[EL] Michigan electoral college bill

Tue Dec 2 19:05:13 PST 2014

We did a full simulation of the proposed system in the 2012 elections, and
then applied it to some different scenarios that year. See a summary of
that, a link to our testimony to the committee today, and a link to our
spreadsheet here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rob-richie/michigan-electoral-colleg_b_6257256.html

We didn't take a position on the bill, as we're not going to defend the
current winner-take-all rule that has such negative effects on the country.
But we did share some interesting findings:

* in 2012, 14 of the 15 smallest population states still would have been
ignored as ones without any electoral votes in play

* While Obama would have won with 287 electoral votes in 2012, a shift of
the vote that resulted in Romney winning the popular vote by the same 4%
margin would have resulted in Romney winning 315 electoral votes. Romney
also would have won if the popular vote had been tied.

* Michigan is unlikely to be a 2016 battleground, but this system wouldn't
help much on that score -- it would likely only put two electoral votes in
play, and it's debatable that would draw much extra attention. We did offer
one provocative scenario:

         "Despite this fact, there are scenarios where HB 5974 could make
Michigan a "tipping point state" in 2016. For instance, if you sum the
electoral votes in the 19 states that Democrats have won six straight
times, Democrats start a close presidential election with a relatively
strong base of 242 electoral votes. If you add Florida's 29 electoral votes
to that total, it grows to a winning majority of 271 electoral votes. If
Democrats also won New Hampshire for the fourth straight time, they would
have 275 electoral votes.
         "But suppose HB 5974 were law and the Republican nominee were able
to win 47.1% of the two-party vote in Michigan, under H.B. 5874 the
Republican would win six electoral votes - and suddenly go from losing the
presidency by 12 electoral votes to earning a 269-269 electoral vote tie
and having the Republican-run House of Representatives pick the president.
Although the odds of this scenario or a similar scenario involving more
states are low, they are plausible if the 2016 presidential election were
nationally very close."

That's become a lot more implausible after today's hearing, with the bill
not moving out of committee.

- Rob Richie

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rob Richie
Executive Director, FairVote
6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 610
Takoma Park, MD 20912
rr at fairvote.org  (301) 270-4616  http://www.fairvote.org

*FairVote Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/FairVoteReform>*   *FairVote
Twitter <https://twitter.com/fairvote>*  My Twitter
<https://twitter.com/rob_richie>

*Thank you for considering a donation
<https://org.salsalabs.com/o/2495/p/salsa/donation/common/public/?donate_page_KEY=5643>
to
support our reform vision <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U50uJohIw4c>.
(Our Combined Federal Campaign number is 10132.)*

On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 7:50 PM, Dan Meek <dan at meek.net> wrote:

>  Note that the first step under the bill is to toss out all votes for all
> candidates except the top two.
>
> In 1992, this bill would have resulted in Electoral College votes for Ross
> Perot, who finished second in Maine and Utah.
>
>   Dan Meek
>  503-293-9021 dan at meek.net 866-926-9646 fax
>
>
>  On 12/2/2014 9:59 AM, Sean Parnell wrote:
>
>  Here’s a description of the Michigan bill referenced below, per a site
> called Michigan Votes:
>
>
>
> 2014 House Bill 5974: Pro-rate Michigan's electoral college presidential
> votes <http://www.michiganvotes.org/2014-HB-5974>
>
> Introduced by Rep. Pete Lund (R) on November 13, 2014, to revise the
> manner in which Michigan's 16 votes in the Electoral College are allocated
> in a presidential election. The party getting the most popular votes would
> get half the Electoral College votes plus one, and one additional
> presidential elector for every 1.5 percent of the popular vote that the
> candidate receives over 50 percent of the popular vote. The party that
> comes in second would get the remainder. Currently, all states except
> Nebraska and Maine allocate their Electoral College on a “winner take all”
> basis. Reportedly, under the proposed system, rather than delivering all
> its electoral votes to Barrack Obama in 2012, he would have gotten 12 votes
> and Mitt Romney four votes.
>
> I would note that this is NOT the
> one-electoral-vote-per-congressional-district plan that’s been bandied
> about in the past (and which I oppose, for a variety of reasons). I tend to
> like this concept however.
>
>
>
> Oh, and I’d note that the National Popular Vote Spambot has apparently hit
> the Michigan Votes site regarding this bill, as there are three posts right
> under it that are the exact same cut-and-paste posts that I see just about
> everywhere anybody ever discusses anything having to do with the electoral
> college. If you want to have some fun, ask the Spambot a question, I’m
> about 99.9% certain you’ll get another cut-and-paste response.
>
>
>
> Best,
>
>
>
> Sean Parnell
>
> President
>
> Impact Policy Management, LLC
>
> 6411 Caleb Court
>
> Alexandria, VA  22315
>
> 571-289-1374 (c)
>
> sean at impactpolicymanagement.com
>
>
>
> *From:* law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [
> mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
> <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu>] *On Behalf Of *Richard
> Winger
> *Sent:* Tuesday, December 02, 2014 12:40 PM
> *To:* Law-election
> *Subject:* [EL] Michigan electoral college bill
>
>
>
> Ballot Access News - Michigan Legislative Committee is Hearing Testimony
> on Electoral College Bill
> <http://www.ballot-access.org/2014/12/michigan-legislative-committee-is-hearing-testimony-on-electoral-college-bill/>
>
>
>
>
>
> [image: Image removed by sender. image]
> <http://www.ballot-access.org/2014/12/michigan-legislative-committee-is-hearing-testimony-on-electoral-college-bill/>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Ballot Access News - Michigan Legislative Committee is H...
> <http://www.ballot-access.org/2014/12/michigan-legislative-committee-is-hearing-testimony-on-electoral-college-bill/>
>
> The Michigan House Elections & Ethics Committee is hearing testimony on HB
> 5974. The committee meeting started at noon, Tuesday, December 2.
>
>    View on *www.ballot-access.org*
> <http://www.ballot-access.org/2014/12/michigan-legislative-committee-is-hearing-testimony-on-electoral-college-bill/>
>
> Preview by Yahoo
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Richard Winger
> 415-922-9779
> PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Law-election mailing listLaw-election at department-lists.uci.eduhttp://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Law-election mailing list
> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
> http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20141202/b160fb6b/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 458 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20141202/b160fb6b/attachment.jpe>