Matthew Yglesias » Will Your Vote Matter?

Oct 28th, 2008 at 4:22 pm

Will Your Vote Matter?

Almost certainly not, of course. But Andrew Gelman has posted a chart showing some interesting calculations about how likely your vote is to be decisive in any particular state:

As you can see, the votes of a privileged few in New Mexico, New Hampshire, Colorado, and Virginia are being given much more power than the rest of us. It’s not the greatest injustice in the world, but it’s not nothing. We need the National Popular Vote to end these problems. If you live outside the privileged four states, consider sending this chart and a link to the NPV website to your state senator and state rep. The power to claim equal rights is in our hands.

Comments
77

77 Responses to “Will Your Vote Matter?”

sarah Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
why do you favor NPV over congressional based electoral college? we still need an electoral firewall considering all the voter irregularities that exist nationwide. otherwise we’ll recount thousands of contested elections. The EC keeps us in check because in our very partisan country with very f-ed up elections the margin of error is often higher than the vote difference between candidates.

btw it just so happens these are the tipping point states in this election that fall at the 270 line. notice you don’t see ohio or florida as being as critical this year.
dannity Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Are you trying to suppress the votes of your readers Matt?
Al Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Those lucky duckies in New Mexico! They have a 1.5*10^-7 chance that their vote matters, whereas I, unfortunately, only have a 0.1*10^-7 chance. I am going to have to get right on that.
bob mcmanus Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
the votes of a privileged few in New Mexico, New Hampshire, Colorado, and Virginia are being given much more power than the rest of us>/i>

In the Presidential Election. The people who live in Cal or Tx, such as myself, get all the benefits of a relatively larger population, including the Congressional representation.
Cal, TX, or NY are not exactly powerless overall, and oppressed by NV and Montana.

I certainly would not move to NH just to get a fractionally greater input into the Presidential race. Can I take 5 Congresspersons with me?

I think it might be an injustice if the large pop states got to increase their dominance with an end to the electoral college.
tristero Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
My mother, and probably my father, were befuddled by the Butterfly Ballot in 2000 (they are very old, my dad turning 100 this Feb). My mother is pretty sure she voted for Buchanan by accident, my father probably voted for Gore. Being old, they chose not to contest their votes, figuring they wouldn’t matter.

I wonder how many others thought there was no chance their single vote could make any difference.

Thanks, Matt, for encouraging people not to take their votes as an important duty. Really, just what the country needs right now.
KCinDC Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Sarah, a system based on congressional districts wouldn’t help. It would just transfer the focus from a dozen swing states to a few dozen swing congressional districts. Probably even fewer people would have votes that matter.

Bob, you’re ignoring the Senate. And you only have one House member regardless of what state you live in (if you’re in DC, of course, you don’t get a vote in the House or the Senate).
Nate Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
I’ll say what I said when I first saw this chart: Why in god’s name isn’t the vertical axis on a log scale?

More on topic, I see the emphasis on the ever-shifting map of swing states as only a secondary concern with the electoral college. The orders-of-magnitude-bigger problem is that small states get much greater electoral representation than big states. Per capita, the California vote has about one third the value of the Wyoming vote. It’s just absurd.

@bob mcmanus: Moving to NH increases the value of your vote and the per-capita value of your Congressional representation. It’s win-win.
See BHO's creepy plan for pre-teens Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
I just threw up a little as I read the last bit above, then I realized what that whole Federalism thing is about.

P.S. I know MattY doesn’t take request any more, but perhaps he could make an exception by comparing BHO’s creepiest plan yet (at my name’s link) to this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_movement

How’s it going to look if our new president gets sued by North Korea, successors to the Soviet Union, and Cuba for ripping off their ideas?
bob mcmanus Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
And you only have one House member regardless of what state you live in

As a Texan, I have long recognized the synergies created by the large Congressional delegation. We have had more than our share of Speakers and locally originated Presidents, Cabinet members, highly-ranked Generals.

And it is not just the official forms of representation, but the millions in campaign contributions that come from Texas and not Montana; the industries and businesses;the opportunities for issue organization;etc etc.

