If Pennsylvania had passed the Maine/Nebraska plan

[pbrower2a]

More states should adopt electoral vote allocation by CD. Makes things interesting.

Nebraska and Maine have some justification because the two districts are different.

Gerrymandered districts intended to alter the partisan basis of representation in Congress could be construed to distort the popular vote. Congressional districts are usually seen as arbitrary entities with no other legal significance.

[pbrower2a]

If a state is to divide its electoral votes and have more than 5, then:

1. Let each other electoral vote represent a share of the vote. Assign two to the winner of the plurality. Such reflects the Senate seats, and we can call those electoral votes the 'Senatorial' votes.  There must be an incentive for winning the plurality.

2. Votes for independent or third-party candidates can be divided into the total vote to determine whether any independent or third-party nominee gets enough votes to win a full share. If none, then all independent and third-party votes within that state shall be ignored for the second round of apportioning.

3. The second-place candidate shall get enough electoral votes in accordance with the shares of the popular vote. For example, a nominee who gets 46.28% of the two-main-party vote in a state with twelve electoral votes shall get four full electoral votes representing 40% of the popular vote. No partial vote shall be assigned.

4. The winner of the popular vote gets the rest.

5. Whoever gets an absolute majority of votes in the state gets the rest. Thus a winner in a state with twelve electoral votes who gets 53.72% of the popular vote will get six votes from the apportionment of non-Senatorial votes and of course the two Senatorial votes.  

Advantages:

1. It recognizes third-party nominees who get significant votes in any state.

2. It makes relevant the significant minorities (Hispanics and blacks in Texas; agrarian interests in Illinois) whose votes for President are usually ignored because they are inaccessible in the national contest in statewide winner-take-all contests. Southern blacks usually get stepped on in Presidential politics,  and such distorts the political process.

3. In a true two-way race one gets less chance of a landslide.

4. Gerrymandering to set up Congressional districts to distort the popular vote has no relevance in the Presidential election. Gerrymandered districts that would distort the Presidential vote would not pass Constitutional muster. the situation in which D-leaning cities like Lansing, East Lansing, Kalamazoo, and Grand Rapids are diluted with R-leaning rural areas (I know Michigan much better than I know Pennsylvania, and the GOP in state legislatures did much the same in Michigan as in Pennsylvania) so that the Democrats have a few 70D-30R districts and lots of 53R-47D districts. Distortion of the vote in any state to fit some artifice violates the Constitutional emand for one man-one vote.  

5. Presidential elections would be closer to majority rule. There would be less likelihood of one state's total being decided by a handful of votes ultimately deciding the election. Thus Florida 2000 becomes much less likely

Disadvantages:

1. In a close election, a significant third-party nominee can mess things up.  For this, the existing apportionment (largely winner-take-all) can be used.

2. It is not as clear as the largely winner-take-all system that most states have. The last votes of some states might take months to decide.