Surprising numbers regarding the Electoral College.

[Captain Stern]

Well, surprising to me, anyway.

As we all know, donald trump 'won' the last election in the electoral college 306 to 232 (I gave the 7 faithless votes to the winner of the states in which they were cast in.) That's 56.9% of the electoral vote.

We also know that Clinton won the popular vote by two percentage points.

As things stand, there are a total of 538 electoral votes cast. This number comes from the fact that every state is allocated the amount of electoral votes equivalent to the sum of its Representatives and Senators. The District of Columbia receives the same amount of electoral votes as the smallest state (3).

Every state is represented equally in the Senate, with two Senators each. The number of Representatives each state receives is supposed to be proportional to their relative populations, but it's really not, because the total number of House members is capped at 435, and since the state with the lowest population has to receive at least one rep, the number of reps that the larger states get tends to be depressed.

For example:

In the last census (2010) Wyoming had a population of 563,767, and they received one Representative. California had a population of 37,252,895, and received 53 Representatives.

However if we were to say that every 563,767 citizens should be represented by one member in the House, then California should receive 66 ( 37,252,895/563,767) Representatives...not 53.

So, I got curious how the House would look if we didn't cap it at 435, and we assigned Representatives to every group of 563,767 people. I also wanted to see how the last election would have looked if it had been conducted with this system.

With this system, the new House would have 548 members instead of 435. The new electoral college would have 650 electors (548 + 102). And trump would have won the election 369 to 281. His percentage of electoral votes would have essentially remained unchanged. This surprised me.

I then decided to see what would happen in the last election if we hadn't assigned electoral votes based on the total of Representatives and Senators, but assigned them based only on the number of Representatives. This would reduce the amount of electoral votes to 436 (538 - 102). trump still would have won 246-190..again almost the same percentage. Again, I found this surprising.

Then I tried redoing the election with the increased number of Representatives and getting rid of electoral votes for Senators. This put the electoral college at 548. trump would have still won 309-239, and still not gotten a significantly smaller percentage of the total. I actually found this sort of stunning.

I thought for sure that Clinton would have won the last election using the final method, and I would have bet that she would have won it with at least one of the other two.

In any case, I don't think this really proves anything or disproves anything. I just found it interesting.

[Moostache]

1. It proves that the Electoral College is DESIGNED to suppress the majority.

Its no secret that the Electoral College exists only because the slavery issue drove it to be included at all. The moral and correct thing to do would have been upon reconstruction to have eliminated the damn thing THEN at least for the Presidency.

The President is the lone national position that should be selected through the popular vote total. Senators and Representatives are rightfully selected at the state and district levels as that is their (theoretical) constituency. POTUS is the leader of the entire government, the titular head of state and commander in chief and as such, the position SHOULD be elected by the will of the majority of the voters in the nation - NOT the majority of overrepresented minority states.

[zipplewrath]

2. Winner take all

This is the issue with winner takes all. Once you get 50.1% of the vote (actually just the plurality) you get all the EC votes (except for like 2 states). So you can carry California by 20%, and you get the same number of votes as if you carried it by 2%. Likewise, you can win Wyoming by 0.1% and you get all the EC votes.

HRC's margin in the popular vote can be attributed largely to her major win in California. Her loss in the EC can be attributed to about 77,000 votes in three states.

This was intentional. The Constitution originally envisioned a president that required broad support across the country, not just wildly popular in one region. I think though it has ultimately backfired which is why we have expressions like "the solid south" and the "blue wall" because we still see presidents winning predominately on the strength of a particular region or set of states. It's why one sees the race boiling down to some where between 8 and 15 "battleground" states. And of course the primary system has given states like Iowa and New Hampshire outsized influence on the whole process.

[genxlib]

3. Spot on

Amidst all the talk of changing the EC, I find most of it really impossible. Even the versions that seem possible seem really problematic.

I think the right way to do it would be to demand that every state do away with winner take all and require that the EC votes be proportioned. It would keep the EC as required by the Constitution while getting a much closer approximation to the popular vote. It wouldn't be a perfect approximation but would definitely be closer.

Of course there are many reasons it won't happen but this would be my best solution short of changing the constitution.

[zipplewrath]

7. It would make things worse

Actually, winner take all is about the only balance to the distortion that is rapidly developing. With the population rapidly concentrating itself into about 15 states, winner take all is about the only way of balancing the distortions. Large states are the only ones that will significantly be affected by removing winner take all. To get an EC vote in Wyoming, you need to get 1/3rd of the vote. But to get an EC vote in California, you only need 1/53rd.

