[EL] FW: An Electoral College Tie?

Fri Dec 16 06:05:28 PST 2011

Once again this is all about campaigning. In my view, I could care  less 
that no Presidential candidate comes to Indiana, as long as we cast our  votes 
for the Republican nominee.  All these votes from Indiana will  matter and 
will count.  

The structural problem I raised is ignored -- a bare plurality elects a  
President.  The way the folks at NPV talk, this means that a  majority of the 
votes of the electorate are IRRELAVANT.  How  could this be better than 
insisting on a majority of the votes to elect.? Jim  Bopp

In a message dated 12/16/2011 8:47:04 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
rr at fairvote.org writes:

I'm glad  Jim's post gets to te point of actually looking at how elections 
work. When  you do that, Jim's arguments crumble, both on impact on 
campaigns and the  plurality-majority argument.  

As to how campaigns would competing for votes, when states have a  
winner-take-all rule, political activity of any sort becomes utterly  irrelevant 
once the outcome in a state is not in question. To be clear, it's  not a 
__relative__ difference in political activity. It's the difference  between a lot 
of activity and none at all. So within the relatively narrow  partisan 
spectrum of states near the "50-50" point, political activity is  highly 
important - -s is the money you can raise to affect the 5% of swing  voters in those 
states. But outside that spectrum, it's like falling off a  cliff as far as 
political activity. There's no point in doing __anything__.  And the 
campaigns don't beyond rhetoric.

You don't need to find out what a single voter thinks unless they happen  
to be a major donor.

You don't need to address a single concern that might be of unique  
interest to voters in that state.

You don't need to spend a dime on a bumper sticker or a get-out-the-vote  
call.

Nada.

In contrast, with a popular vote system, every vote counts the same.  Sure, 
there are going to be relative concentrations of resources and energy,  but 
you don't ignore voters who might tip the balance. You replace the  
dynamics of a "swing state," where candidates fight it out all over a state,  with 
the dynamics of a swing nation, where candidates fight it out all over  the 
country. Between elections you invest in "50-state strategies" because you  
need to build your support and make your case over time.

It's electorally absurd to suggest that the major candidates would only  
focus on the metropolitan areas. Utah generated a margin of more than 400,000  
votes for Bush in 2004. In 2008, Obama cut it to less than 300,000. But it 
was  utterly useless in both instances to do beyond what it took to win the 
state.  But when you need to earn votes wherever they are cast -- on either 
side --  you will. See this chart for how turnout is declining in relative 
terms in  safe Republican states under current rules due to the utter 
irrelevancy of  what happens in those states to campaigns under current rules: 
_http://www.fairvote.org/assets/NewFolder-4/Presidential-Turnout-in-Safe-GOP
-StatesFairVote2011November30.pdf_ 
(http://www.fairvote.org/assets/NewFolder-4/Presidential-Turnout-in-Safe-GOP-StatesFairVote2011November30.pdf) 

Or take 1984. Ronald Reagan won re-election with a overwhelming landslide  
in the national popular vote. But he won 14% of the vote in Washington, D.C. 
 Big votes in cities didn't give him 60%. Getting votes in cities helped, 
to be  sure, but it was votes cast everywhere.

Or take what it means for a Republican to win a swing state like  
Pennsylvania. They don't need to win Philadelphia and Pitttsburgh. They need  to win 
votes wherever they can across the states -- and so do Democrats.

As to the majority-plurality point. I'd love to talk with Jim more about  
ideas like instant runoff voting to uphold majority rule in our elections. 
But  the fact is that we have plurality voting systems for nearly everything,  
including elections for president in states. There's no reason to believe 
that  candidates will win the presidency with lower pluralities of the vote 
in a  national popular vote system than with the current Electoral College 
rules. We  already see presidents winning Electoral College vote majorities 
with  pluralities (or even non-pluralities). Those winning with less than 50% 
in the  past century include Bush, Clinton (43% in 1992), Nixon, Kennedy, 
Truman, and  Wilson.

