Who gets a states electoral votes?
All but two states – Maine and Nebraska – use the winner-take-all system of allocating their electoral votes. In this system, the candidate that receives the most popular votes in a state gets all that state’s electoral votes. The winning candidate does not need to win a majority of the votes, only a plurality. Maine and Nebraska each give two electoral votes to the winner of the statewide popular vote, and distribute their remaining electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote in each of their congressional districts. What Happens if No Candidate Receives a Majority of a State’s Votes? If no candidate gets a majority, then the candidate who has the most votes (called a plurality) wins all of the state’s electoral votes. Colorado’s Amendment 36 Voters in Colorado will vote in the 2004 election whether to switch to a third system – proportional representation – in which the candidates get a number of the state’s nine electoral votes roughly equal to the percentage of the popular vo
