Okay, I've read the first bit of this thread pretty closely and skimmed through many of the middle posts, and have stuff to add but no time to finish reading now. My material may have been touched on in the most recent posts, but with beardedbruce hovering over this thread like a hen with one chick, I doubt it. This responds to remarks early in the thread.
The electoral problem doesn't need to be the problem that people perceive. Old Guy claimed earlier that someone offshore is trying to convince Coloradans to split their electoral vote. Wherever the money to support the referrendum is coming from, it is in answer to a passionate concern of many Americans. This is a big deal, but it isn't precedent-setting. Nebraska and Maine have been doing it for years. They're just not big enough so any of you or the rest of hte U.S. would notice, apparently.
To many of us there is enduring wisdom in the Founding Fathers' concept of federalism and national union. For the moment we'll leave the subject of the Electoral College and its role to lawyers, political scientists and others who write about it -- e.g., in the past several years alone, the Cumberland, Harvard, North Carolina, Notre Dame, Nova, Oregon, Vanderbilt and William & Mary Law Reviews have published on the subject.
Maine and Nebraska laws, Maine Revised Statutes Annotated, Title 21-A, § 9-805.2; Nebraska Statutes, Art 7, § 32-714, provide that their electoral vote does not go winner-take-all but rather is apportioned. Thus, Maine with four votes, Nebraska with five, as a matter of law could divide their electoral votes. Two from each would be cast for the candidate receiving a plurality of popular vote statewide. The other two (Maine) or three (Nebraska) would be cast for the candidate receiving a plurality within a congressional district. So the Maine electoral vote could be 4-0 or 3-1, the Nebraska 5-0, 4-1 or 3-2.
What's brewing in the Rockies? Colorado, apparently with considerably more than the required 67,000 or so signatures, likely will have a referendum proposal on the November 2, 2004 ballot, to apportion electoral votes a la Maine and Nebraska -- and to do it retroactively! Any such Colorado change in law almost surely would divide the Colorado electoral vote because, unlike Maine (two Democrats) and Nebraska (three Republicans), Colorado's Representatives in Congress are not of one party (two Democrats, five Republicans), so the congressional-district majorities almost surely would differ.
Interesting approach to something that would affect the fairness of the electoral college without involving ammending the U.S. Constitution. The wheels are beginning to turn, as people realize that not only does the Constitutiion allow states the right to distribute their electoral college votes as they wish, it can be done state by state much more easily than ammending the constitution.
The topic has come up about those few renegade electoral college folks who vote their conscience, even if it means not voting with the block come time of the electoral convention.
"Faithless Electors" are members of the Electoral College who, for whatever reason, do not vote for their party's designated candidate.
Since the founding of the Electoral College, there have been 156 faithless Electors. 71 of these votes were changed because the original candidate died before the day on which the Electoral College cast their votes. Three of the votes were not cast at all as three Electors chose to abstain from casting their Electoral vote for any candidate. The other 82 Electoral votes were changed on the personal initiative of the Elector.