Poll: Pennsylvania voters want to keep winner-take-all electoral system

A majority of Pennsylvania voters want the state to keep its winner-take-all electoral system rather than switch to awarding electoral votes based on which candidate takes each congressional district.

According to the Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday, 52 percent of Keystone state voters back the winner-take-all system, while 40 percent want to switch to the winner by majority-of-districts system proposed by Pennsylvania Republicans.

The poll also found that voters, by 57 percent to 32 percent, say that Pennsylvania Republicans want to switch away from the winner-take-all system to help Republican presidential candidates instead of to improve how the state elects candidates.

Broken down by party lines, 63 percent of Democrats and 53 percent of Independent voters want to keep the winner-take-all system. Thirty percent of Democrats and 43 percent of Independents prefer the new system. Republicans are actually almost perfectly split on changing the system: according to Quinnipiac, 44 percent want to change it and 48 percent do not.

"Overall, most Pennsylvanians think the proposal is being presented to give partisan advantage to Republicans," Quinnipiac University Polling Institute assistant director Tim Malloy said in a statement. "By large margins, Democrats and independent voters are not buying that 'will of the voters' argument."

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) and Pennsylvania Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R) have been leading the push to switch to the new winner-by-majority-of-districts system. Democrats have blasted it as a partisan move to help Republicans win the state in 2012.