Electoral College

Making North Carolina count in every Presidential Election

From the upcoming edition of Newsweek. Seems pretty clear that California or national Democratic Party will be suing to stop California effort to pass a ballot initiative to award electoral votes by Congressional district. So having NC do this could hurt the legal arguments I imagine. However, if you read the article, there appears to be a significant difference between the legality of a ballot referendum and legislative action.

Nonetheless, perhaps Mr. Dean was right to put the brakes on our reform, as disappointing as that is for us in NC.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20121791/site/newsweek/

Here are some points about SB 353 (the Presidential electors bill) - including my reply to myths and misrepresentations about the proposed change - that I shared with legislators this week as they considered whether to pass it or not.

The state House is poised to pass Senate Bill 353 tomorrow, which would revamp the distibution of electoral college votes in NC. Under this new format, a candidate would get one electoral vote for each congressional district he or she carries. The candidate who wins statewide would take the remaining two votes.

A House Committee approved a bill to distribute NC's electoral votes proportionally, according to the vote in each Congressional District.

Now if it was just retroactive to 2000, we would have had President Gore...

How's that for a catchy title?

Interesting opposing viewpoints in The Charlotte Observer this morning.

EJ Dionne proposes saving Democracy by doing away with the Electoral College. He starts:

"The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the president of the United States."

That is not some reactionary piece of propaganda denying your right to choose the next president. It is one of the more memorable sentences from the Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore, the 2000 case that put the current occupant in the White House for his first term.