California Republicans are expressing confidence they can gather enough signatures by the end of this month to place an initiative on the state’s June ballot allocating electoral votes by congressional district rather than the current winner-take-all system.

Supporters had collected slightly more than 400,000 signatures by last week, according to political consultant Dave Gilliard, campaign manager for California Counts, the group spearheading the signature-gathering effort. Gilliard said the group is aiming for 650,000 to 700,000 signatures by the end of November — substantially more than the required 433,971 signatures.

“We’re on a good pace,” Gilliard said. “I think we’re going to make it, but it’s a challenge every day.”

Democrats have harshly criticized the initiative, which they view as a Republican tactic to grab a portion of California’s 55 electoral votes for the GOP presidential nominee. Presently, electoral votes in California, as in nearly all states, are allocated on a winner-take-all basis — and the state in recent elections has been a Democratic bastion.

Under the proposed initiative, the statewide winner would get two electoral votes but the rest would be divided up on the basis of the number of districts that each candidate won.

If California’s electoral votes had been allocated by congressional district in 2004, President Bush would have received 22 of the state’s 55 electoral votes and in 2000, Bush would have received 19 of California’s 54 electoral votes. Bush narrowly edged out Democrat Al Gore nationwide in 2000 by just 5 electoral votes.

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