It is simply absurd for people from the large-pop states to claim political oppression because of one fairly minor Constitutional move toward balancing and distributing political power. As absurd as the obsession with the Presidency.
fostert Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
As a Colorado voter, I guess I shouldn’t complain. But I will anyway. The Electoral College is just plain stupid. When traveling abroad, I’ve tried to explain the system to foreigners. Only a tiny fraction of them actually believed me. The usual response was: “There is no way the most powerful country in the world would run their elections so poorly. I don’t believe you.” Many people have become outright hostile to me, thinking that I was trying to mislead them. Once, it even came down to blows. Look, the House of Representatives already gives a slight advantage to small states, and the Senate gives a very strong advantage to small states. Do the small states really need an advantage for president, too? What’s so great about them that they should be given extra-special citizenship. And what’s so bad about DC residents that they should be denied legislative representation?
Glenn Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Just shows the importance of voting early and often.
santamonicmr Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
And if you’re from New Mexico and your name is Kevin Costner and you have a cute as a button daughter, your odds go *way* up.
John McCain: Worse than Bush Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
No f’in doubt, MY. I don’t understand why this isn’t constantly being harped on!
Dan Kervick Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
I understand the concern about the unfair small state advantage. But rather than a national popular vote, I would prefer to see an electoral college system based on equal population sized electoral districts. Candidates need to be compelled to address local issues and compete in winner-take all contests in multiple locations across the country, where the efforts of activists can have some chance of making a difference. With elections decided by a single aggregate popular vote, the effect of individual and small-group activists will be washed out in the great mass of undifferentiated numbers. The entire campaign would be run from a few TV studios in New York, DC and Los Angeles. Far from being democratic, the power of individuals to participate in self-government would be diluted in a stupid mass-culture mind. Far from being empowering, elections would be for most people depersonalizing exercises in ritual alienation. It would really be hideous.
K Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Too bad you just bought a place in the District. Otherwise, you could move across the river and you too would have a 1 in 10,000,000 chance of having your vote be decisive!
jimble Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
If the president were elected by popular vote, campaigns would focus almost entirely on the big metropolitan areas where their efforts would net the most potential votes. Rural and declining areas of the country would see their national influence severely reduced. It’s a good thing that every four years somebody gives a damn what people in Ohio think.
bob mcmanus Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Besides, the votes of Californians and Texans “don’t matter*” recently because of the ideological polarization. With different parties and party leaders they might become contested and decisive states.

*Those votes do matter. Californians & Texas vote with their feet, or moving vans. To some extent, on the margins, people of like ideologies tend to group together and create political economies of scale. Krugman Nobel politics.

The populations of Texas, California, New York, Illinois, have, besides creating a critical mass to express marginal political preferences within their states, also created national power centers.

PS:I am in oppositional minority within Texas. Even so, I benefit from living here…e.g., three major sports teams. I doubt those teams will move to Butte because Montana gets disproportional influence thru the electoral college.
Nate Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
It is simply absurd for people from the large-pop states to claim political oppression because of one fairly minor Constitutional move toward balancing and distributing political power.

It’s absurd to suggest that equality of enfranchisement in presidential elections is more important than geographically distributing political power without respect to population? That’s an absolutely bizarre claim.
tomemos Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
“It’s a good thing that every four years somebody gives a damn what people in Ohio think.”

And is it a good thing that no one ever cares what people in California or New York think?
bob mcmanus Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
18:Yup.

Hypothetical.

If 99.9% of the population lived in New York City, and the other 49 states got one electoral vote apiece, it would be accurate, but absurd and contemptible for NYC to press their claim of political underrepesentation.

The claims of “disenfranchisement” is what is usually called “legalism” I think. I see it as an attempt at total dominance by the majority.
bob mcmanus Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
And is it a good thing that no one ever cares what people in California or New York think?

Oh, bullshit. Who financed the campaigns?

This is tiresome, listening to New Yorkers crying about their powerlessness. Boo-hoo.
tomemos Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
“Rural and declining areas of the country would see their national influence severely reduced.”

What’s ridiculous about this argument is that most rural areas–in fact, most areas period–get no attention right now anyway; when was the last time a candidate stopped in Idaho? Ohio is not a rural state, and it’s not “declining” any more than Tennessee or Kentucky are. What makes Michigan more important than Illinois, Florida more important than Texas, New Hampshire more important than Vermont, New Mexico more important than Arizona? Only the fact that those areas are more evenly divided between parties. When a Vermonter’s vote counts the same as a New Hampshireperson’s, then we’ll have a sensible system.
Glenn Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
I’m sure we’ll eventually have an Electoral College in which the electors are allocated to corporations instead of states. It would really save a lot of inefficiency by cutting out the middleman.
Glenn Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
This is tiresome, listening to New Yorkers crying about their powerlessness.

