LINCOLN, Neb. — For at least one more presidential election, this overwhelmingly Republican state will keep a system that allows it to split its Electoral College votes between candidates and parties, after a conservative-backed effort to adopt a winner-take-all system stalled in the Legislature on Tuesday.

Ever since Barack Obama picked off one of Nebraska’s five Electoral College votes in 2008, even as he was trounced statewide, Republicans have sought to undo the quirky system that gives two of Nebraska’s five electoral votes to the candidate with the most support over all and one from each of its three congressional districts to the candidate with the district’s majority.

Practically speaking, the current system gives Democrats a fighting chance to walk away with an electoral vote from this decidedly red state. That vote, which has added value in close presidential elections, would probably come from a Democratic win in the congressional district surrounding Omaha, the state’s urban center.

“It means that now when people start organizing at the neighborhood level, it matters because we can get one of those votes,” said State Senator Ernie Chambers of Omaha, a political independent who led the opposition to the bill.