Colorado May Award Electoral Votes Proportionately...

[phillybri]

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0%2C1413%2C36%25257E53%25257E2213150%2C00.html

The wealthy president of a Brazilian university is bankrolling an initiative to end Colorado's winner-take-all presidential electoral system.

J. Jorge Klor de Alva is the major donor to The People's Choice for President - a nonprofit group seeking voters' permission to award Colorado's Electoral College votes proportionally as a percentage of the statewide popular vote.

For example, a candidate who wins 60 percent at the polls could snag five of the state's nine electoral votes, leaving the remaining four to a candidate who wins 40 percent on Election Day.

The group has begun to collect signatures; it needs 67,799 to get the measure on the ballot.

[LynzM]

1. I've often wondered why we don't do this...

Except that it's almost the same as just letting the people decide, and we can't have that, now, can we?

The electoral college system in this country is one of those things that I still don't understand...

[papau]

2. Doesn't Maine already do a variation of this?

?

:-)

[phillybri]

4. Some of their votes are awarded per congressional district...

As I recall...

[formernaderite]

5. Maine and Nevada both do this....

it's entirely up to individual states.

[MaineDem]

6. It's Maine and, I think, Nebraska

Here in Maine the winner of the state-wide popular vote gets 2 Electoral Votes. The winner of each of the two Congressional Districts each gets one Electoral Vote for Maine's total of 4.

Kerry is looking pretty good for the state-wide win and the First CD is almost guaranteed to go for Kerry. The Bush people are fighting for the 2nd CD's Electoral Vote. I don't see it happening.

[Kanary]

13. Yes, Maine and Nebraska

[Doctor Smith]

3. The idea is to make a state more important in the election,

and thus get more attention from the candidates.

Of course it only works if the vote is close, otherwise your state is ignored, and you would be better off with proportional representation.

[leyton]

7. We gotta make sure this doesn't happen in blue states, though.

Anti-democratic as the electoral college is, if electoral reform isn't going to happen all at once, it needs to happen in our favor. Things like this are great in red states like Colorado, but they can't happen in Illinois or New York or California or Pennsylvania.

[tedoll78]

8. BINGO.

Fight it tooth and nail in California and New York, etc.. but fight like hell for it in Texas, etc.

If we get just 3EVs from Colorado this year in a tight race, it might make the difference. The race could be that close again..

[theboss]

9. This should be done, but it should be nationally

This would be the fairest use of the electoral college system and would guarantee that Kerry visit Texas and Bush campaign in Massachusetts (which we should agree would be healthy since the President has to deal with Texas and Massachusetts).

But if it happens, it should happen at once. Or we end up cherry-picking the states.

[NewJerseyDem]

12. But, no candidate may get a majority

There may be enough Nader voters that he would get some EV's from states like California or New York and other larger states where he may have considerable support. Then, if no candidate gets a majority it will go to the House of Representatives where republicans are in control and can elect Bush. I don't think that the proportional voting system is practical in our electoral college system. Perhaps, the way that Maine and Nebraska let each congressional district vote along with the state would be better, but even that has flaws. Due to gerrymandering and the need for majority-minority districts there would also be an republican advantage in that system nationwide.

[GOPBasher]

10. This would help us!

CO is a battleground, but it leans Repug. If we can take even a few of those eV's, it would help. It'd be better than getting none, which is likely what we would've gotten.

[Bombtrack]

11. Well I doubt this will ever succeed, it would be super news for the Dems

if it did.

[ButterflyBlood]

14. This is very unlikely to pass for this reason:

Pretty much the whole Colorado government would be against it. It's almost certain that Colorado would end up a 5-4 state, with 1 EV swinging either way. But the net result is almost always just 1 more EV. that makes Colorado not worth it to campaign in. Now it's worth 9 EV.

Splitting it up by district like Maine and Nebraska would help us majorly though, since Kerry is guaranteed 2 districts, would likly pick up another, and has an outside chance in another one.