Pros and Cons of The U.S. Electoral College - Alternative Methods of Choosing Electors - Congressional District Method - Implementation

Implementation

Only Maine and Nebraska use the Congressional District Method for distributing their electoral votes. Maine has four electoral votes, based on its two Representatives and two Senators. Nebraska has two Senators and three Representatives, giving it five electoral votes. Maine began using the Congressional District Method in the election of 1972. Nebraska has used the Congressional District Method since the election of 1992.

The Congressional District Method allows a state the chance to split its electoral votes between multiple candidates. Before 2008, neither Maine nor Nebraska had ever split their electoral votes. Nebraska split its electoral votes for the first time in 2008, giving John McCain its statewide electors and those of two congressional districts, while Barack Obama won the electoral vote of Nebraska's 2nd congressional district. Following the 2008 split, some Nebraska Republicans made efforts to discard the Congressional District Method and return to the winner-takes-all system. In January 2010, a bill was introduced in the Nebraska legislature to revert to a winner-take-all system; the bill died in committee in March 2011. Republicans also passed bills in 1995 and 1997 to eliminate the Congressional District Method in Nebraska, but those bills were vetoed by Democratic Governor Ben Nelson.

In 2010, Republicans in Pennsylvania, who control both houses of the legislature as well as the governorship, put forward a plan to change the state's winner-takes-all system to a Congressional District Method system. Pennsylvania has voted for the Democratic candidate in the five previous presidential elections, so many saw this as an attempt to take away Democratic electoral votes. Barack Obama won Pennsylvania in 2008, but he only won a minority of the state's congressional districts. The plan later lost support.