Each state gets 3 EC votes as a base at least. Wyoming for example has 3 EC votes but one one House Rep. So Wyoming isn't making much headway in congress as other states can.

As I've stated above it's not a *perfect* system, but it does work very well to make sure certain states and people don't get completely ignored. I mean New Hampshire is consistently a swing state and yet only has 4 EC votes.
The concept of getting rid of the WTA system is a good one but you have to think of how much it'd actually change the system. Republicans will still have the majority in their usual states and still get more points and vice versa for Democrats. As I believe Trump would've still won the election without WTA because he still had the majority of votes in more states. Because Trump can get 4-3 votes (random example) and still be in the lead. All you do is make the number needed for victory smaller. Hillary would edge out in Cali but still have the same effect as winning all the votes. Trump would edge out in texas but still get more delegates. It doesn't perfectly fix your issue regarding swing states as some states just simply have more votes, and it's better to fight over a state with 30 votes or 11 than one with 3 or 6.

@Pompeii, i would continue to argue that Texas and California are completely ignored. Because they are not seing states.

And this would not be the case if the popular vote mattered, or if states divided their votes proportionally to their population's vote.

Turnout in Ca and Tx was probably lower BECAUSE democrats in Texas know their vote won't make a difference and the same for Republicans in Ca.

Infact, Republicans in Texas are probably less likely to vote since they 'know' their candidate will win anyway...

So overall this system reduces the legitimacy of elections for all but a few key 'swing' states.

And lets be clear, having a two party system is inherently broke to begin with. The details of how it is even more fucked up is interesting, but we're arguing about a system which does not allow or facilitate a diversity of political opinion to be represented.

Republicans are all labeled republicans even if they have more diversity among themsleves than there is difference between some of them and the democrats. (ie some moderate republicans are closer to some moderate democrats than they are to extreme tea-party/conservative christian/libertarian wings of the party - likewise for the democrats and the extreme left...)

@"doesn't perfectly fix your issue regarding swing states as some states just simply have more votes, and it's better to fight over a state with 30 votes or 11 than one with 3 or 6."

You'd see Clinton go to a state like Texas as and try to win some votes, get her to think about what will win over the people of Texas, and in general spend time in all the states.

Voters won over in smaller states still have ~5 times the weight on their votes, so you'd still want to spend proportionally more time there. (ie if it takes 1 hour to convince 10,000 people to vote for you either in Texas of New Hamshire, you're better off with that hour in New Hamshire)

Out of curiosity I decided to crunch the numbers if there wasn't a WTA system for the EC this election. I disregarded 3rd party because it would've made the calculations a bit more tricky, but I rounded properly for either candidate. Trump would've taken home 311 delegates as opposed to Clinton's 264.

Clinton likely still pander to her voter base already existent in Texas though and stick to major cities where she won mostly anyways. Whether she could *actually* change their minds is different and impossible to calculate. The same goes for Trump in California. But it still doesn't change the fact that they'd focus on them as Swing States except now without the WTA system those swing states will permanently be swing states as long as their population stays greater than other states. At least with what we have now it's a tad more fluid. For example Indiana was a swing state in 2008 and ended up going blue for the first time since like 64'.

You also made a point that it's further creating a disparity in weighted votes. It's easier to convince 10-15% of the population of Ohio than it is to convince 10-15% of the population of California, Texas, or New York. Thus it still may be worth sticking with campaigning in today's swing states than the already locked in states.

@Pompeii: I tried the same exercise and had a 270-268 decision for Trump. More importantly, you came out with 575 electoral votes. There are 538.

I figured I accidentally counted some states twice but I didn't care to check.

Did you count third party votes or not round up/down or both?

Yup I see exactly where I did it. New York and Kentucky got counted twice. My bad.

I ended up not counting 3rd party votes, which I regretted when I saw how close the thing was. I didn't bother to go back and redo it with them because I'd already closed the doc and didn't care anymore lol.

