Impractical Proposals: It's ba-a-a-a-ck: New Life for Conservative Initiative to Apportion Electoral Vote

Although it is being pushed by the Republicans in the hope that, in a close election, at least some of California's 55 electoral votes will go to the GOP candidate and tip the balance in the electoral college in the party's favor, progressives will need to think long and hard before jumping in on the side of the state's majority party. Winner-take-all is an anti-democratic method of tallying votes; it routinely disenfranchises millions of citizens and makes organizing alternative party challenges to the RepubliCrats nearly impossible. The Greens, the Peace and Freedom Party, and progressives interested in challenging the status quo should seize the opportunity of this argument between the dominant parties to widen the debate to a consideration of the advantages of proportional representation and instant run-offs.

Ironically, though they're angling for a short term advantage, the apparatchiks of the extreme Right who ripped open this can of worms may have inadvertently also unlocked the door to a more democratic electoral process. While, to protect their current advantage, the Democrats mount their challenge to this initiative in the courts, electoral reformers can ride the publicity wave to educate voters about proportional representation and/or instant runoffs and take the opportunity to devise an effective campaign of their own to democratize our system of voting. If the law of unintended consequences lives up to its reputation and the Republican initiative actually brings about electoral college reform, progressives may face a difficult choice: voting yes to a more democratic selection process, and possibly handing the Republicans a short term bonus, or voting no and missing a chance for genuine reform.

If the measure is approved by the voters in June, and the Green/Peace & Freedom alliance (should it come to pass) is unified behind attractive independent candidates for president and vice-president, their appeal to voters looking for an alternative would be greatly enhanced. It is not impossible to imagine a situation in a very close race, where , even with a handful of votes, the progressive parties could hold the margin of victory in the electoral college, and thus be in a position to extract real policy concessions in exchange for their support.

by Jennifer Steinhauer (The New York Times, 2007-11-03)

Republican donors are pumping new life into a proposed ballot initiative, considered all but dead by Democrats a month ago, that would alter the way electoral votes are apportioned in California to the benefit of Republican presidential candidates.

Though the financing remains uncertain, the measure’s leaders said Friday that they were confident they would get the signatures required by the Nov. 29 deadline to qualify the initiative for a statewide vote next June. The effort, begun in the summer by a prominent Republican lawyer, lay in peril in October after its top proponents quit over questions about its financing.

Last week, a new organization began raising the roughly $2 million thought to be needed to get the initiative on the ballot. The new effort is being spearheaded by David Gilliard, a Republican consultant in Sacramento, aided by Anne Dunsmore, a prolific fund-raiser who recently resigned from the presidential campaign of Rudolph W. Giuliani....

The initiative would ask voters to replace California’s winner-take-all system of allocating its 55 electoral college votes with one that parses the votes by Congressional district. It has attracted strong opposition from Democrats because it would transform California from a reliably Democratic state in presidential elections by handing the Republican nominee roughly 20 votes from safe Republican districts.

If the initiative qualifies for the ballot, Art Torres, the head of the California Democratic Party, has promised a constitutional challenge, arguing that only state legislatures can determine how electoral votes are allocated.

The rest of the story: The New York Times