# Non-winner-take-all electoral college **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 8, 2004, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-winner-take-all-electoral-college/254084 "2004-07-08T06:27:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2004, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-winner-take-all-electoral-college/254084/1 "2004-07-08T06:27:29Z")
Most states use a winner-take-all system in sending electors to the electoral college. Whichever slate gets the most votes in a state gets all the electors for that state. Two states - Maine and Nebraska - use a system where each congressional district selects one elector and two are chosen at large. I want to determine how it would have affected the 2000 presidential election if the Maine/Nebraska system had been used in all 50 states. Has someone already done this analysis? If not, can someone tell me where to look to find out which candidate got the most votes in each congressional district? Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2004, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-winner-take-all-electoral-college/254084/2 "2004-07-08T06:29:57Z")
Oops - I accidentally started this thread in the wrong forum. Can a moderator please move it to GQ? Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-winner-take-all-electoral-college/254084/3 "2004-07-09T06:04:00Z")
The first part is easily decided by the tally of representatives elected, currently: Republican 228 Democrat 205 Independent (Socialist) 1 Vacant 1 (don’t have any idea which party this one was) I’m not up for looking for the state by state totals right now, but given the district results, Bush only needed 20 states to win under this scenario. I believe he got that. Signatures are currently being collected here (Colorado) to change the electoral vote to represent the state percentage as closely as possible - disregarding districts - just divvying them up by total vote. I’ve refused to sign a number of times. I might could go for your version. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-winner-take-all-electoral-college/254084/4 "2004-07-09T07:32:54Z")
> [@This Year's Model](#): > > The first part is easily decided by the tally of representatives elected, currently: > Republican 228 > Democrat 205 > Independent (Socialist) 1 > Vacant 1 (don’t have any idea which party this one was) This assumes that people will vote for the same party for president as they do for congress. This isn’t necessarily true. Also, I would expect more people to vote for president than for congress, and the extra voters won’t necessarily vote for the party of their representative. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-winner-take-all-electoral-college/254084/5 "2004-07-09T17:39:41Z")
> [@Jeff Lichtman](#): > > This assumes that people will vote for the same party for president as they do for congress. This isn’t necessarily true. Also, I would expect more people to vote for president than for congress, and the extra voters won’t necessarily vote for the party of their representative. You’re right - good point. So we’re both going to be surprised that [this site](http://www.polidata.org/prcd/default.htm) shows that 228 districts went for Bush, 207 for Gore. Bush won 30 states, so the vote would have been 288 to 247 for Bush. By the way, while googling, I stumbled across [this fascinating site](http://www.uselectionatlas.org/), with lots of cool maps and stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Julius\_Henry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8797f3/32.png) [@Julius\_Henry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Julius_Henry)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2004, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-winner-take-all-electoral-college/254084/6 "2004-07-10T04:49:55Z")
> [@Jeff Lichtman](#): > > I want to determine how it would have affected the 2000 presidential election if the Maine/Nebraska system had been used in all 50 states. Has someone already done this analysis? It was done 4 years ago and is discussed on this very board [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=51625). The link to USA Today from SmackFu (post #6) is still good. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2004, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-winner-take-all-electoral-college/254084/7 "2004-07-10T09:46:57Z")
Thanks Julius- great searching! 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![El\_Zagna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@El\_Zagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Zagna)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2004, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-winner-take-all-electoral-college/254084/8 "2004-07-10T13:06:42Z")
I don’t mean to get all GD on you, but keep in mind that if a proportional approach had been used nation-wide in the 2000 election the campaign strategies would have been vastly different, so such an analysis is pretty meaningless. ---
**Author:** ![muttrox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a8b319/32.png) [@muttrox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muttrox)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2004, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-winner-take-all-electoral-college/254084/9 "2004-07-10T14:13:27Z")
Bnorton beat me to it… it’s worth a lot of time and effort for a candidate to go for New York or California, the potential gain is enormous. If it was more proportional, it would be hardly worth it. (IMO, that would be a good thing, but that’s a separate issue.) ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2004, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-winner-take-all-electoral-college/254084/10 "2004-07-10T17:49:28Z")
> [@muttrox](#): > > Bnorton beat me to it… it’s worth a lot of time and effort for a candidate to go for New York or California, the potential gain is enormous. If it was more proportional, it would be hardly worth it. (IMO, that would be a good thing, but that’s a separate issue.) Under the winner-take-all system candidates spend most of their time not in the largest states, but in states with the narrowest predicted margin. I live in California and have yet to see a campaign ad on TV (except in news analyses). I imagine neither candidate is campaigning in New York, either. If the electoral college represenation were more proportional, the candidates wouldn’t limit their campaigning to swing states (because there wouldn’t be swing states). ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2004, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-winner-take-all-electoral-college/254084/11 "2004-07-11T06:35:39Z")
> [@bnorton](#): > > I don’t mean to get all GD on you, but keep in mind that if a proportional approach had been used nation-wide in the 2000 election the campaign strategies would have been vastly different, so such an analysis is pretty meaningless. ## Good point but Maine and Nebraska don’t elect their Electors proportionally. They are elected by congressional district with 2 elected at large. This is a districted system, not a proportional one. Since this isn’t GD I won’t go into the problems of expanding such a system from states with small and relatively homogenous populations to large and diverse states.