As John McCormack reports, some leading Pennsylvania Republicans are apparently flirting with the idea of changing the state’s method of allocating electoral votes from the usual winner-take-all method—the norm since the American Founding—to a method of allocating one electoral vote for each congressional district (with the remaining two votes going to the statewide winner). For a variety of reasons, this idea doesn’t deserve to get off the ground.

First, it would be nakedly partisan. To transform the most must-win competitive Democratic state on the map (it’s been more than 60 years since a Democrat won the presidency without Pennsylvania) into a checkerboard state that neither party could claim would be so transparently political that it would surely do lasting damage to the GOP not only in Pennsylvania but nationwide.