Realistically I think you end up with the House electing the President if we don't do a WTA system. So Trump ends up winning with a plurality

I mean, getting rid of the WTA system resolves most of my issues. I still think that all votes should be equal but that's really my only remaining concern. I don't understand the obsession with rewarding states for having small populations and punishing those with large populations.

"But the rural areas are, literally, the backbone of America. Not in any fawning nostalgic sense that the US used to be predominantly rural or anything, but in the sense that our farming and food production, our forestry, our mining and our energy production are all done outside of cities. These areas are **vital** for the success of America and **must** be maintained, which in turn means they need a real voice in government."

The state with the most farms and resource extraction is Texas. Texas is a large state. The most urbanized states are DC (not a state but acts like one in EC), and Rhode Island. Both are focused on a single large city: Washington and Providence Metropolitan Area. Both are small states.

Utah would probably have gone 1 for Clinton, 1 for Evan McMullins, 3 for Trump, and 1 too close to call (based on the 6 votes they did have... probably a second one going to Clinton, but it would depend on how you distributed, if it was actually the way Maine seem to do it - ie based on congressional district, then Trump may still have won all 6... but if it was proportional, then i think Clinton was closer to 2 than Trump was to 4...)

But again, regardless of this result (where i don't actually care who won, i don't have to live in the US) it think it would be a benefit to voters always feeling like their vote actually mattered - and to campaigners, having to go out and try to win over those 'now matters' voters (who are thus more likely to vote).

Well that's the thing the losers will *always* feel like their vote didn't matter because they didn't get what they wanted. I've know quite a bit of whiny republicans the past 8 years and we're getting whiny democrats now. It's best that we have these discussion but we all know the system won't get changed by our politicians who are already so accustomed to it.

"I don't understand the obsession with rewarding states for having small populations and punishing those with large populations."

Categorizing it as an "obsession with rewarding [...] and punishing" is frankly reflective of the fact that you never tried to understand it. No one is doing this.

"The state with the most farms and resource extraction is Texas. Texas is a large state. The most urbanized states are DC (not a state but acts like one in EC), and Rhode Island. Both are focused on a single large city: Washington and Providence Metropolitan Area. Both are small states."

You are cherry picking examples that break the mold. Here's an article on Slate from 2012 discussing agriculture in the US and world. The first map shows the density of farmers per 1000 people. You will see clearly that America's farmland is concentrated in Montana, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, and to a lesser extent Missouri, Iowa and Idaho as well.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/06/a_map_of_farmers_in_the_u_s_and_world_.html

Those states combine to claim 94 EVs. Texas has 29 of them by itself. The remaining 10 states in that list average 6.5 EVs apiece.


Meanwhile, here is a list of the top metropolitan areas in the country:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_areas_of_the_United_States

You'll see that the first 25 metropolitan areas have a population exceeding 160 million people, which gets at the point of the map in the OP (which shows the smallest geographical area that holds half the country). They are from the following states/districts:

New York
New Jersey
Pennsylvania
Connecticut
California
Illinois
Indiana
Wisconsin
District of Columbia
Maryland
Virginia
West Virginia
Massachusetts
Rhode Island
New Hampshire
Texas
Oklahoma
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Michigan
Washington
Arizona
Minnesota
Ohio
Colorado
Oregon
Missouri
North Carolina
South Carolina

These states have a combined 426 electoral votes, for an average of 14.2 EVs per state.

Even with the electoral college's built-in skew toward small populations and away from large populations, the bulk of the college's EVs are still concentrated in the cities. I'm not even sure what point you were trying to make by cherrypicking those examples, but you make my point even more about the danger of rural areas being underrepresented by raising DC as an example. DC is **one city** that is literally treated like a separate state (such as, say, North Dakota) for the purpose of winning the presidency.

That is, broadly, how it should be. Most people live in cities, so the electoral college should still have its EVs skewed toward states with the most/biggest cities. The college just makes sure that it's highly improbable that you can win an election with JUST cities -- meaning your presidential campaign has to deliver something for the rural communities which keep our country running.

