"Taking advantage of the frustration their supporters understandably feel about their powerless role in presidential elections, leading California Republicans are promoting an initiative to divide California's slate of 55 electoral votes. Rather than all electoral votes going to the statewide winner, each U.S. House district in a state would elect one presidential elector, while the statewide popular vote winner would take the two electoral votes corresponding to states' Senate seats."
-Rob Richie-
I just read about this new electoral initiative in The New Yorker. In "Stealing the 2008 Vote," Richie looks at the numbers behind the latest in fixing votes to win elections. Consider this:
In 2000, for example, Al Gore won the popular vote by 0.5 percent while George Bush took the presidency with a 0.9 percent victory in the Electoral College. With a district-by-district vote in all states, Bush's electoral vote margin would have increased to 7.1 percent. That's an eight-fold distortion of an already distorted result. Bush's margin would have similarly increased if only California had enacted the district plan.
Scary...