Preserve the Constitution

In the current political environment of sharp partisan division, it should be no surprise that both political parties want to leave no stone unturned in trying to win the biggest political prize in 2012, the presidency.

Pennsylvania's Republican legislature and governor plan to change the allocation of Pennsylvania's 20 electoral votes from the traditional popular vote winner-takes-all method. The Republicans propose to instead allocate one electoral vote to the popular vote winner in each of Pennsylvania's 18 congressional districts, with only two electoral votes allocated according to the statewide popular vote. Under this plan, even if President Obama wins statewide in Pennsylvania, as he did in 2008, as many as 12 electoral votes are expected to go to the Republican candidate, with the president carrying only six congressional districts plus the two at-large electoral votes. The candidate who wins the state could easily lose the majority of the state's electoral vote. And this plan may be enacted in other swing states which, like Pennsylvania, voted for President Obama in 2008, but now have Republican legislatures and governors elected in 2010, including Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Florida.

Tuesday in Harrisburg, a state Senate committee is scheduled to hear testimony about the Republican plan. Democrats have been trying to oppose the plan by noting that it would convert Pennsylvania from a targeted swing state to a collection of mostly safe congressional districts to be divided between the political parties. Presidential candidates could more usefully spend their time pursuing larger clumps of electoral votes in other states that retain the traditional winner-take-all method. And Pennsylvania would lose the financial windfall that flows from being a targeted swing state, the candidate campaign road shows, the media coverage, the television advertising.

The Republican plan appears to be legal and permissible under the Constitution. Nebraska and Maine use similar plans already, though both are small states so that the statewide popular vote winner could not lose a majority of the electoral votes as in a large state such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, or Florida.