State Considers Bill On Electoral College

WFSB.com (Hartford, Conn.) ^ | February 29, 2008 | unattributed

[Conspiracy Guy]

I got over it.

[supercat]

I've suggested the following on other threads. What do people think? A state that wishes to block this nonsense should pass a law that provides that, immediately after the election, it will report the following information:

1. The identities of the winner and runner-up
2. The combined number of votes received by the top two candidates
3. The identity of each other candidate, and the number of votes received thereby.
4. The numbers of write-in, blank, uncounted, and spoiled ballots

The vote breakdown between the top two candidates would only be published prior to the Electoral College vote if requested by the runner-up.

To see where this would come in useful, suppose that the state containing Springfield, USA (I'll call it Simpsonia) passed this rule. Outside Simpsonia, Charlie received 2,000,000 more votes than David. David, however, won Simpsonia--probably by a margin of over 2,000,000 votes.

Charlie, as runner-up in Simpsonia, could demand that it release the exact vote breakdown between himself and David. On the other hand, were he to do so, David would win the popular vote. If Charlie doesn't ask that the information be released, David could no longer be awarded a popular vote victory.

Although I'm sure David would want the popular vote information released, I don't see where he would have any legal standing to demand it. As far as Simpsonia is concerned, the only purpose of the election is to determine who should be awarded Simpsonia's Electors. If David is awarded all of Simpsonia's Electors, I can't see that he would have any right to demand anything beyond that.

Incidentally, if a down-ballot candidate were to get nearly half as many votes as the top two candidates combined (unlikely but not impossible) that candidate should be allowed to demand a recount, but the top two candidates' votes would remain aggregated unless the recount showed the down-ballot candidate got at least half as many votes as the top two combined. If, after the recount, the down-ballot candidate does not reach half the total of the top two, then mathematically he cannot be the winner and he is thus not entitled to demand the breakdown of the top two. If he does reach half the top-two-total, then he is at least the runner up, and would thus have the right to demand a specific breakdown.

For example, before the recount, Pat and Quincy have exactly 67.0%, while Robert has 33.0%. Clearly, Pat or Quincy must have 33.5% or better, so Robert is not the winner. On the other hand, if the recount comes in with P+Q at 66.0% and Robert at 34.0%, then clearly either Patrick or Quincy must score 33% or below. Robert would thus be entitled to know how Patrick and Quincy divided their votes; if 34.1%/32.9%, then Robert still loses. But if 33.9%/33.1%, then Robert wins.

[lonestar]

The EC protects the importance of the smaller states, just like the Senate does. Without the EC, only CA, NY, TX, and maybe OH would really matter. That means the idiots pushing for this in Connecticut are either utter morons or total liars. Or both!

Exactly! That's why the Dems are always trying to get rid of the EC.

The Dems have messed up their elections this year and can't blame the Repubs. What to do? What to do?

IF I heard correctly last night, Alan Colmes did make a slight stab at assigning some blame to the FL gov for the Dem votes not counting. If not now they will find a way to blame it on Repubs before they get to their convention.