Current Electoral College rules don't block an independent from winning.  
If Perot had doubled his popular vote in 1992, drawing equally from Clinton  
and Bush, he would have a big majority in the Electoral College with less 
than  40% of the popular vote. Indeed, our simulation suggests that rise in 
his vote  would have given him an Electoral College majority before he even 
won a  plurality in the 1992 vote. (See:      
_http://archive.fairvote.org/?page=2071_ (http://archive.fairvote.org/?page=2071)     )

Getting into the realities of how elections really work is all to the  good 
for advocates of the national popular vote. It helps that we know how  
popular vote elections work from the fact that they're used to elect every  U.S. 
Senator, every governor and pretty much every other elected officeholder  
in the United States.

Rob

On Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 8:13 AM, <_JBoppjr at aol.com_ 
(mailto:JBoppjr at aol.com) > wrote:

Re Rob's comment about my post, every Presidential candidate for all  time 
has and will have limited resources so they will decide to go some  places, 
but not others.  That does not make the "other" places  irrelevant -- their 
votes still matter and count. So this "problem" is not  fixed by the NPV, it 
just changes where candidates might go.  It seems  obvious to me that they 
will go to the major population centers under NPV,  not small states. I 
acknowledge that liberals are likely to see this as an  improvement -- greater 
influence of large liberal population centers  -- but I don't.

But the biggest (nonpartisan) problem with NPV is that it allows the  
election to be decided by a plurality, not a majority.  The  Constitution 
requires a majority -- either of the Electoral College or the  House -- while the 
barest plurality is enough under NPV.  This has, in  my view, profound 
destablizing effects and would ultimately undermine the  legitimacy of our federal 
government.  Jim Bopp

In a message dated 12/16/2011 12:06:23 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, 
_rr at fairvote.org_ (mailto:rr at fairvote.org)  writes:

So, just so I have this straight:  

* Jim Bopp thinks that having more voters matter only is of interest  to 
self-interested consultants. To him it's irrelevant that Barack Obama  can run 
for re-election without his campaign having to worry for a second  about 
the views of voters in the ten smallest states (e.g, he has no  primary 
challenge, and none of the ten smallest states is on anyone's 2012  battleground 
list - they won't matter to the Republican nominee come this  fall either). 
Apparently the power to hold one's elected representatives  accountable is a 
kind of distraction from the main purpose, which is the  magic of swing 
states being able to elect better presidents than the  nation could as a whole.

* Tara Ross believes that the Electoral College caused the  differences 
between the North and South to "melt away." Never mind that,  due to deals over 
electors, Rutherford Hayes in 1877 cravenly entered a  corrupt deal that 
effectively ended Reconstruction, leading to Jim Crow  laws and Democratic 
one-party dominance of the South for nearly a century.  Never mind that with 
the winner-take-all rule, there is absolutely no  incentive to compete in 
states you can't win, as opposed to a national  popular vote where there's an 
incentive to compete everywhere you can win  votes.

* Tara thinks that the Electoral College is key to maintaining the  
two;party system, perhaps having missed the significance of Duverger's Law  and the 
lack of rampant multi-partism in all the states that hold their  elections 
without an Electoral College system.

Sorry if a bit snippy  - I'll ascribe it to watching two hours  of the 
presidential debate tonight.

Rob

On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 11:07 PM, Tara Ross <_tara at taraross.com_ 
(mailto:tara at taraross.com) > wrote:

But  a Democrat in the late 1800s has a significantly harder time getting 
the  vote of a northerner v. a southerner.  That Democrat is much more  
productive and efficient if he simply seeks to drive up voter turnout in  the 
South. Why bend over backwards to get the vote of someone outside  your base 
when you can simply promise more to voters who are naturally  inclined to like 
you?  It is much easier to promise anything and  everything to your natural 
base so they will come out in droves on  election day.  High voter turnout 
among your base, not  coalition-building, wins this type of election.    
I  should also note, by way of background, that I never assume that the  
two-party system will remain stable without the Electoral College.  A 
multi-party system is less conducive to coalition-building as a  general matter; it 
instead tends to fracture voters across parties.   

