There is no gratification in having voted (meaninglessly) and lost. The plan for throwing the election into the House takes the likely losers (Humphrey and Wallace people) and bands them together into inevitable winners. For the plan calls for people to vote specifically for those candidates who are most likely to win and for just that reason; if it is put into effect, more people (at least the majority in every state) will be gratified than ever before in the history of U.S. elections.

The danger exists--though it's remote--that the philosophy of turning from being an inevitable loser to an inevitable winner could become so popular that the election would be unbalanced enough to put Wallace or Humphrey in office. Indeed in such a case, Nixon would have to be called into the alliance by the unofficial umpire of the movement to stalemate the election; activists in California and almost every state west of the Mississippi, taking their cue from the polls, would start pushing Nixon as The One.

The plan has the aesthetic perfection of a circle. People in most states of the Union get to vote for the man who is closest to their individual sympathies, and yet achieve a common goal with people all across the country with different sympathies who voted differently. People in Massachusetts can vote for Humphrey without fear of having helped his election to office because the actual choosing of the President will be out of the hands of the voting public.

Currently, people in Maine, Mass., R.I., D.C., Minn., Mich., N.Y., Pa., Conn., Ill., and W.Va. should vote for Humphrey (169 electoral votes).

Voters in Ala., Ga., Miss., La., Ark., S.C., N.C., Tenn., Fla., Tex., Va., and Ind. should vote Wallace (141 votes).

And Vt., N.H., N.J., Del., Md., Ohio, Wisc., N.D., S.D., lowa, Neb., Kan., Mo., Okla., Wyo., Colo., N.Mex., Ariz., Nev., Utah, Idaho, Wash., Oreg., Calif., Ky., Alas., Ha., and Mont. should stay with Nixon (228).