The point of my examples were to show that there wasn't a significant correlation between farming/resources and whether the state has a large or small population. This is also shown by your map. The farm states are a mix of large population and small population states. The non-farm states are a mix of large population and small population states. There is a correlation but it is mild as my examples show.

And speaking of cherry picking, your two lists both included Texas but you removed it from the first one when you were doing average EVs per state.

Of course, I don't think this matters because I don't think farmers need to be over represented. I see black people (who mostly reside in cities) being treated unfairly but not farmers.

@PE:
"...but you make my point even more about the danger of rural areas being underrepresented by raising DC as an example. DC is **one city** that is literally treated like a separate state (such as, say, North Dakota) for the purpose of winning the presidency."

The point being made there was that this is a case where EC is exacerbating the influence of cities, contrary to your claim that we need EC to make sure rural communities aren't underrepresented.

I'm not taking a position on this myself, just making sure the flow is clear.

"And speaking of cherry picking, your two lists both included Texas but you removed it from the first one when you were doing average EVs per state."

I quoted the average EVs without Texas to illustrate that Texas was an enormous statistical outlier. With Texas in there it jumps from 6.5 EVs to 8.6 EVs. In both cases, the number is below the average EVs per state nationally (10.76), which ties back to my original claim that these states have lower populations.

And for goodness sake stop using qualitative terms to describe quantitative data. "Small population state" and "large population state" are both meaningless terms. Small and large according to what? You aren't actually saying anything.

"The point being made there was that this is a case where EC is exacerbating the influence of cities, contrary to your claim that we need EC to make sure rural communities aren't underrepresented."

It's not contrary. I cite DC as an example of urban communities being heavily represented in the electoral college despite the skew toward rural communities compared to a flat popular vote. I am saying that cities should be heavily represented in the EC (because most people live there), but that the EC provides necessary protection of representation for rural communities (on whom America depends, but with whom candidates seeking election in a flat popular vote need not concern themselves).

@"It's best that we have these discussion but we all know the system won't get changed by our politicians who are already so accustomed to it."

See that's an odd thing to say, considering it is changing... As there is an agreement from 165 Electoral college votes to cast based on the National Popular Vote (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact )

Though there are claims that this would be unconstitutional: see http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/10/destroying-the-electoral-college-the-anti-federalist-national-popular-vote-scheme

Interesting thing, this doesn't require all the states to agree, or pass an amendment to get done, it only requires 270 electoral college votes...

We'll see if there is any progress.

@ President Eden

"Small population state" and "large population state" are not meaningless terms, they're just not well defined terms. If you want a precise definition here it is: the 25 most populous states are "large population states", the other 25 states are "small population states". Doesn't really change my point.

I conceded that I believe there is a correlation between small states and rural people however I don't think it is a very strong one. Your lists are too arbitrary though. A massive state that is 90% farms could have a single 3 million person city and would therefore show up on your second list. Additionally, there is more to the rural population than farms. If you want to do this proper way there is a simple and unbiased way of doing it. List the fifty states from biggest population to smallest population. Next, list the states from highest urbanization rate to smallest urbanization rate. Then compare the lists. You could even calculate the correlation if you wanted.

But again, that doesn't that much to me. Because, as I said, I don't think rural people need over representation. Is the urban population >80%? Yes it is. But you know what else is high? White population (72%), Christianity (70%), English as native language (80%), married people (58%), positive combined net worth (75%)... You'll have to make the case that rural people absolutely need over representation. The fact that there are more urban people isn't an argument.

The only non-population based argument you had was that rural areas were the literal backbone of the US. That what they provided was essential for the success of the US. You know what is even more essential for the US? The drivers of the economy: the manufacturing, high tech, and service industries. In fact, all poor countries have economies that are focused on resources, rich countries have economies that are focused on 2nd and 3rd level sectors. That's not to say the rural economy isn't important. It is. But so is the economy of all the other economic sectors.

And I'll just say this: what specific legislation or actions are being done or could be done to hurt rural people and/or the rural economy? And how is this different than what could be done to other groups of people and/or other economic sectors?

@PE

So what do you think? Why are rural people more important than other minority populations?