From: Samuel  Bagenstos [mailto:_sbagen at gmail.com_ 
(mailto:sbagen at gmail.com) ]  
Sent: Thursday, December 15, 2011 9:41 PM
To: Tara  Ross
Cc: _rr at fairvote.org_ (mailto:rr at fairvote.org) ; _BSmith at law.capital.edu_ 
(mailto:BSmith at law.capital.edu) ; _JBoppjr at aol.com_ (mailto:JBoppjr at aol.com) 
; _law-election at department-lists.uci.edu_ 
(mailto:law-election at department-lists.uci.edu)  

Subject: Re: [EL] FW: An Electoral College  Tie?

This is not my issue, but I don't see how you can  credit the Electoral 
College, as opposed to a popular-vote alternative,  for encouraging the 
post-Civil-War division between North and South to  melt away.  Sure, Democrats had 
to reach out to northerners, but  they would have needed to do so under a 
popular-vote plan, too.    Indeed, one might argue that they would have had 
to do so sooner,  because each person's vote in the cities of the North would 
have counted  as much as each person's vote in the rural South, but this 
isn't my  area.  Whatever the electoral system, if a party finds itself  
persistently losing elections, it will eventually decide it has to reach  beyond 
its then-current base.  I don't see how this is a unique  feature of the 
Electoral College. 

Samuel  R. Bagenstos

Professor  of Law

University  of Michigan Law School

625  S. State St.

Ann  Arbor, MI  48109

_sambagen at umich.edu_ (mailto:sambagen at umich.edu) 

_http://web.law.umich.edu/_FacultyBioPage/facultybiopagenew.asp?ID=411_ 
(http://web.law.umich.edu/_FacultyBioPage/facultybiopagenew.asp?ID=411) 

_http://disabilitylaw.blogspot.com/_ (http://disabilitylaw.blogspot.com/) 

On Dec 15, 2011, at 10:21 PM, Tara Ross  wrote:

Yes,  elections are about selecting the best President, not about making 
sure  every citizen sees every presidential candidate exactly the same number  
of times as his fellow citizens.  But assuming, arguendo, that such  stats 
do matter, the “swing state” situation is not nearly as dire as  Rob 
suggests.  We are in a moment in time when this particular  division between red 
and blue states—blue coasts/red flyover  states—seems impossible to change. 
But I would suggest that the  north/south division between red and blue 
states must have seemed  similarly unalterable in the late 1800s. In the end, of 
course, it did  change. And I would argue that the Electoral College 
actually encouraged  this division between north and south to melt away.  
Democrats  couldn’t win without reaching out to northerners; Republicans were  
cutting it close if they relied only on safe states; thus, they reached  out to 
southerners.  Eventually, the same dynamics should work to  erase the 
seemingly stubborn division between red and blue  today.

From: _law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu_ 
(mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu)  
_[mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu]_ 
(mailto:[mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu])  On  Behalf Of_JBoppjr at aol.com_ (mailto:JBoppjr at aol.com) 
Sent: Thursday,  December 15, 2011 6:59 PM
To: _rr at fairvote.org_ (mailto:rr at fairvote.org) ; _BSmith at law.capital.edu_ 
(mailto:BSmith at law.capital.edu) 
Cc: _law-election at department-lists.uci.edu_ 
(mailto:law-election at department-lists.uci.edu) 
Subject: Re:  [EL] An Electoral College  Tie?

Unless  you are a political consultant looking for work in a particular 
state,  why would you care that "Those small states collectively received a  
grand total of one campaign visit from a major party candidate for  president 
and vice-president in the final two months of the 2008  campaign."  
Presidential elections are not about where candidates  campaign but about electing 
the best President. But since many  of the supporters of NPV, especially on 
the Republican side, are  political consultants paid by NPV, they find this 
argument  persuasive.  I find it irrelevant.  Jim  Bopp

In  a message dated 12/15/2011 5:49:40 P.M. Eastern Standard  Time, 
_rr at fairvote.org_ (mailto:rr at fairvote.org)  writes:

Brad, 

A  lot of NPV advocates believe the candidate with fewer votes shouldn't  
beat someone with more votes, but see the more pressing problem to be  the 
grotesque distortion of candidate behavior and White House policy  focus that 
is created by the current Electoral College  rules.

