So the state of Maine will split there electoral vote in a presidential race, where as the rest of us go ‘all in’ for one candidate or the other.
Why is this? What is the history here?
More importantly, IYHO, would it be more or less fair if all states did this? How would this effect the way in which the candidates campaign?
IMO, yes, we should split electoral votes, as at current, my vote is meaningless. I live in MA and any vote that I would ever cast except wouldn’t matter, as the Democrat will take the state. This is not to say that I’m planning to vote for bush, but I would like to have my vote count for something.
I think votes should be split, or the college be done away with. As it stands, if 51 % of Oklahoma votes for candidate A, all of the electoral votes go to him, and the other 49 % pretty much wasted their votes and time (at least that is how I feel)
I’ve thought for years that this would be a good idea. I think it might get more people out to vote if they know it’ll actually count. I’ll vote this time around, but it’s going to be pointless unless something weird happens, because Louisiana is very Republican. At least I’ll feel like I tried.
So, splitting the Electoral votes means that their delegates will vote in the same percentage of their popular vote?
Maine is not the only state that does this. Nebraska does too. NE has five electoral votes and therefore three congressional districts. The winner of each district gets one elector, the winner of the whole state gets the other two. This is fairly recent and I believe that one candidate has always gotten all five anyway.
This has, of course, been discussed to death for decades. The States, especially the large ones, have a very good reason for keeping things the way that they are. Let’s suppose California, with its fifty plus electors, is looking like it’ll be a close race. With the electors getting split, heavy campaigning in CA will possibly affect a difference in one or two votes. If it’s all or nothing, the candidates will make huge efforts to get all of them. This will give a lot of benefits of politcal payback later.
Haj
Well, Maine (and Nebraska too) split as a percentage, but they have to round to whole vote increments. Since they are both reletively small, (4 votes for Maine and 5 for Nebraska) you don’t get too high of a resolution.
I think the Nebraska model should be adopted for all 50 states. I’ve been advocating this ever since I wrote a paper on the electoral college for high school history class in 1988.
So the feeling is that this is a good thing because it gives a state a sort of ‘15 minutes of fame’ type of popularity?
Do the same states tend to be the battle-ground states, or does it change a lot? I have only been of voting age for three years now, so I can’t really remember very far back, but I don’t think Illinois has ever been hotly contested.
Anybody willing to figure out how 2000 would have gone if all 51 electoral districts (50 states plus D.C., I believe) split the electors proportionately, instead of winner-take-all? Or has this been figured out already?
What is the justification for winner-take-all? I see that system as inherently unfair but I’m not fully informed about it.
You know, I find it rather annoying that I was raised in Nebraska, and I never knew that. Never brought up in school. (But, by God, we all knew we had a unicameral!)
Another question, if states were to split electors by percentage, then what would be the purpose of having them at all? (Forgive me if this is obvious, but math is not my strong suit.)
I’m not saying that this is a good thing. I believe that this is the main reason why State Legislatures are not going to change things any time soon.
Ponder this. Suppose that we were in a majority rules situation for the Presidency. Suppose further that the election was very close, like FL in 2000. Now instead of having to recount one state, we have to recount the entire thing, every district in every State.
Haj