In 2000, then Vice-President Gore defeated then Texas Governor and Republican Presidential nominee George Bush in Maine, 49% to 44%.  But unlike in Iowa and Minnesota where Mr. Gore won by slimmer margins and still captured each of the states’ electoral votes, in Maine he was awarded the support of only six of ten electors.

Having electoral votes awarded to the winner of the statewide popular vote and individually by district—as they are in Maine and Nebraska—started in Maine in 1972 after reformers argued that the winner-take-all system did not accurately represent the choices of voters.  In 1992, Nebraska passed its own amendment to the state constitution and followed suit, though Nebraska’s five electoral votes would never be split until President-elect Obama captured one in 2008.

It has really been an incredible and exciting year on so many levels it defies description. Easily one of the most important developments shaping the outcome of the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election was the financial collapse on Wall Street and the subsequent outrage by the American People. In every exit poll conducted across the country on election day, the economy was the number one issue on voters’ minds. But the campaign did not start out this way. Two years ago, for many the only issue that mattered was the war in Iraq, and it seemed a foregone conclusion that this November the face-off was destined to be between Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton.

During the course of the two-year campaign process, the United States electorate has been energized like never before with the potential candidacy of Hillary Clinton and the candidacies of “celebrity” politicians like Barack Obama and Sarah Palin. And for those reasons, when the financial collapse took place, literally millions of outraged Americans were watching as the President and Congress were debating what to do and designing the unprecedented $700 Billion Bailout Package.