There's compelling evidence of a deadly combination: a  shrinking of the 
number of swing states and the hardening of the  definition of what is a swing 
state. Some folks questioned FairVote's  2008 analysis concluding that the 
number of swing states going into  2012 was going to be smaller than ever, 
but I trust no one is  questioning it now. We were right -- analysts like 
Larry Sabato now  talk about fewer than 10 swing states likely to determine the 
2012  election, just as we explained after the 2008 results came  in.

You can take it to the bank right now that this will have  an impact on 
turnout in swing states versus others Furthermore, if the  Obama campaign acts 
like the Bush re-election campaign in 2004 - and  all indications are that 
they will -- then they won't waste a dime on  polling a single person living 
outside of the swing states. Bush  campaign strategist Matthew Dowd said the 
campaign didn't poll anyone  outside a potential battleground for the final 
30 months of the 2004  campaign, which of course influenced a lot of what 
the campaign did in  policy proposals at the same time the president was 
tasked with  governing the nation as a whole.

This  dynamic unavoidably has a policy impact. Perhaps the most revealing  
insight into distortions created by the current rules came from candid  
remarks from former U.S. Senator Arlen Specter this fall. Specter  represented 
Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate for three decades, and he  saw a lot of 
presidents come and go - -and come and go .....and come  and go.... as he 
represented a big swing state. Check out this  blogpost by my colleague Katie Kelly 
reporting on what Specter said,  with some sample quotes from  Specter:

_http://www.fairvote.org/arlen-specter-extra-money-for-swing-state-status_ 
(http://www.fairvote.org/arlen-specter-extra-money-for-swing-state-status#.Tu
p3UTVAaRg) 

“I  think it’d be very bad for Pennsylvania because we wouldn’t attract  
attention from Washington on important funding projects for the state.  We 
are trying to get more funding now for the deepening of the port  [of 
Philadelphia]. When I was on the Appropriations Committee, we got  $77 million over 
the years …We are trying to get the president to do  more."

“Under  the current electoral system, [President] Obama has good reason to  
give us the money to carry Pennsylvania. Because presidents think that  
way, it affects their decisions. … In 2004, when I ran with [President  George 
W.] Bush, he … came to Pennsylvania 44 times, and he was  looking for items 
the state needed to help him win the state. … It’s  undesirable to change 
the system so presidents won’t be asking us  always for what we need, what 
they can do for  us.”

I  find it hard to believe the founding fathers, if suddenly in our  midst, 
would accept keeping rules that make a Pennsylvania citizen so  much more 
important than a citizen in our ten smallest states. Those  small states 
collectively received a grand total of one campaign visit  from a major party 
candidate for president and vice-president in the  final two months of the 
2008 campaign. Just as striking, the single  swing state of Ohio had far more 
campaign events in the final two  months of the campaign then _combined__ 
number of events in the  smallest 25 states.

Unlike  many folks today, the founders were not afraid of change. They 
weren't  afraid of fixing things that didn't work. They certainly weren't  
afraid of fixing the first version of the Electoral College, with the  failures 
of 1796 and 1800 leading to the 12th amendment. Rather than  accept the 
consequences of the winner-take-all rule, I'm sure they  would want to do 
something about it. Based on what James Madison  thought about presidential 
elections, I believe they'd back a national  popular vote.

Of  course they're not around, so it's up to us. But certainly a lot of us  
think there's a very strong case to be made against the status quo --  
certainly one that we can base in facts, while I see nearly all  opposition 
arguments being grounded in sentiment and  fear.

