Comments on: Colorado Electoral College Change?

By: Chris Lawrence

Chris Lawrence — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:00:00 +0000

According to the article, the guy putting up the cash is a U.S. citizen, though apparently he's not from Colorado.

By: Daniel Geffen

Daniel Geffen — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:00:00 +0000

Actually, this move should HELP Coloradans (Coloradoans?) in the long term. I've explained why here.

By: Jim

Jim — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:00:00 +0000

Has anyone really looked into the Colorado action? According to the Constitution, to win the Presidency someone has to win the majority of electoral votes. If you split the votes by percentage then who would have won in 1992, 1996 or 2000. Remember that in 1992, Perot was a major spoiler and neither candidate won the absolute (50% +) majority of votes....the same in 1996 (Perot) and 2000 (Nader). In that case the legislature would determine the winner. Do we really want almost every election to go to Congress? If this system goes nationwide without a constitutional ammendment to change the 270 electoral votes policy, every election will usually end up out of the people's hands.

By: cj

cj — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:00:00 +0000

Hey, Jim, you may have just stumbled upon the means of getting people to think seriously about whom they vote into Congress!

By: SgtFluffy

SgtFluffy — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:00:00 +0000

Why is a Brazillian Business man even allowed to bankroll this? The electorial College woks as defined and should not be changed. Democrat motto: If you can't win fairly, rewrite the election laws.

By: James Joyner

James Joyner — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:00:00 +0000

Jim,

Actually, only a couple of the very close elections in our history would have changed using a Maine-Nebraska allocation. I used to have a chart showing that when I taught American Politics. I can't recall whether Gore would have won 2000 under that system; I don't think he would have--California and New York's huge blocks would have been divided.

You'd still have a first-past-the-post system, so minor candidates would still have negligible impact.

By: Jim

Jim — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:00:00 +0000

James,
Except that Colorado isn't talking about that sort of system: they want to spread the electoral votes by percentage of votes casts rather then congressional district so it is quite possible that a third party canidate could pick up some of those votes and in a close race enough to bring the election into the House.

By: James Joyner

James Joyner — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:00:00 +0000

Jim,

True if it's pure PR. I can't tell from the newspaper story. A lot of systems (Germany's for example) use a modified PR that has a floor--a threshold of 10% or whatever, so that fringe parties don't get anything. Plus, we're talking about the allocation of 9 Electors, so there would have to be a de facto floor of 11.1%, anyway, since the Constitution makes no provision for partial Electors.

By: Kalblog

Kalblog — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:00:00 +0000

Constitutional Changes
Kos is excited that Colorado might change its constitution to some form of proportional representation for electoral votes. He is happy because this will help Kerry. A couple of months ago, while the left was all up in arms about...

By: Asymmetrical Information

Asymmetrical Information — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:00:00 +0000

Here we go again
Nostalgic for 2000? Wishing we could have some more of those exciting courtroom scenes that kept us all on edge...

By: Kalblog

Kalblog — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:00:00 +0000

Divided Proportional Representation I've never been a huge fan of proportional representation, because it empowers party bosses, who have near-complete control over their party's members, and that it changes the emphasis from philosophy to leaders' personalities, which is generally not d...

By: Signifying Nothing

Signifying Nothing — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:00:00 +0000

Electoral college futures
There’s a petition drive is underway in Colorado to allocate the state’s electors in proportion to candidates’ popular vote. All I can find is the title as it will be presented to voters; I can’t find the actual text of...

By: The Irish Trojan's Blog

The Irish Trojan's Blog — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:00:00 +0000

Talk about a buzz
A truck crash in Bozeman, Montana on Monday unleashed nine million angry honey bees in...

By: The Irish Trojan's Blog

The Irish Trojan's Blog — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:00:00 +0000

Colorado shenanigans
There may be a ballot initiative this November in Colorado to allocate electoral votes proportionally....

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