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House Minority Leader Wendy Jaquet, D-Ketchum, was persuaded to change her bill advocating electoral reform in Idaho from a system that would almost certainly have awarded at least one electoral vote to another party than the republicans, to a system that almost certainly still awards all Idaho's electoral votes to the republicans, given current trends in Idaho.<BR>
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Perhaps Jaquet thought that a change in Idaho's electoral system that would almost certainly award an electoral vote to a democrat would certainly fail.<BR>
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The electoral changes advocated award the two electoral votes from the two senators based on the statewide vote, and the two congressional districts each get one electoral vote awarded based on each districts separate vote total. In the last election Bush would still have received all of Idaho's electoral votes, assuming a simple majority decides the electoral votes from the two senators based on the state wide vote, and again in each congressional district.<BR>
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With our state so dominated by the republican party, it is certain the statewide total will go republican in the future. And also the odds either of the two congressional districts could swing against the republican party are very, very low.<BR>
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What would make a difference for certain, and what Wendy Jaquet was first attempting to implement, is to award Idaho's four electoral votes proportionately based solely on the proportion each presidential candidate received of the statewide vote total. So if the democrats got 33% of the statewide vote total for president, at least one electoral vote would be awarded for the democratic candidate. <BR>
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Colorado voted on such a system last year. I recall that it failed.<BR>
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Ted Moffett</FONT></HTML>