Efforts to Scrap Electoral College
MALVEAUX: You're in THE SITUATION ROOM. Happening now, one day after the 44th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination, a disturbing new claim that Lee Harvey Oswald might have never gotten the chance to kill Kennedy because others plotted to do that three weeks before Kennedy was assassinated. Also, a ship hits an iceberg and starts sinking in the ocean. Find out what happened to the 150 people on board. And fresh attempts to solve an international missing person's mystery. Police reanalyze some evidence regarding Natalee Holloway's disappearance in Aruba, and some suspects in the case face longer detentions. Wolf Blitzer is off today. I'm Suzanne Malveaux. And you're in THE SITUATION ROOM. It's how we pick the leader of the free world, but many of you may not even know what it is or even how it works. Well, it's the Electoral College, the way Americans pick a president, conceived long ago to make that process as fair and level as possible. Some think it's time to scrap it. Our CNN's Jill Dougherty explains.</s>JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Suzanne, the Electoral College has been around in one form or another for 220 years. It was a compromise, and has been controversial almost since the beginning. Some critics today call it undemocratic, a political dinosaur they want to kill off.</s>DOUGHERTY (voice over): Maryland's historic State House built during the American Revolution. These days its lawmakers are taking aim at how Americans elect their president. It's the first state in the nation to reject the current Electoral College system.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Electoral College is a wacky institution in our history. And there have been many attempts both in the Constitution and by the states to deal with it.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These are our First Amendment rights.</s>DOUGHERTY: Soldier in this new revolution, Maryland state senator and law professor Jamie Rasken (ph).</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We think we have come up with a pretty good way of dealing with it to get us to a national popular vote, which is what the vast majority of American people want.</s>DOUGHERTY (on camera): You've heard of the Electoral College?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know much about it. I remember learning about it in, like, grade school.</s>DOUGHERTY (voice over): But most Americans do remember the 2000 election, the fight over disputed ballots in Florida, when George W. Bush lost the popular election by nearly 544,000 votes, but won the Electoral College vote. It was the fourth time in American history that's happened. Just how does the Electoral College work? Americans go to the polls, but the results aren't official until electors in each of the states cast their votes. The number of electors each state gets depends on the number of U.S. senators and representatives they have. California, for example, gets 55 electoral votes. Montana gets only three. In all but two states, it's a winner-take-all system, even if the vote in that state is close. (on camera): Under the national popular vote plan, whoever gets the majority of votes nationwide wins. The Electoral College would be required to cast their vote for that national winner. (voice over): That simple logic has won over several of Jamie Raskin's (ph) law students.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's kind of a sham where you can end up with a vote in the Electoral College that is at odds with the popular vote.</s>DOUGHERTY: But some experts who ponder elections without the current Electoral College system warn it could splinter Americans into multiple parties, even lead to the election of populist tyrants.</s>STEPHEN HESS, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: We end up with something that might even look like a European system that we don't like very much. And we are guaranteed virtually some sort of runoff election. So we have more elections than we need.</s>DOUGHERTY: Polls by Gallup have consistently found that some two-thirds of Americans favor a national popular vote for president. But, just down the street from Maryland's Statehouse, even husbands and wives can't agree. Just listen to Michael and Cherilyn Murer, both lawyers.</s>MICHAEL MURER, ATTORNEY: It's actually a good system that has served us well throughout our country's history.</s>CHERILYN MURER, ATTORNEY: No, I like the popular vote. I think it is something we should consider.</s>DOUGHERTY: Legislative chambers in seven states have passed bills in favor of a national popular vote. But many more would need to reject the current Electoral College for a national popular vote to become reality. The United States may have been born in revolution, but, when it comes to presidential elections, it seems to prefer evolution. (on camera): This isn't the first time critics have proposed getting rid of the Electoral College, but, so far, no one has been able to do it. Americans prize democracy, but they also value stability -- Suzanne.</s>MALVEAUX: And, currently, at Jill mentioned, only two states currently that do not follow the winner-take-all rule for the Electoral College. Those states are Maine and Nebraska. Maine has four electoral votes and Nebraska has five. Both states use a proportional system in which their electoral votes are allocated by congressional district. Meanwhile, some people in one state are trying to revamp the way votes are doled out in the presidential election, but not everybody is happy about this. Our CNN senior political analyst, Bill Schneider, has those details.</s>WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST (on camera): Suzanne, remember hearing about a ballot measure that would change the way electoral casts its electoral California? It was supposed to be dead. Well, guess what? It's come back to life. (voice-over): A national political battle is being fought out in California, but the voters there don't seem to know or care much about it. National Republican money is coming into calling to pay for gathering petition signatures to qualify a ballot measure that would divide California's electoral votes.</s>TONY QUINN, CALIFORNIA POLITICAL ANALYST: If this passed, rather than 55 electoral votes going to the Democratic candidate, you would probably have about 35 going to the Democrat and 20 going to the Republican candidate. So, that could have a major impact on how we elect the president in 2008.</s>SCHNEIDER: You bet it would. Twenty electoral votes is as many as the whole state of Ohio. If the measure qualifies for the ballot -- the deadline is next week -- Republicans will argue that it's fairer. Why should the 44 percent of Californians who voted for George W. Bush in 2004 not get a single electoral vote for their effort? It would also bring the presidential campaign to California. Right now, the state feels like an ATM machine. Candidates raise money in California, and spend it somewhere else. Democrats will argue it's unfair to split up California's electoral votes unless other big states do the same thing.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Democrats will say it's a power grab.</s>SCHNEIDER: That's one thing Democrats have going for them, voter skepticism.</s>QUINN: It's very hard to see that there's any major, major issue here that the voters care about. Generally, they have refused to involve themselves when the fight is between the two parties. They say, gee, that's not my -- that's not my fight.</s>SCHNEIDER: When California voters don't understand or care much about a ballot measure, they usually vote no. They figure somebody is up to something. (on camera): A lot of the money behind the California ballot measure is coming from Republicans with ties to Rudy Giuliani. And a lot of the effort to stop it is coming from the Hillary Clinton forces. It's turning into an early showdown between the two front- runners, and the voters of California don't even know it -- Suzanne.</s>MALVEAUX: Well, you're asking, and the Republican presidential candidates will answer.</s>QUESTION: Would you be willing to open up Guantanamo Bay to public viewing?</s>MALVEAUX: That is just one possible question the candidates could get in our CNN/YouTube debate. We will preview questions that you are sending in. And it is football season, but our strategists will talk about tackles on the campaign field. They will pull out their playbooks and offer advice to Democrats and Republicans on how to win in Iowa. And could John F. Kennedy have been killed three weeks before he was actually assassinated? There are some startling claims you might not believe.