California considers splitting electoral votes

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Two Republican lawmakers are introducing a bill that would award California's most-in-the-nation electoral votes by congressional districts, a step they say would make it "the leading battleground state for all future elections."
Democrat John Kerry won California's 55 electoral votes on Nov. 2 by taking more than 54 percent of the popular vote.

But if legislation to be introduced Monday by Assemblymen John Benoit and Tom Harman had been in effect, Kerry and President Bush would have split the state's electoral votes because of Bush's strong showing in the state's inland areas and a few coastal counties.

Under the bill, a presidential candidate would get one electoral vote for each of the state's 53 congressional districts in which he or she had the most votes. Two electoral votes would be awarded to the candidate who got the most votes statewide.

Two other states, Maine and Nebraska, use the same type of system. Colorado rejected a ballot measure this year that would have divided its electoral votes based on each candidate's share of the popular vote.


Gotta hand it to the right -- they are good at the game. If they can force a few blue states to apportion their votes while protecting the all-or-nothing system in the red states, there won't be a democratic president for a hundred years.