Wasn't it true of the 2004 election that had Kerry won Ohio or whatever combination of states that were in play, it would have set up the reverse of 2000, with Bush winning the popular vote and Kerry the college?

Yes, and it's much more plausible that a Democrat would do so than a Republican. This legislation appears to be based on the flukish 2000 result alone.

Wow. BDS really IS going to destroy the Democratic Party.

So, umm, Bush would have won California in 2004?

This may satisfy people who dislike the popular vote loser from winning the electoral vote, but it's not guaranteed to give California more clout.

It works better for California due to its large population than any other state, mind you. The idea, as far as I can reckon, is that they imagine that Democrats have a lock on the state, so Republicans will ignore it. This is designed to make Republicans campaign in the populous state because capturing a small extra percentage in California is worth lots of popular votes.

So, if a Republican figures that he'll get 40% in California if he writes it off, but 45% if he campaigns hard there, it makes more sense to suck up to CA and campaign there if this bill is passed.

It only works because CA has so many people that 5% in CA makes a big difference in the popular vote.

President Bush has said that if the rules were different in 2000, he would have campaigned differently.

oj: And Bush would have won the popular vote in 2000 if it hadn't been for the last-minute revelation of his ancient drunk-driving arrest. So what seemed like a near-catastrophic stupid mistake of not getting old laundry out of the way at the beginning of the campaign was actually a brilliant plan to destroy the Democratic Party forever. Karl Rove is a genius!

Since the measure only takes effect if an electoral college majority of states passes similar measure, it only hurts California insofar as it shifts us from the Electoral College to popular elections.

One advantage of popular election is that cheating anywhere in the country will help put your candidate over the top, whereas under the Electoral College cheating in, say, Philadelphia only pads the victory margin in already-blue states. Popular election therefore increases the electoral weight of the lawless jurisdictions.

I doubt Texas and/or Florida would go along with this, which would make the ability to get a majority of electorial college states difficult. They might be able to get New York, Massachusetts or even Illinois to go along, but to put the measure over the top would require acquesence from a number of small-population states. And most people paying attention in those states realize that if the Electoral College system is diluted, the odds of them ever seeing a presidential candidate during an election year, or getting those candidates to give a damn about their state's concerns, will be on the fast track to zero.

I refuse to be ruled by the blue states.

CA doesn't have enough clout as it is?

IL is considering it.

AND W would have had more of a margin if the talking heads got the Panhandle poll closing times correct.

So we'll get IL too? This just gets easier and easier.

California can assign its electoral college votes however it wants, but this measure is unenforceable. Why would an elector vote to throw the election to someone that California voted against?

David's right. Unless there is a prison term for Electors who disobey, forget it.

How is David right? In 2004 the law would have meant that Bush's CA electors would have been sent to DC in December. What possible reason would they have to be faithless? Because Kerry won the state? Not their problem--blame the state legislature.

b
Are you saying that the Electors who are "elected" in California would be the ones who got the least votes in the state, but are elected anyway because other states voted for another Candidate. Now I'm really confused. Or are you saying they will not actually vote for a slate of Electors, but merely vote for their preference.

The way it works now it that you are voting for a slate of electors who are pledged to vote for a given candidate. Since they are usually party faithful types (including elected officials from the candidate's party) they tend to do what they promise.

What this California rule does is force those electors to vote for someone else based on elections outside the state. (Or are they going to do away with pledged electors entirely?) I'd love to see some background on "faithless electors" and whether or not any attempt has been made to punish them, or force electors to vote for a paricular candidate. Note that the one time it mattered, the only faithless elector spoilt her ballot,but otherwise didn't change the outcome, either.

What this comes down to is another typical Leftist back-door attempt to circumvent the Constitution (by instituting a form of popular vote) without actually having to go through the dirty process of pursuading the people to amend said Constitution.

(And electors meet in the respective state capitols, not Washington City, by the way. Just another little bit of Federalist symbolism.)

h & Raoul: The way I read the stories, the electoral slate of the winner of the national popular vote is selected.

Great! Political Science professors have finally managed to take a reasonably understandable democratic procedure and turn into a completely chaotic crapshoot.

Then why does California bother to vote?

David,

"Then why does California bother to vote?"

That's exactly what I thought when I read this--it's crazy.

This reminds me of the great Slate "Breakfast Club" that was running the week of the 2000 election. On the day of the election, one of the clubbers was horrified that Republicans were discussing how, if Bush won the national vote but lost the electoral college, he could still be elected president. I'm pretty sure that the clubber referred to it as a "coup."

The next day the clubbers were discussing how Al Gore could still become president.

David: Your comment just inspired me to propose a way to boost turnout--pass a law stating that the electoral votes for a state will be chosen based on the choice of a randomly selected individual voter! It's basically an electoral lottery! That way there is a possibility (equal to the inverse of the number of voters) that your vote will actually matter, compared to now where the chance of any single vote making a difference is effectively zero.

Hey, it's nowhere near as dumb as the idea that the CA Assembly just approved...

So if I were a California voter (again), my vote for President would be diluted by the votes of non-residents? Doesn't that violate the Holy Writ of "One Man One Vote"? (oops, make that "One Person") Where are all the civil libertarians? Is it because they're too busy looking for a civil right to marry your dog?

(But it would give Ron Sims and King County Dems another reason to stuff our mail-in ballot boxes with even more Dem votes...)

It looks to me as if this will greatly decrease voter turnout in CA. And since democrats are more likely to be apathetic about voting in the first place this could end up being another one of those weird backfiring victories for republicans.

Rather than spend time in CA, wouldn't this encourage candidates to run up the vote in other states to secure an electoral majority and gain CA votes by default?

Mr. Durnell;

It would encourage them to campaign where they think they can get the most votes for the effort. That may or not be CA, depending on a wide variety of factors. But your scenario is quite possible.