There is a move afoot in Colorado to allocate that state’s nine Electoral College votes via proportional representation.
Kos is excited because it takes a possible nine vote block for Bush and splits it in two. Of course, it also takes a potential Kerry mild upset out of play as well.
I don’t have any heartburn with the proposal per se–Maine and Nebraska do something similar already (they allocate two at large votes to the statewide winner and one vote each to winners in each congressional district)–but the methodology here is somewhat troubling. Not only is the ballot initiative backed by a non-citizen, which is rather odd, but it would change the rules during an election:
If approved Nov. 2, the constitutional amendment would affect this year’s choice for president by immediately permitting the division of Colorado electoral votes.
So, literally, the rules change would take effect after the election.
This is problematic for two reasons. First, one would think this would run afoul of federal law, which requires that each state’s rules be in place before an presidential election. Second, it creates a strong incentive for mischief. If both the national and statewide presidential races are close–which seems likely at the moment–election officials would be motivated to influence the counting of both the ballot initiative and the presidential vote totals. It could conceivably be more messy than Florida 2000.
