WHEN IT COMES TO U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

IS IT TRUE THAT 78 MILLION OF US DO NOT EXIST?

When voting for President, the United States does not use a system of "l person, l vote". Instead, in each state some large number of people is allocated a single "Electoral College" vote.

Each state's Electoral College representation is the same as its representation in the bicameral Congress. Specifically, each state receives
- 2 electors, 1 for each Senator from the state, plus
- 1 elector per House district in the state.
The total number of electors is 538: 100 "Senate" electors plus 435 "House" electors plus 3 electors for Washington D.C.

A problem with this system of representation is that the number of people per electoral vote varies greatly from state to state. In California there is 1 electoral vote for every 615,000 people; in Wyoming, there is 1 electoral vote for every 164,000 people. See the table below.

Assume that an equal percentage of people actually does vote in each state. It follows that in presidential elections a voter in California weighs only 0.27 as much (164/615) as a voter in Wyoming, in his or her electoral contribution.

California and Wyoming illustrate the extremes, but this electoral college system down-weights the largest states generally: a voter in the 25 most populous states weighs only 0.67 as much (378/566) as a voter in the 25 least populous states plus Washington D.C.

Some fail to grasp the significance of this down-weighting. Decreasing the weight of each voter in the 25 most populous states has the same effect as giving full weight to some of those voters but denying the existence of the others. In the Electoral College the result would be the same: down-weighting a population by a fraction has the same effect as pretending that some number of people does not exist.

Specifically, by decreasing the weight of persons in the 25 most populous states such that they weigh only 0.67 as much, their effective population is reduced to 157 million, one-third less than the 235 million people in those states: i.e. in the Electoral College, it is as though 78 million of these people do not exist.

Looked at in this way, the 21 most populous states suffer a population loss of 64.5 million people. That number is greater than the total population in the other 29 states plus Washington D.C., which is only 63.7 million people:

If the United States' government decided that in presidential elections, it was going to pretend that all the people in the 29 states with the smallest populations plus Washington D.C. do not exist, I believe the public would not stand for it. Yet, when the government pretends that a greater number of people does not exist in the 21 most populous states, does anybody care?

Technically, this problem could be solved by dropping the 2 senatorial electors per state, since the number of people per House district is roughly equal in all states. See the last column of the table below. The political likelihood of such a solution is another matter.

                                                D=Democrat  
                                   Electoral    R=Republican   Popn/    Popn/
                     Population      Votes     Senate  House Electoral  House 
     State           census 2000  81-90 01-10    D:R    D:R    Vote     Vote
  01 California       33,871,648    47    55     2:0   33:20  615848   639087
  02 Texas            20,851,820    29    34     0:2   16:16  613288   651619
  03 New York         18,976,457    36    31     2:0   19:10  612144   654360
  04 Florida          15,982,378    21    27     2:0    7:18  591939   639295
  05 Illinois         12,419,293    24    21     1:1    9:10  591395   653647
  06 Pennsylvania     12,281,054    25    21     0:2    7:12  584812   646371
  07 Ohio             11,353,140    23    20     0:2    6:12  567657   630730
  08 Michigan          9,938,444    20    17     2:0    6:9   584614   662562
  09 New Jersey        8,414,350    16    15     2:0    7:6   560957   647257
  10 Georgia           8,186,453    12    15     1:1    5:8   545763   629727
  11 North Carolina    8,049,313    13    15     1:1    6:7   536621   619177
  12 Virginia          7,078,515    12    13     0:2    3:8   544501   643501
  13 Massachusetts     6,349,097    13    12     2:0   10:0   529091   634909
  14 Indiana           6,080,485    12    11     1:1    3:6   552771   675609
  15 Washington        5,894,121    10    11     2:0    6:3   538829   654902
  16 Tennessee         5,689,283    11    11     0:2    5:4   517208   632142
  17 Missouri          5,595,211    11    11     0:2    4:5   508656   621690
  18 Wisconsin         5,363,675    11    10     2:0    4:4   536368   670459
  19 Maryland          5,296,486    10    10     2:0    6:2   529649   662060
  20 Arizona           5,130,632     7    10     0:2    2:6   513063   641329
  21 Minnesota         4,919,479    10    10     1:1    4:4   491948   614934
  22 Louisiana         4,468,976    10     9     2:0    3:4   496553   638425
  23 Alabama           4,447,100     9     9     0:2    2:5   494122   635300
  24 Colorado          4,301,261     8     9     0:2    2:5   477918   614465
  25 Kentucky          4,041,769     9     8     0:2    2:4   505221   673628
  26 South Carolina    4,012,012     8     8     1:1    2:4   501502   668668
  27 Oklahoma          3,450,654     8     7     0:2    1:4   492951   690130
  28 Oregon            3,421,399     7     7     1:1    4:1   488771   684279
  29 Connecticut       3,405,565     8     7     2:0    2:3   486509   684279
  30 Iowa              2,926,324     8     7     1:1    1:4   418046   585264
  31 Mississippi       2,844,658     7     6     0:2    2:2   474110   711164
  32 Kansas            2,688,418     7     6     0:2    1:3   448070   672104
  33 Arkansas          2,673,400     6     6     2:0    3:1   445567   668350
  34 Utah              2,233,169     5     5     0:2    1:2   446634   744389
  35 Nevada            1,998,257     4     5     1:1    1:2   399651   666085
  36 New Mexico        1,819,046     5     5     1:1    1:2   363809   606348
  37 West Virginia     1,808,344     6     5     2:0    2:1   361167   602781
  38 Nebraska          1,711,263     5     5     1:1    0:3   342253   570421
  39 Idaho             1,293,953     4     4     0:2    0:2   323488   646976
  40 Maine             1,274,923     4     4     0:2    2:0   318731   637461
  41 New Hampshire     1,235,786     4     4     0:2    0:2   308947   617893
  42 Hawaii            1,211,537     4     4     2:0    2:0   302884   605768
  43 Rhode Island      1,048,319     4     4     1:1    2:0   262080   524195
  44 Montana             904,433     4     3     1:1    0:1   301478   904433
  45 Delaware            783,600     3     3     2:0    0:1   261200   783600
  46 South Dakota        754,844     3     3     2:0    1:0   251615   754844
  47 North Dakota        642,200     3     3     2:0    1:0   214067   642200
  48 Alaska              626,932     3     3     0:2    0:1   208977   626932
  49 Vermont             608,827     3     3   1:1:0* 1:0:0*  202942   608827
  50 Wyoming             493,782     3     3     0:2    0:1   164594   493782
     D.C.                563,384     3     3     0:0    0:0   187795   -
  
  * Vermont has 1 Independent in both the Senate and the House