CA-Init: Election Stealing Initiative has little early support

As many of you have seen, Republicans, including some of the same characters who brought us the Swiftboat Veterean liars, are trying to get an initiative in the California ballot that would divide the states electoral votes by congressional district -- ensuring that Democrats lose at least two dozen EVs to the Republican presidential candidate.

The signatures for the effort haven't been collected yet, but if it gathers enough, it sets the stage for an expensive ballot initiative in a low-turnout mid-year election to potentially decide the 2008 presidential contest.

Still, the polling can't be encouraging to the initiative's backers.

Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin & Associates (D). 8/27-29. Likely voters. MoE 4% (No trend lines)

Do you support the California Electoral Vote Reform Initiative? (Not actual poll question language)

Definitely Yes     14     38
Probably Yes       17
Undecided, lean Yes 7

Definitely No      15     28
Probably No         8
Undecided, lean No  5

Need more info     29     33
Don't know          4

The pollsters note that 38 percent is a disastrous showing for the initiative at this stage of the process.

The measure starts off below 40%.  In California, initiatives that start off below majority support almost never pass [...]

As a point of comparison, the California Republican measure starts off with less support than a similar initiative that was put on the ballot in Colorado in 2004 (known as Amendment 36), which went on to be handily defeated. The proposal in Colorado in 2004 started out with support above 50% until a relatively modest campaign pointed out with very clear and simply factual statements the partisan implications of a presumed safe state (Republican, in this case) dividing its electoral votes. The Colorado Amendment ultimately failed, getting only 35% of the vote.

The research indicates that while the Republican measure in California starts off with significantly less support than the Colorado measure, once voters learn the basic facts about the measure they are even less likely to support it. The “No” side in Colorado spent the relatively modest sum of money to trounce the initiative, which again started off with far more support than begins with here in California.

With these results, and the state's historic track record against initiatives that start off with such little support, it'll bear watching to see if Republican donors decide to piss away millions into the effort, or let it wither on the vine and redirect their efforts to more promising endeavors.

Update: The Courage Campaign is collecting signatures of those opposed to this right-wing power-grab. The larger the army we can build to oppose this thing, the better the chance that the right-wingers will throw in the towel early.