Will PA be the next Nebraska/Maine?

[A18]

I think he just means vote-splitting. Though this would just completely remove PA's relevance in presidential elections (in a close election, you're going to get what, 1 more vote than your opponent?). They should do a CD split.

[A18]

The one good thing about the proportional allotment proposal is that it would give third parties a chance of actually getting an electoral vote or two, though that would still be hard. They'd have to get 5% of the vote.

[A18]

There would be, I imagine, swing districts that would get plenty of attention.

[A18]

I don't see why any state would split its electoral votes in the absence of a broad national move in the same direction.

I have grave misgivings about different states apportioning their votes in different ways.  So far, there's been no impact from Nebraska and Maine apportioning their votes by CD, but with bigger, less monolithic states, this could produce real problems if some states are winner take all, and others divide their electoral votes.

This could ignite an ugly round of underhanded partisan manipulation, with Republicans trying to get states like New York to do this, while Democrats go after states like Colorado (oh, I forgot, they already did this).

I think we should leave well enough alone.

That's what I've been thinking. The gerrymandering would be endless, and the legal challenges would be non-stop on both sides.

Respectfully, gerrymandering is endless and legal challenges are nonstop on both sides.

But why open up whole new avenues?  The potential for trouble is endless, if you consider what could happen if certain major states are splitting their votes and others are not.  Some doors are best left closed, especially in the bitter partisan atmosphere that pervades today.

Republicans can't get New York to do this. They can only get states they control to do this.

Texas and New York should switch one day. California and the Solid South another day. Minnesota and Iowa are already close, so they can just split. Take it in steps.

[A18]

At the end of the day... these electoral vote splitting plans are just politically, well, stupid for the state in question.

PA is a big prize at 21 EVS and it was within 2.5% in 2004.

 It got I think 40 Presidential visits from Bush, probably not too far from 40 from Kerry, zillions of dollars in ad money and tons of policy and program attention...

Does anybody think PA's 21 EVS are not "in the room" when the Military Base Closing Commission is meeting or the Interstate Highway fund is being dished out?

If the "prize" in PA was to shift the count fron 12-9 (or whatever it is) to 11-10 or 13-8, does anybody think PA would get this sort of attention?

Salazar (D), the new Dem Senator for Colorado won a lot of respect from me in 2004 when he said that the Colorado EV split idea was just stupid partisan non-sense.

Splitting EVs is just plain silly if you are a big state...

Some states, such as California, would get more attention. Right now they just vote Democrat, period, so they're ignored.