Actually, Maine and Nebraska do NOT apportion electoral college seats in a proportional way. Instead of statewide winner-take-all (as in all other states), they use plurality winner-take-all in each congressional district within the state, with the remaining two seats going to the statewide plurality winner. The results COULD be roughly proportional or even LESS proportional than statewide winner-take-all by happenstance of how supporters of various candidates are distributed around the state.
However, with true proportional distribution of electors, there is also the increased likelihood of no majority winner in the electoral college, which throws the election of president to the House of Representatives, with one vote for each state (my tiny state of Vermont delegation gets one vote and the massive state of California delegation gets one vote)...which is even LESS proportional than the electoral college makeup. Terry Bouricius ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kathy Dopp" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <election-methods@lists.electorama.com> Sent: Friday, October 17, 2008 10:11 PM Subject: Re: [EM] Making a Bad Thing Worse Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2008 02:17:14 +0100 > From: "Raph Frank" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: [EM] Making a Bad Thing Worse > The Electoral College should meet and then make its decision. > > This is compounded by the fact that all states have switched to winner > takes all methods of selecting the electors, so it is double broken. > That is not quite true. There are two states, Maine and one other (I forget which) that proportionally split their electoral votes. Recently there was an effort by Republicans to have CA split its electoral votes proportionally - but Dems fought it because it would have virtually guaranteed that Republicans win the Presidential contest. Kathy ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info