From Tuesday’s New York Times:
Saying it ran “counter to the tradition of our great nation,” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill on Saturday that would have automatically allocated all the state’s 55 electoral votes to whichever presidential candidate received the national popular vote.[...]
Thomas J. Umberg, the bill’s sponsor in the California Assembly, said that he was disappointed by the governor’s decision “to maintain the status quo” and that he would consider taking the proposition to a ballot measure.
Great. I’ve come to the conclusion, from the little bit of local television I’ve seen this trip to California, that what Californians want and need is another proposition on the ballot.
I think Schwarzenegger did the right thing by vetoing the bill. While there are changes I’d love to make to the electoral college if I were empowered to do so, I’m not sure that finding a back door to the Constitution and going to effectively a popular vote is the right thing to do…at least not until we learn how to tally votes reliably.