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Californians for Equal Representation
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| Californians for Equal Representation | |
| Basic facts |
Californians for Equal Representation, or CER, is the original California ballot measure committee sponsoring the California Presidential Electoral Reform Initiative for a statutory amendment.
The CER committee was assembled in July 2007. Thomas W. Hiltachk, a Sacramento based election lawyer, and former counsel to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, filed a ballot initiative entitled the "Presidential Election Reform Act," also known as Initiative No. 07-0032. If passed, PERA would have changed the way California's 55 electoral votes are awarded to contending presidential candidates. Currently, all 55 votes are appropriated to the top vote-getter, on a state-wide basis. This initiative would instead award each vote district-by-district. Because California has 53 congressional districts, the remaining two votes would be bequeathed to the candidate receiving the majority of the popular (state) vote.
In September 2007, the committee disbanded and a new committee, California Counts was created to continue the petition drive and campaign on behalf of the PERA initiative.
Signature requirements
CER volunteers must collect 434,000 signatures by November 13, 2007[1], in order for the initiative to make the California primary ballot on June 3, 2008. If this deadline is not met, the group has until February 5, 2008 in order to have accrued the mandatory signatures. Assuming a February deadline is reached, the initiative will be placed on the general election ballot for November, 2008.
