WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 (UPI) — Several Republican-dominant states may alter the way electoral votes are allocated in hopes of tipping the balance of power to the GOP, officials say.
Rather than the winner-take-all process used in most states, the proposed changes would apportion electoral votes by congressional district, The Washington Post reported Thursday.
Virginia, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania came up with the proposals after voters in those heavily Republican states voted for Obama in the last two presidential elections.
In Pennsylvania, the Republican state Senate majority leader plans to introduce a bill that would allocate electoral votes based on the percentage of popular vote.
Under that proposal, President Obama, who won the state with 52 percent of the vote, would have received 12 votes and Romney eight.
Nebraska and Maine already divide electoral votes by district, awarding the overall winner two extra.
The bills have drawn objections from Democratic state legislators. Virginia state Sen. Donald M. McEachin called his state’s proposals “sore-loser bills.”
Mike Tate, chairman of the Democratic Party in Wisconsin called the bills “an audacious attempt to rig the system.”
Republicans “can’t appeal to a majority of voters, whether it’s here in Wisconsin or Michigan or the rest of the Midwest, so they are undermining a majority of voters,” he said.
Copyright 2013 United Press International, Inc. (UPI).