[genxlib]

12. Have to disagree

The skew you mention is real but it's effect is diminished by this distribution. The math works out that the smaller the unit you break it down into, the closer it approximates a popular vote.

I downloaded all the info and analyzed it. It matters how you do the rounding and how you handle the extraneous percentages of third party candidates. But in my analysis of the two most obvious ways to calculate it, Clinton wins. If all the EC's are awarded to the two top candidates then Clinton wins 270 to 268. The difference between her PV margin of 2% and this margin of .4% is where your skew comes in. But it still comes a lot closer to matching the correct outcome of most votes win.

Look at it this way. Clinton loses 19 votes in California and 11 in NY due to her percentage but she gains in all the states she barely lost in 17 in TX, 14 in FL, 10 in PA, 8 in MI, etc. Generally specking, she was winning by a wide margin in her big states, while losing by narrow margins in many others large states. It would be a net gain for her.

If you don't believe it, just PM me and i will send you a spreadsheet.

[zipplewrath]

14. Oh, I believe you

I'm mostly looking forward in time to when our distribution is much worse. Of course I'm presuming that the distribution will have a more severe political bias as well. And I do worry about the impact of third party candidates.

[genxlib]

17. It is true that trends for urbanization and self separation are likely going to make things worse

But they are going to make them worse for the Electoral College as well.

I would rather have an increasing distortion in a relatively fair system than an increasing distortion in a system that is already warped to the point of being broken.

The real long term answer is the popular vote but there are structural hindrances in place that make it essentially impossible to change the Constitution. Primarily because it would require the agreement of people who benefit from the warped system.

To a lesser degree, ranked choice voting would make third party candidates a lot less of a problem. In some ways it would increase their influence by letting people truly show support for them while not skewing the ultimate outcome.

[Thunderbeast]

4. It was designed to give small rural (slave) states disproportional power

There was no other way to bring small states into the country.

The Constitution has several provisions to protect slavery.

[tritsofme]

6. Virginia was the most populous state, North Carolina was 3 or 4

Rhode Island being the least populous state of the early republic.

This narrative might need a little work...

[onenote]

10. Agrarian yes. Small no.

The slave states were agrarian, but they weren't small relative to the non-slave states. By population, three of the four largest states (out of the first 13) were slave states (VA, NC, and SC). Two of the smallest (by population) states were Delaware and Rhode Island. Overall, the combined population of the slave states at the time the Constitution was ratified was slightly greater than the combined population of the non-slave states.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

5. This is the way it's been since the founding of the Republic.

No one should be surprised at this point.

If we went to a purely popular vote I believe it would give candidates incentive to campaign in every possible state they can get to, because then each vote really would count.

[zipplewrath]

8. Probably not

I'm no political operative, but I suspect that it would concentrate the campaigning in the larger urban areas. Are you going to spend an hour in Wyoming trying to pick up an extra 3000 votes, or are you going to spend that hour in NYC where you might pick up 30,000?

[sl8]

9. Regarding the part about larger states being underrepresented in the House

They are underrepresented if you compare them with Wyoming (1 Representative per 568,300).

They are overrepresented when compared to Montana (1 per 994,416) or Delaware (1 per 900,877).

If you compare the 5 most populous states with the average state population per Representative (712,973), you'll see that they are all slightly overrepresented.

Of course, more populous states will tend to stay closer to the average than the less populous ones.


https://www.thegreenpapers.com/Census10/FedRep.phtml?sort=Popu#table
2012 - 2020 Federal Representation by People per House Seat, Senate Seat, and Electors

[genxlib]

13. Representation in the House has not really been the issue

It is the Senate that is really warped when it comes to over-representation. Added with the relative power of a Senator (1/100 versus 1/435), it really gives the sub-million states a lot of power.

[zipplewrath]

16. The fatal flaw

I am coming to believe that the senate is the fatal flaw in our constitution. It can't be changed, and it is going to give a huge amount of power to a fairly small percentage of our population. Democracies can't long last in that condition. It leads in essence to the creation of "ruling class".

[zipplewrath]

15. EC includes senators

Wyoming has 3 EC votes. That's what causes the skew.

[MarvinGardens]

11. Thank you for running the numbers!

Some of those are surprising to me as well. I have been saying we should increase the size of the house, for the EC and for other reasons. I still support doing so, but clearly it is no panacea for the EC.