Electoral Shake Up

New Standard

It appears that California is very close to changing up how the electoral college works. The state senate recently passed a bill to have electoral college votes go towards the candidate that won the national popular vote, not just the state popular vote. So for once in a long while, California's votes will go to a republican candidate, even if that's not what state residents want.

The problem I foresee is that it creates no incentive to vote. California can get away with this because its population is large enough that it can sway the national popular vote, but using the 2004 vote as precedent, Bush's margin of victory was greater than the number of voters in 38 states. If any one of these states implemented this same plan, it wouldn't matter at all if no one voted, the state electoral votes would just go along with the national vote. Even in 2000 with its relatively small margin, that margin was still greater than the voting population in 11 states.