An effort is underway in Colorado to change the winner-take-all system of electoral vote allocation. The proposed Amendment to the state’s constitution would allocate electoral votes proportionally according to the popular vote.

If passed, Amendment 36 would make Colorado the first state to do so, though both Maine and Nebraska have made allocation changes. In those states, the winner of the state wide election is given two electoral votes and the remaining are allocated to the winner of each congressional district.

There have been hundreds of failed attempts to change the Electoral College nationally but observers note that a success in Colorado could have national reverberations.

Click one of the “listen” links for a look at Colorado’s effort to change the electoral vote, and what it means to the rest of the nation.

Guests:

Bill Owens, Governor of Colorado (R)

Ron Tupa, Colorado State Senator (D)

John Harwood, reporter for The Wall Street Journal

Michael Munger, chairman of the Political Science Department at Duke University

Alan Natapoff, physicist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.