Saturday, August 21, 2004

Maine Vote Splitting

I don't usually pay much attention to Slate.com, but I found this article by Julia Turner on Maine's system of splitting electoral votes. This is the type of system that Amendment 36 backers propose. However, Turner doesn't think this is such a good idea:

In any event, some political reformers think we should be taking more of our cues from Maine. Proponents of revamping the Electoral College have suggested that every state adopt Maine's peculiar electoral vote-splitting scheme. At first, I thought this was a brilliant idea. Although vote-splitting sounds bizarre, it actually makes a lot of senseā€”it's a thoughtful way to ensure that the electoral votes Maine casts more closely reflect the wishes of its people. But then I found this Web site, on which sports statistics guru Jeff Sagarin figured out how the 2000 presidential election would have been decided if all states used the Maine method. Turns out Gore would have been whupped. Ah well. Perhaps there's a better way.

The Jeff Sagarin website she refers to is linked here.

So, we have a blatantly liberal columnist saying that this isn't such a good idea, if it is applied to all states and everyone used the same system, because the 2000 election wouldn't have been close. But if applied to certain purported battleground states, like Colorado (I don't think it will even be close), it might make some sense.

Just provides more evidence that the liberals only want voting reform if it benefits them.