Democratic leaders in Maine have threatened to abolish the split-vote system for allocating electoral college delegates if Nebraska Republicans move forward with their plan to do the same, ABC News reported.
Maine and Nebraska are the only states in the country that have allocated some delegates proportionally by electoral district for Congress, which in 2020 allowed President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump to each secure one delegate in states that would have otherwise been won by the other – Biden in Nebraska and Trump in Maine. The structure would likely result in Trump winning one electoral college vote from Maine and Joe Biden winning one from Nebraska this November.
In early April, Trump, Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen and other prominent Republicans approved a legislative measure that would change Nebraska’s allocation of electoral college votes to a winner-take-all system favourable to Trump.
“I am steadfast in my commitment to get winner-take-all over the finish line, thereby honoring our constitutional founding, unifying our state and ending the three-decade-old mistake of allocating Nebraska’s electoral votes differently than all but one other state,” Pillen said.
Maine is the only state in the country that allocates electoral votes by electoral district, make clear, causing Democrats to threaten that they would make a similar change, effectively negating any advantage Trump would gain from the proposed reform.
“If Nebraska’s Republican governor and Republican-controlled Legislature were to change their electoral system this late in the cycle in order to unfairly award Donald Trump an additional electoral vote, I think the Maine Legislature would be compelled to act in order to restore fairness to our country’s electoral system,” House Majority Leader Maureen Terry, a Democrat, said in a statement on Friday.
Earlier this month, Nebraska Republicans failed to muster the necessary 33 votes to break an obstruction in the unicameral Senate. As a result, the proposal failed to advance before the end of the legislative session, effectively burying the bill.
Pillen said in a speech last week that he would not hesitate to call a special session for “other unfinished business,” which he said included Nebraska’s winner-take-all reform, with the key caveat that he would only do so if lawmakers got the votes.
