Greetings,
I thought some of you would want to see our new report which I think
provides a very important new critique of a very old problem: our
state-by-state Electoral College method. I think it's hard to come away
from reading this report without believing we shouldn't be talking
about direct election of the president. Our findings about the
"two-tier democracy" should be particularly troubling for anyone
believing in political equality. See "The Shrinking Battlefield:
Presidential Elections in 2008 and Beyond" linked from:
http://www.fairvote.org/presidential/
Some of you might be interested in other reports we've done recently --
including updated "Dubious Democracy" collecxtion of state-by-state
statistics that make it clear we are in the midst of the least
competitive congressional elections in history at:
http://fairvote.org/?page=543
and a state-by-state guide to redistricting legislation at:
http://fairvote.org/?page=1389
Some of our highlighted findings from "Shrinking Battlefield" are below.
best regards,
Rob Richie, FairVote - The Center for Voting and Democracy
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A shrinking battleground:
- In 1960, 24 states with a total of 327 electoral
votes were battlegrounds. In 2004, only 13 states with 159 electoral
votes were similarly competitive.
- Of potential battleground states, five (Louisiana,
Maine, Oregon, Tennessee, West Virginia) grew much less competitive.
One (Colorado) grew more competitive.
- Our partisanship model predicted state results
within a 2% margin in 32 states. Only two minor states changed their
partisanship by more than 3.9%.
Partisan consequences:
- George Bush would have lost the 2004 election if he
had won the national popular vote by less than 425,000 votes.
- John Kerry and Democrats did relatively better in
battleground states than the nation as a whole and are better
positioned if the election is close in 2008.
- 48 of 51 presidential contests went to the same
party as in 2000. A shift of just 18,774 votes would have meant an
exact repeat of the 2000 state-by-state results.
Civic consequences:
- In the 12 most competitive states in 2004, voter
turnout rose 9% to 63%. In the 12 least competitive states, voter
turnout rose only 2% to 53%.
- Voter turnout among 18-29-year-olds was 64.4% in
the ten most competitive states and 47.6% in the remaining states – a
gap of 17%.
- More than 30% of whites live in battlegrounds, in
contrast to only 21% of African Americans and Native Americans, 18 % of
Latinos and 14% of Asian Americans
- A shift of just 20,417 votes would have given the
country an Electoral College tie. An even smaller shift would have
thrown the 2000 elections into the U.S. House.