Political Pollster Terry Madonna says a plan to do away with the winner-take-all system of awarding the state’s presidential electoral votes would eliminate Pennsylvania as a key battleground in national elections. “The point is instead of making Pennsylvania a battleground state, one of the most visited states in modern history, many of us think this will wipe out any interest in having the presidential candidates campaign here because the stakes will only be like North Dakota.”

Under the plan, which State Senate Republican Leader Dominic Pileggi is sponsoring with support from Governor Tom Corbett, it becomes a winner-take-all race in each congressional district, with the statewide winner getting an extra two votes.  Doctor Madonna says history shows it probably would not change the Election Day outcome.

“If you had taken that situation and applied it back through American history to the Civil War, not a single presidential election would have been altered.”

Doctor Madonna, who heads the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin and Marshall College, says the change has no visible support among Republican members of the Pennsylvania congressional delegation, and the ones in the Southeast are adamantly opposed to it.  He appeared Thursday on the WNPV talk program Comment Please by Univest.