Rob 

On  Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 3:29 PM, Smith, Brad <_BSmith at law.capital.edu_ 
(mailto:BSmith at law.capital.edu) >  wrote:

I  think that Richard’s comment actually gets at a key point that  
undermines much of the case for NPV. There are many arguments for NPV,  but the key 
one is that direct popular vote is either the only or at  least the most 
legitimate way to select the president.  Every  poll shows that substantial 
majorities  agree.

Yet  oddly enough, nobody really much cares that we routinely elect  
executives without popular majorities. And despite the fact that many  leading 
proponents of NPV say we should use popular vote because “the  president should 
be chosen by a majority of our citizens” (Birch Bayh,  in Kaza et al. Every 
Vote Equal, at xxii), or because “majority rule  [is] a fundamental tenant 
of our democracy (John Anderson, Kaza et al  at xviii) in fact, as Richard 
points out, NPV doesn’t do what Senator  Birch says he wants and what Rep. 
Anderson says is  “fundamental.”

Those  of us who understand elections also understand that there are 
numerous  ways to hold elections, and we know that huge numbers of elections are  
held in both private and public organizations that violate the  majority 
rules concept – or even the plurality rules. Moreover, we  know that voting 
procedures frequently place limits on majority  opinion, the most obvious 
perhaps being super-majority  requirements.

I  don’t see any reason why having a president who did not receive a  
national plurality (let alone a national majority) is more  inherently  more 
disturbing than having a House or a Senate whose  majority did not receive a 
majority or even a plurality of votes, or a  speaker of the House or Leader of 
the Senate who was elected by  members representing less than a majority or 
even a  plurality.

And  there seems to be little reason to believe that the American people  
are particularly worked up about it either. Richard points out that we  
routinely elect executives who had more people vote against than for  them – 
sometimes by quite substantial margins. Yet they do not face a  crisis of 
legitimacy.

In  my observation, despite what they say when a single, out of context  
question is posed to them in a poll, people are much more attuned to  
following what seem to be reasonably fair, agreed upon rules in  advance, rather 
than insisting that only one rule (majority or  plurality rule) can ever be 
fair; majorities quite routinely accede to  the desires of minorities; voting 
systems are quite routinely  established to deny majority – let alone 
plurality – victory. By the  same token, people are happy, in many cases, to accept 
plurality  winners – so much so that Messrs. Bayh, Anderson, and others 
toss  around the term “majority” when they appear to mean “plurality”  
without even thinking much about it.

If  we are to believe many NPV supporters, there should have been a  
national uproar after the 2000 election. Well, to some extent there  was – but it 
was not over the electoral college. At all times very  substantial 
majorities seemed quite content with the knowledge that  the Florida winner would 
claim the presidency. Efforts to abolish or  change the electoral college – 
including NPV – remained the hobby  horses of a small number of well-financed 
good-government groupies,  not any kind of mass movement.

In  short, we live in a country that is clearly dedicated to popular rule,  
but within the rule of law, and with popular not always – in fact  perhaps 
surprisingly rarely – defined as majority or even plurality  vote at any 
given moment.

As  a result, NPV proponents seem to constantly assuming what they ought  
to be proving – that NPV actually would result in better governance,  or 
truly is more “fair” – once we define fair, and get beyond the  facile 
proclamations such as those found in the movement’s magnum  opus, Every Vote Equal.  
Here, I think that the case that has  been made for effectively abolishing 
the electoral college is  exceedingly weak, based more on horror stories of 
improbable  counterfactual scenarios and presumed but not particularly 
probable  reactions of the public to those  scenarios.

Conversely,  those who would defend the Electoral College need not defend 
the  process for choosing a president in the House of Representatives,  
though I believe it can be defended – rather, they need to defend the  Electoral 
College system as a whole against NPV, because it is the  Electoral College 
that NPV seeks to effectively abolish, not just the  House of 
Representatives contingency. That’s not that hard, if only  because NPV supporters have 
done so little to show that NPV would  result in better presidents or better  
government.

