The California electoral college initiative looking likely to reach the ballot

I had stayed away from the California initiative that would allocate the state's electoral votes by district since the LA Times reported that the project's backers had pulled the plug on the effort in late September. But it was revealed soon after that the initiative had found new backers and new wealthy Republicans willing to bankroll the petition drive. This initiative will shift about 20 safe Democratic electoral votes to the Republicans -- and made it very difficult for Democrats to win the White House unless the election is a blow-out. Though Democrats like to believe that California voters would reject the proposal without too much suspense, it would still force the Democrats to play defense in a state they can ill afford to waste time and money on.

California Counts, the group organizing the effort, has to collect 433,971 signatures and put the measure on the June ballot. A daunting task, but a very doable one if the effort is well financed. And two days ago, the group said they were confident they would get there, and prided themselves on having already collected about 400,000 signatures. A note of caution: About 1 in 2 signatures is usually disqualified because of some irregularity, so the group has to collect about twice as much the needed number to make sure it gets on the ballot. Democrats are already organizing a counter-offensive and detailing a instances of fraud in signature-gathering.

California Counts is also indicating that they will work to put this on the November ballot if they don't have enough time to gather signatures for the June ballot. They argue that, if adopted, the allocation change could still apply to the 2008 elections. This would likely open up a huge constitutional battle, as Democrats would be sure to agree that the bill cannot be used to determine the allocation of electors for the presidential election held the same day. This battle had already started in Colorado in 2004, when a group linked to Democrats was trying to pass a very similar initiative the day of the general election and Republicans were promising to fight it in court. The initiative did not pass after all, and even if it had it would not have changed the outcome of the election, so we never got a final answer. But imagine how chaotic the election would get if it all came down to a legal battle over whether California's electoral votes should be divided.

The first question, of course, is whether the initiative would pass. The last poll taken on the subject was a SUSA survey from the beginning of November. It found early support for the principle behind the proposal; this confirms numbers from Rasmussen that had a plurality of voters supporting the measure -- though Rasmussen concluded that the measure is still unlikely to be adopted. Indeed, an initiative that does not start way above 50% usually goes down to defeat, as voters tend to gravitate towards a no-vote if they are not initially convinced, and as undecideds usually massively break towards voting no. Democrats are also likely to spend millions explaining how much this would help the GOP -- and California remains strongly Democratic (witness the 2005 defeat of the initiative that would give redistricting to judges because voters feared it would harm the Democratic party).

But on a low-turnout June primary, anything could be possible. Which is precisely what is worrying Democrats.