California Electoral College campaign still needs signatures: Backers struggling

[DeepModem Mom]

Source: Los Angeles Times

By Dan Morain, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 1, 2007

SACRAMENTO -- As deadlines came and went, backers of an initiative that could affect the 2008 presidential election continued struggling Friday to gather enough signatures to place the measure before voters. Organizers had set this week as a deadline for wrapping up their petition drive, but said they had not raised the roughly $2 million needed to pay petition circulators. Secretary of State Debra Bowen had recommended a deadline of Nov. 29.

Campaign manager Dave Gilliard said that agents would work through the weekend to obtain the 434,000 valid signatures required to put the Electoral College initiative on next June's ballot and that he expected to submit the names by midweek. Gilliard was less than certain that he would reach his goal of 700,000 names, a number allowing leeway for signatures that might be disqualified. "We won't know until they're collected," he said.

The proposed initiative would alter California's winner-take-all system of awarding its 55 electoral votes. Instead, electors would be allocated based on which candidate captured majorities in individual congressional districts. That could help the eventual Republican presidential nominee in California. With Republicans holding 19 congressional seats, the GOP nominee would presumably win at least that many districts, giving the candidate 19 electoral votes, almost as many as Ohio has....

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Initiative organizers often miss deadlines and still qualify their measures, but pushing the target date is risky. Once signatures are submitted, local elections authorities must verify them and send them to the secretary of state, who certifies the measure for the ballot.

The initiative has attracted interest among presidential campaigns because of its national implications. Democratic National Party Chairman Howard Dean has said that Democrats could not win the White House without winning all California's 55 electoral votes. This state accounts for more than 10% of the 538 electoral votes nationally, by far the biggest block of any state....

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-initiative1dec01,0,4853228.story?coll=la-home-center