Bradley  A. Smith

Josiah  H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault

Designated  Professor of Law

Capital  University Law School

303  East Broad Street

Columbus,  OH 43215

_(614) 236-6317_ (tel:(614)%20236-6317) 

_bsmith at law.capital.edu_ (mailto:bsmith at law.capital.edu) 

_http://www.law.capital.edu/faculty/bios/bsmith.asp_ 
(http://www.law.capital.edu/faculty/bios/bsmith.asp) 

From: _law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu_ 
(mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu)  
[mailto:_law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu_ (mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu) ] On  
Behalf OfRichard  Winger
Sent: Thursday, December 15, 2011  2:26 PM
To: _law-election at department-lists.uci.edu_ 
(mailto:law-election at department-lists.uci.edu) ;  MarkScarberry

Subject: Re:  [EL] An Electoral College  Tie?

I don't believe we should be so frightened of  the idea that a winning 
presidential candidate might have  received only 40% of the total popular vote.  
45 of the 50  states elect their Governors like that.  Whoever gets the  
most votes wins, period.  Louisiana, Washington, California  and Georgia force 
a majority vote by having a round with only  two candidates on the ballot, 
and Vermont lets the legislature  choose when no one gets a majority for 
Governor.  In the  other 45 states, a winning gubernatorial candidate just 
needs  more votes than anyone else.

The lowest share of the  popular vote any winning gubernatorial candidate 
ever got in the  last 170 years was in Washington state in 1912, when the  
Democratic nominee, Ernest Lister, won with only 30.6% of the  popular vote.  
In that election, the Republican nominee got  30.4% and the Progressive 
nominee got 24.4%.

Richard  Winger
_415-922-9779_ (tel:415-922-9779) 
PO Box 470296, San Francisco  Ca 94147

--- On Thu, 12/15/11,  Scarberry, Mark <_Mark.Scarberry at pepperdine.edu_ 
(mailto:Mark.Scarberry at pepperdine.edu) > wrote:

From:  Scarberry, Mark <_Mark.Scarberry at pepperdine.edu_ 
(mailto:Mark.Scarberry at pepperdine.edu) >
Subject:  Re: [EL] An Electoral College Tie?
To: "_law-election at department-lists.uci.edu_ 
(mailto:law-election at department-lists.uci.edu) " <_law-election at department-lists.uci.edu_ 
(mailto:law-election at department-lists.uci.edu) >
Date:  Thursday, December 15, 2011, 11:02 AM 

In  such a case, would we really want the national plurality vote  winner 
(perhaps with 40% of the vote) to become  President? 
Perhaps  if no candidate receives a majority of the electoral vote then,  
instead of the current system or the national popular vote  system, there 
should be a choice of the President either by a  joint session of Congress or 
by vote of the House (with each  member having one vote). 
Of  course that would require a constitutional amendment, but in my  view 
it would also take a constitutional amendment to move to a  popular vote 
system, at least to one that has a blackout period  like the proposed NPVIC. 
Mark 

Mark  S. Scarberry 
Pepperdine  Univ. School of Law 
Malibu,  CA 90263 
_(310)506-4667_ (tel:(310)506-4667) 

From: _law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu_ 
(mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu)  
[mailto:_law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu_ (mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu) ] On  
Behalf Of Justin  Levitt
Sent: Thursday, December 15,  2011 10:23 AM
To: _law-election at department-lists.uci.edu_ 
(mailto:law-election at department-lists.uci.edu) 
Subject: Re:  [EL] An Electoral College  Tie?

It's not just a tie that could  send the election to the House of 
Representatives ... I believe  it's any lack of a majority.  If, for example, the  
Americans Elect candidate wins enough electoral votes to deprive  either the 
Republican nominee or the Democratic nominee of an  Electoral College 
majority, the House decides the  election.

Justin
-- 
Justin Levitt
Associate Professor of Law
Loyola Law School | Los Angeles
919 Albany St.
Los Angeles, CA  90015
_213-736-7417_ (tel:213-736-7417) 
_justin.levitt at lls.edu_ (http://mc/compose?to=justin.levitt@lls.edu) 
_ssrn.com/author=698321_ (http://ssrn.com/author=698321) 

On 12/15/2011 9:37 AM, Dan Johnson  wrote: 

I'd love to see opponents of the National Popular Vote mount  a robust 
defense of the House of Representatives in a  one-vote-per-state-delegation 
selecting the President (the  result of a not-implausible tie in electoral  
votes).

