Wednesday, August 01, 2007

California to Deliver Presidency to GOP?

Soren covers the story of a ballot initiative that could switch 20 electoral votes from the Democratic candidate to the Republican. That could easily be enough to change an election outcome:

A Republican-backed ballot proposal could split left-leaning California between the Democratic and GOP nominees, tilting the 2008 presidential election in favor of the Republicans.

California awards its cache of 55 electoral votes to the statewide winner in presidential elections _ the largest single prize in the nation. But a prominent Republican lawyer wants to put a proposal on the ballot that would award the statewide winner only two electoral votes.

Soren points out that this has already been done in North Carolina -- to the advantage of Democrats. There are other states that could make the change as well. It could wind up significantly shifting the terrain for the next election.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

If CA does this, the third-party, no outright winner scenario comes into play....

Anonymous said...

Then the House and Senate races become much more important - since if no presidential candidate receives enough electoral votes, the newly seated congress decides the election in January.

then more elections would matter and more people will vote.