A Stitch in Haste

To review: The winner-take-all system of allocating Electoral College votes is not a constitutional mandate; each state legislature decides how to award its votes. Currently two states, Maine and Nebraska, use the District Method, in which each House district’s vote is awarded based on that district’s outcome, with only the two statewide “Senate” votes decided by statewide results.

In actuality, neither state has ever split their Electoral College vote. President Bush briefly campaigned in Maine in 2004 to try to win one of the state’s two district votes, but apparently abandoned the idea.

The math of the 2008 electoral map, however, now seems to make ignoring the District Method impossible:

Obama has opened a campaign office in Omaha to make a play for the electoral vote decided by results in the 2nd Congressional District, which would be essential to victory if the election ended in a 269-269 electoral tie, neither candidate reaching the mandatory 270 electoral votes.

Such a tie could happen, say Nebraska Democrats, if Obama and Republican John McCain were to take most of the states they’re expected to win and if Iowa, Nevada and New Mexico were to switch from Republican to Democrat. Instead of a tie, they say, Obama would win 270-268 if he won the 2nd District.

I still expect an electoral near-landslide for Obama. Nevertheless, the “Omaha Outcome” is certainly plausible.

In any case, this situation, like those in 2000 and 2004, is further proof that adopting the District Method nationwide would be a perfect compromise between the atrocious winner-take-all status quo and the impossible dream (or, I think, nightmare) of abolishing the Electoral College outright. A fifty-state District Method election would be truly nationwide, with each state competitive to some extent. It would make Bush v. Gore lawsuits incalculably rare (a lawsuit for one electoral vote is far less worthwhile than a lawsuit for 22), and would avoid the intractability of pure popular contests.

Regardless of the final totals, a Nebraska split could put the District Method alternative back in the spotlight. And that could only be a good thing.

Previously:
–Electing an Electoral Alternative
–Electoral College Reform: An Update
–On the District Method and Past Elections
–Can There Be a Worse Alternative to the Electoral College?

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