Because, after all, that is what they are defending. A tie  will eventually 
occur. Let us hope that the National Popular  Vote compact is established 
and confirmed by the Supreme Court  before that mathematical certainty rears 
its ugly  head.

Dan

On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 11:24 AM, Rick Hasen <_rhasen at law.uci.edu_ 
(http://mc/compose?to=rhasen@law.uci.edu) >  wrote: 

_“An  Electoral College Tie?”_ (http://electionlawblog.org/?p=26579) 

Posted on _December 15, 2011 9:18  am_ 
(http://electionlawblog.org/?p=26579)  by _Rick  Hasen_ (http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3) 

National Journal _ponders_ 
(http://decoded.nationaljournal.com/2011/12/an-electoral-college-tie.php) .

-- 
Dan  Johnson

Partner 

Korey Cotter Heater and Richardson,  LLC

111 West Washington, Suite  1920
Chicago, Illinois 60602

_http://www.kchrlaw.com_ (http://www.kchrlaw.com/) 

_312.867.5377_ (tel:312.867.5377)  (office)
_312.933.4890_ (tel:312.933.4890)  (mobile)
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-- 
Justin Levitt
Associate Professor of Law
Loyola Law School | Los Angeles
919 Albany St.
Los Angeles, CA  90015
_213-736-7417_ (tel:213-736-7417) 
_justin.levitt at lls.edu_ (http://mc/compose?to=justin.levitt@lls.edu) 
_ssrn.com/author=698321_ (http://ssrn.com/author=698321) 

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Respect  for Every Vote and Every Voice" 

Rob  Richie
Executive  Director

FairVote   
6930  Carroll Avenue, Suite 610
Takoma Park, MD 20912
_www.fairvote.org _ (http://www.fairvote.org/)  _rr at fairvote.org_ 
(mailto:rr at fairvote.org) 
_(301)  270-4616_ (tel:(301)%20270-4616) 

Please support FairVote through action and  tax-deductible donations -- see 
_http://fairvote.org/donate_ (http://fairvote.org/donate) . For federal 
employees,  please consider  a gift to us through the Combined Federal  
Campaign (FairVote's  CFC number is 10132.) Thank  you!

_______________________________________________
Law-election  mailing list
_Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu_ 
(mailto:Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu) 
_http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election_ 
(http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election) 

_______________________________________________
Law-election  mailing list
_Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu_ 
(mailto:Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu) 
_http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election_ 
(http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election) 

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Respect for  Every Vote and Every Voice" 

Rob Richie
Executive  Director

FairVote   
6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite  610
Takoma Park, MD 20912
_www.fairvote.org _ (http://www.fairvote.org/)   _rr at fairvote.org_ 
(mailto:rr at fairvote.org) 
_(301)  270-4616_ (tel:(301)%20270-4616) 

Please support FairVote through action and  tax-deductible donations -- see 
_http://fairvote.org/donate_ (http://fairvote.org/donate) . For federal 
employees,  please consider  a gift to us through the Combined Federal Campaign 
 (FairVote's  CFC number is 10132.) Thank  you!

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Respect for Every  Vote and Every Voice" 

Rob Richie
Executive  Director

FairVote   
6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite  610
Takoma Park, MD 20912
_www.fairvote.org _ (http://www.fairvote.org/)  _rr at fairvote.org_ 
(mailto:rr at fairvote.org) 
_(301)  270-4616_ (tel:(301)%20270-4616) 

Please support FairVote through action and tax-deductible  donations -- see 
_http://fairvote.org/donate_ (http://fairvote.org/donate) . For federal 
employees, please  consider  a gift to us through the Combined Federal Campaign 
 (FairVote's  CFC number is 10132.) Thank  you!

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