Poll: Pa voters oppose GOP electoral college proposal
A new poll shows voters overall reject a proposal to change the way Pennsylvania casts its electoral college votes. By a margin of 52-40 Pennsylvania voters said they want to see the state continue the state's current winnter-take-all system rather than switch to a structure that would award votes based on congressional district.
Poll: Pa voters oppose GOP electoral college proposal
A new poll shows voters overall reject a proposal to change the way Pennsylvania casts its electoral college votes.
By a margin of 52-40 Pennsylvania voters said they want to see the state continue the state's current winner-take-all system rather than switch to a structure that would award votes based on congressional district.
But Republicans, by a slim (48-44) margin, favor the district proposal being advanced by Senate Majority leader Dominic Pileggi (R., Delaware) and Gov. Corbett. Democrats oppose the plan 63-30, while independents are 53-43 against it.
The Quinnipiac University poll results reflect a belief that the proposal is being driven by political ends.
By a 57-32 percent margin, voters said “Republicans in the State Legislature want to switch to a district-by-district count to help Republican presidential candidates, rather than to better reflect the will of the voters."
The poll also found that - by a 51-38 margin - voters said the switch will "diminish Pennsylvania’s importance as a key presidential swing state."
“Pennsylvania voters say stick to the winner-take-all formula used in most states: Whoever gets the most popular votes, wins all of the state’s Electoral College votes,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
“Democrats especially are opposed, while independent voters side with them. Strangely, Republicans are not strongly in favor of the change,” Malloy said. “Pennsylvania voters think abandoning the traditional Electoral College formula would reduce the state’s swing state clout."
The poll also found among GOP voters that three Republican presidential candidates are locked in a tight race in Pennsylvania, with Mitt Romney at 18 percent, Rick Perry at 16 percent and Rick Santorum at 12 percent.
Nineteen percent of GOP were undecided.
One notable vote-getter in the presidential poll was former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who has not even announced her candidacy. She was at 8 percent.
In a matchup with President Barack Obama, Romney gets 43 percent to Obama's 45 percent - a tie and virtually unchanged from the August 2 Quinnipiac University poll. President Obama tops Perry 46 – 40 percent and Obama beats Santorum 45 – 42 percent, compared to 45 – 43 percent.
The survey of 1,370 registered voters was conducted from Sept. 21 to Sept. 26. It has a margin-of-error rate of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points.
The poll comes as a rising bipartisan tide emerges against the idea. On Monday 11 of the 12 members of the state's Republican congressional delegation traveled to Harrisburg to meet with Senate and House leaders to discuss the electoral college plan and a proposal to make Voter ID mandatory at the polls. According to the online news service Capitolwire, the entire delegation told the state leaders they opposed both initiatives.
On Tuesday, the state Senate's Philadelphia delegation held a press conference to voice its collective opposition, saying it appeared to them the plan is trying to disenfranchise Philadelphians and others living in urban areas.
They called the proposal a “blatant attempt to gerrymander votes during presidential election cycles."
“We continuously tell people ‘Your vote counts,’ but the Republican leadership in the House and Senate are making a blatant attempt to discourage voting in typically Democratic urban areas,” saidSen. Shirley Kitchen (D-Phila.), chair of the Senate Philadelphia Delegation. “What they are saying to my constituents and people living in cities is that their vote should not count equally."
They called on Gov. Corbett to clarify remarks he made on the Dom Giordano show recently when he said the state "consists of five or six distinct political regions, and he suggested they have "not been represented because of the huge turnout in Philadelphia."
"He's supposed to represent the whole state," said Sen. Anthony Williams (D., Phila.)
The Senate has scheduled hearings on the electorial college plan on Oct. 4.
Click herefor Philly.com's politics page.
It shows the thinking of the koolade drinking sheep led voters....Unable to have their individual voices heard, they fall back on pary rhetoric and/or union sound bytes....Don't they get it....Want to be heard, want to register your voice for or against a candidate....then don't let the politicans take over your feelings...Eliminate the control the bogus politicians (both parties) hae taken from you....— nuggett- "He's supposed to represent the whole state," said Sen. Anthony Williams (D., Phila.)
So when Ed Rendell took the entire state's Federal highway money and dumped it into SEPTA for 5 years, was he representing the entire state?— RBA 
Comment removed.- If there was a general consensus across PA this would make no sense. But the fact that there are two PA's that differ greatly the cities that book end the state and everything else in between it makes total sense. Simple math states a democrat president is far more likely to carry PA just because of the democratic vote in the cites. How does that represent the rest of the state.— chham57
- Corbett's explanation makes no sense at all. He's saying that the voters that vote for candidates that lose elections are not being heard so we need a system where the votes of the voters who vote for the candidate that won the election should not be counted. We're a STATE not a bunch of unrelated voting districts. The candidate who gets the most votes in the state should get the delegates. How about all of the voters in the state who didn't vote for Corbett? Can we have multiple governors with power delegated proportionally?— MikeP
- chham57, a national election should represent the will of all of the voters. If we change the election process for national elections to be based on the popular vote, fine. The approach that Corbett is proposing makes PA irrelevant. The urban voting districts delivery X amount of delegates to the Dems and the rest of the state delivers X to the Republicans. The net result is that a candidate gets 1 or 2 delegates. Presidential candidates won’t even campaign in PA. PA has gone Republican in the past.— MikeP
- The Republicans would only propose this change to the Electoral College voting process if they were sure they were going to lose the next Presidential election.— BobSG
- Here's a crazy idea, tie the electoral college votes to people instead of geographic or political regions. This way an electoral college vote will 'represent' a specific amount of people. Maybe this idea of 'representative' government will bubble up to the Federal level. Oh wait, it already did.
Pa Population:12,702,379(2010)
Electoral Vote:21
People/Vote:604,875
Philadelphia Population:1,526,006(2010)
Electoral Votes:~3 (2.522)
% of total:14%
How's that work for everyone?— myawesomebike - The winner-take-all system is unfair to everyone. As a democrat I'm concerned that Obama may lose in PA next year. It's better to get almost half of the electoral votes than none. Every state should eliminate the winner-take-all system.— serg
- Just another dirty scheme by the Republicans and there corporate masters to prevent a democrat from being elected.— bronski
- You hit the nail on the head. Corbett is a sleazy pol, and becoming an underhanded governor. This is the same sort of trick Tom Delay tried to do in Texas when he was in Congress to increase Republican votes for Congress. He's in jail now for his tricks! — CommonSense in Philly
- Repug-controlled states across the country have been quietly passing laws (through state legislatures) over the last year which make it more difficult for a certain demographic of voters to provide a valid ID. College ID's are no longer a valid voter ID. Yet in this particular instance, the GOP wants EVERYONE to be "represented". EVERY vote should count. Sure. All this latest ploy tells me is that the Repugs feel like PA is slipping away. If Philly would've turned out at all in the midterms, we wouldn't be stuck with this sleazeball of a governor or the corporate hack from Allentown.
— wokmaster - and— nuggett
whatever it takes to defeat obozo— oliver north- He stands a good chance on winning next year if he runs against Romney,Perry, Cain, Gingrich, Bachmann, Santorum, Huntsman, Paul, Palin....and any other loser the republicans can put up. If Obama does win again, maybe you will accompany Limbaugh and move to Guatemala with him! — CommonSense in Philly
