Republicans in California are pushing a ballot initiative that could have sweeping implications, beginning in 2008, for the way Americans elect their presidents.

The initiative, detailed in a front page article today, would drive a truck through one of the Constitution's biggest holes -- the way states allocate electoral votes.

If the nation's founders had seen this hole, they probably would have patched it. Perhaps the Constitution would have more clearly directed how electoral votes should be allocated. As it stands today, however, each state can determine that for itself.

This is not to say that the electoral system -- under which the states, not the people, elect the president -- is a bad idea. It's not. In fact, it's a terrific system that should be preserved, even if the founders only stumbled onto it.

Disputes over the wisdom and fairness of the Electoral College system have been more or less muted over more than two centuries because (for the most part) the popular vote winner is the electoral vote winner. There has seldom been reason to dispute the will of the people.

There was, of course, that acrimonious electoral tie in 1800 between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr that led a self-interested Jefferson to call the system a "dangerous blot in our Constitution." And in 1888, Benjamin Harrison received more electoral votes than the incumbent, Grover Cleveland, who won the popular-vote.

But it wasn't until 2000, when a razor-thin election gave George W. Bush the White House over Al Gore, that things really came to a head. Gore received a half-million more popular votes nationally, but Bush prevailed in a disputed Florida vote count, capturing the state's 25 electoral votes and the presidency.

We wuz robbed! shouted the Democrats. But of course they were not. Not really. That's because the people don't elect the president in a national referendum. The states do. And the wisdom of that system is truly breathtaking when you stop to think about it.

-- It forces a national campaign, as opposed to one that concentrates exclusively on the large metropolitan population centers. With a national popular vote for president, the big cities would control the outcome every time.

-- It provides a slight power edge to small states, which the founders saw fit to grant through a bicameral Congress -- one side based on population, the other on equality. A state's electoral votes are the total of its representatives and senators, so the balancing effect that was built into the Senate, with equal representation for all states, is imprinted on the electoral vote system.

-- It recognizes a reasonable geographic standard for grouping citizens -- state lines. Those who think their votes don't count because of the winner-take-all approach in their state should think again. When any law is passed at a national, state or local level, it carries by majority vote. You don't enact only part of a law because some representatives or senators voted against it. It's winner-take-all at every level, from city councils to school boards to legislatures. And it's a good model for states to use in electing a president.

The current plan under discussion in California would favor Republicans, but even if you're a Republican you should be troubled. It calls for California's electoral votes to be allocated according to local voting district. Bush lost California by 1.2 million votes in 2004, but he carried 22 of 53 congressional districts. If those districts had given him 22 electoral votes, the whole game would have changed.

The California concept is flawed in at least two major ways:

First, if the initiative passes, it will likely set off a flurry of efforts in other states to do the same. A similar move in Texas would favor Democrats, for example -- not that this is a bad thing, per se, but it's hard to predict what mayhem would unfold across the nation.

Second, once you decide that you're going to allocate electoral votes according to a popular vote, you have to decide at what geographic level "winner-take-all" popular vote will apply.

Some say the presidency should be a national winner-take-all, but the amendment to the Constitution that would be required to do that is highly unlikely. This is why the allocation movement got started in various states in the first place. Dividing up the votes falls within the constitutional power of a state, so electoral vote opponents now see an opportunity to enact a de facto popular vote system.

But we caution against jumping on the bandwagon. America's founders wisely decided to make presidential elections "winner-take-all" on a state-by-state basis. If electoral geography is subdivided to voting districts, the specter of geographical gerrymandering rises to frightening heights as local interests jockey to throw their weight toward the White House.

Utahns should understand this better than most after the state legislature engaged in some of the most egregious gerrymandering of voting districts in America a few years ago to retain a Republican grip.

The electoral vote system has brought stability to the nation for more than two centuries. It should not be cast aside for short-term political gains.