posted the cartagram of this), while CA, NY, IL are more blue.

[cascadiance]

14. I went through the numbers of each state...

And assuming one would divide up the electoral votes purely on percentage of state vote where fractions over .5 get the whole vote I came up with the following numbers. Keep in mind that there are still situations where the combinations of third party votes and the neither major candidate getting over half of the votes needed for the remaining elector leave some votes dangling to be decided by a tiebreaker. I found that three states had nebulous situations like that (California, Massachussetts, and New York), all coincidentally "blue" states.

And also note that each state, even if they divide up their electors, use criteria not necessarily with the above rules, which probably favor Democrats. Note that in Maine, even though they divide up their electors, it is still decided within "districts", so that though Bush might have gotten 2 of the 4 votes if was a statewide percentage, he didn't get any in this election. If the same logic were applied in other red states, Bush would still get most or all of the votes in those states too.

Last election actual results:

Electoral College:
Bush - 286 votes (53.15985%)
Kerry - 252 votes (46.84015%)

Actual votes:
Bush - 62040606 (51%)
Kerry - 59028109 (48%)

If we had this "percentage" rule in place and assuming the best outcome for Kerry:

If it were only the top four states (Kerry losing 11 votes):

Electoral College:
Bush - 297 votes (55.20446%)
Kerry - 241 votes (44.79554%)

and in worst case if he lost 13 votes:

Electoral College:
Bush - 299 votes (55.57621%)
Kerry - 239 votes (44.42379%)

I went through the rest of the states and used the percentage vote there and got a total of either Kerry picking up 6 or 7 votes (depending on who you gave the remaining Massachussetts vote to with it being tied .44% between the two of them). Therefore if you add the other states, then at best Kerry loses 4 votes and in worst case loses 7 votes. Of course if other states use the "Maine" rules for dividing up votes, it could be a lot worse for Kerry then.

With all states using percentage vote rule:

At best for Kerry:
Bush - 290 votes (53.90335%)
Kerry - 248 votes (46.09665%)

At worst for Kerry:
Bush - 293 votes (54.46097%)
Kerry - 245 votes (45.53903%)

Any way you slice it, the electoral college gives Dems lower percentage of votes than straight election percentage nationally. And sacrificing winner-take-all nationally or in just a few states also adds up to making it worse for Democrats.

Haven't done an analysis of the 2000 election under the same rules, but given that Gore won the popular vote, I would expect the results to be even worse.

[ThorsHammer]

16. Wow, didn't realize that

I had thought that CA, NY, IL were much more blue than TX, FL, and OH were red, and that the latter 3 would more than offset any losses in the first 3.

[cascadiance]

18. Woops, I did have a math error there...

Added in the four state totals twice by mistake. Doing it nationwide would help over the present system, but not by much. In case anyone is wondering about the state-by-state breakdowns that I figured them to be (in case someone wants to correct me on any of them), here they are:

Actual Electoral votes:
State (Actual Kerry-Bush) (Percentage Kerry-Bush) (difference) (best/worst difference)
-------------------------------------------------------------
* California (55-0) (29-25-1) (-25/-26) (-25/-26)
Florida (0-27) (13-14) (+13) (-12/-13)
* New York (31-0) (18-12-1) (-12/-13) (-24/-26)
Texas (0-34) (13-21) (+13) (-11/-13)
-------------------------------------------------------------
Alabama (0-9) (3-6) (+3) (-8/-10)
Alaska (0-3) (1-2) (+1) (-7/-9)
Arizona (0-10) (4-6) (+4) (-3/-5)
Arkansas (0-6) (3-3) (+3) (0/-2)
Colorado (0-9) (4-5) (+4) (+4/+2)
Connecticut (7-0) (4-3) (-3) (+1/-1)
DC (3-0) (3-0) (0) (+1/-1)
Delaware (3-0) (2-1) (-1) (0/-2)
Georgia (0-15) (6-9) (+6) (+6/+4)
Hawaii (4-0) (2-2) (-2) (+4/+2)
Idaho (0-4) (1-3) (+1) (+5/+3)
Illinois (21-0) (12-9) (-9) (-4/-6)
Indiana (0-11) (4-7) (+4) (0/-2)
Iowa (0-7) (3-4) (+3) (+3/+1)
Kansas (0-6) (2-4) (+2) (+5/+3)
Kentucky (0-8) (3-5) (+3) (+8/+6)
Louisiana (0-9) (4-5) (+4) (+12/+10)
Maine (4-0) (2-2) (-2) (+10/+8)
Maryland (10-0) (6-4) (-4) (+6/+4)
* Massachusetts (12-0) (7-4-1) (-5/-6) (+1/-2)
Michigan (17-0) (9-8) (-8) (-7/-10)
Minnesota (10-0) (5-5) (-5) (-12/-15)
Mississippi (0-6) (2-4) (+2) (-10/-13)
Missouri (0-11) (6-5) (+5) (-5/-8)
Montana (0-3) (1-2) (+1) (-4/-7)
Nebraska (0-5) (2-3) (+2) (-2/-5)
Nevada (0-5) (2-3) (+2) (0/-3)
New Hampshire (4-0) (2-2) (-2) (-2/-5)
New Jersey (15-0) (8-7) (-7) (-9/-12)
New Mexico (0-5) (2-3) (+2) (-7/-10)
North Carolina (0-15) (7-8) (+7) (0/-3)
North Dakota (0-3) (1-2) (+1) (+1/-2)
Ohio (0-20) (10-10) (+10) (+11/+8)
Oklahoma (0-7) (2-5) (+2) (+13/+10)
Oregon (7-0) (4-3) (-3) (+10/+7)
Pennsylvania (21-0) (11-10) (-10) (0/-3)
Rhode Island (3-0) (2-1) (-1) (-1/-4)
South Carolina (0-8) (3-5) (+3) (+2/-1)
South Dakota (0-3) (1-2) (+1) (+3/0)
Tennessee (0-11) (5-6) (+5) (+8/+5)
Utah (0-5) (1-4) (+1) (+9/+6)
Vermont (3-0) (2-1) (-1) (+8/+5)
Virginia (0-13) (6-7) (+6) (+!4/+11)
Washington (11-0) (6-5) (-5) (+9/+6)
West Virginia (0-5) (2-3) (+2) (+11/+8)
Wisconsin (10-0) (5-5) (-5) (+6/+3)
Wyoming (0-3) (1-2) (+1) (+7/+4)

* - a dangling electoral vote that percentages can't really decide without some other criteria.

So total, if percentage rule was counted everyplace, the revised numbers would be:

At best for Kerry (+7 votes):
Bush - 279 votes (51.85874%)
Kerry - 259 votes (48.14126%)

At worst for Kerry:
Bush - 282 votes (52.41636%)
Kerry - 256 votes (47.58364%)

These numbers are a lot closer to the real percentages of the vote, but still give Bush a percentage point advantage over a straight national vote. So yes, option 2 would be preferable to present status quo given last election's results. I'll try and look at the 2000 election when I get more time later to see if it would have been preferable then too.

[BlueInRed]

13. This sort of stuff is important; Rs always go for the pragmatic approach

If you can't win, then steal it, change the rules, do whatever is necessary to unlevel the playing field. We've got to stay on our toes about this stuff.