Maine & Nebraska

Maine and Nebraska both use an alternative method of distributing their electoral votes, called the Congressional District Method. Currently, these two states are the only two in the union that diverge from the traditional winner-take-all method of electoral vote allocation.

Since electors are awarded to each state based on the number of House seats plus the number of Senate seats (always two), the congressional district method allocated one electoral vote to each congressional district. The winner of each district is awarded one electoral vote, and the winner of the state-wide vote is then awarded the state's remaining two electoral votes.

This method has been used in Maine since 1972 and Nebraska since 1996, though since both states have adopted this modification, the statewide winners had consistently swept all of the state's districts, up until the 2008 election between Barack Obama and John McCain. Nebraska gave four of it's electoral votes to Senator McCain, but Senator Obama won a single electoral vote from Nebraska's 2nd congressional district.

Although this method still fails to reach the full ideal of one-person one-vote, it has been proposed as a nationwide reform for the way in which electoral votes are distributed.

Maine Senator John Martin, author of the state's congressional district plan in 1969, endorses the National Popular Vote plan.

See our section on Solutions and the Case for Reform for more information.