Hey, you won’t find this NYer complaining. Our airwaves have been blissfully campaign ad-free this year. And I rather like having knowing that most of my fellow NYers aren’t morons who’ll vote for clowns like Bush or McCain.
fostert Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
“Candidates need to be compelled to address local issues and compete in winner-take all contests in multiple locations across the country”

No they don’t. We have the House of Representatives to address local issues. And we have the Senate to address statewide and regional issues. Shouldn’t one branch of the government address national issues? And let’s face it, candidates don’t have the time to address thousands of local issues. And they do so very poorly when they try. Seriously, should Obama or McCain be worried about a proposed water pipeline in Boulder County? Or the issues facing almond growers in California? Or the concerns of 100,000 Cubans in Miami? These local concerns distort our national policies to an absurd extent. The need to win Florida means that we design our policy towards Cuba not to benefit the United States, but to appease 100,000 people in Miami. Why are those Cubans in Miami more important than the other 300 million of us?
tomemos Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
“If 99.9% of the population lived in New York City, and the other 49 states got one electoral vote apiece, it would be accurate, but absurd and contemptible for NYC to press their claim of political underrepesentation.”

Because we’re not living in a republic? We’re living in a patronage system where us red- and blue-staters reward eight the other states for having divided opinions?

It sounds like you’re arguing for a system in which each state gets representation in inverse proportion to its population or GDP. Whatever the merits of that, it isn’t the system we’re in right now.

I live in California, and we have to go begging for funds from the federal government. But I guess it would just be “absurd and contemptible” for me to want a say in who runs the federal government, huh?
tomemos Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
“Who financed the campaigns?”

Not me, jackass. I don’t live in Bel Air or Nob Hill, and I shouldn’t lose my franchise because other people do.

You insist on pretending that the swing states are all poor honest folk. Do you think people in Miami don’t give a little bit of money to the presidential campaigns? Where’s there disenfranchisement?

I guess if we ever get good campaign-finance laws, your only argument for this absurd system will disappear.
fostert Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
“I’m sure we’ll eventually have an Electoral College in which the electors are allocated to corporations instead of states. It would really save a lot of inefficiency by cutting out the middleman.”

Sadly, that’s probably where we’re headed. We are certainly on our way there. Archer Daniels Midland already controls the Iowa delegation. Probably the Kansas delegation, too.
tomemos Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
*”there disenfranchisement”=”their disenfranchisement,” obviously. I must be riled up, I haven’t made that mistake in years.
LaFollette Progressive Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
“Candidates need to be compelled to address local issues and compete in winner-take all contests in multiple locations across the country, where the efforts of activists can have some chance of making a difference. With elections decided by a single aggregate popular vote, the effect of individual and small-group activists will be washed out in the great mass of undifferentiated numbers. The entire campaign would be run from a few TV studios in New York, DC and Los Angeles.”

Um. OK, if you say so. But I can’t see any reason on the face of the earth why this would be true. We go through this every time the subject comes up. And every argument made by Electoral College apologists seems to be more absurd than the previous one.

The major goal of any election anywhere is to get the largest number of people to vote for you. And this is always going to involve some combination of advertising, rallies, personal contacts, and efforts geared toward maximizing turnout. In a nationwide popular election, candidates will not by some mystical process have less incentive to campaign nationwide and organize local offices nationwide. They will have far more incentive to do so, since there will be no regions of the country where you can’t get votes. Sure, a candidate could sit back and try to win the election with a barrage of asinine nationwide attack ads, but they could just as easily spend money on a cross-country bus tour, a 50-state ground game, and targeted regional ad buys aimed at improving their party’s brand in unfriendly territory. I know which type of campaign I’D recommend.

You can’t win any election by running up the score in the region where you have the most support. You also need to campaign in unfriendly areas and cut into your opponent’s advantage. Obama reaped great benefits from expanding the election into many states that have been ignored by Democrats for years. Under a national popular vote system, those states never would have been ignored in the first place.
bob mcmanus Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
But I guess it would just be “absurd and contemptible” for me to want a say in who runs the federal government, huh?

It is absurd and contemptible for you, as a Californian, to not admit that you already have a massive and likely disproportionate say, directly thru your Congression delegation, indirectly in many ways, in ~~who runs~~ how the federal government is run.

Not me, jackass.

I’m in tech here in Texas. I understand that the concentration of tech in Texas creates lobbying power in Washington that affects my job in Texas. As does entertainment and agriculture in California and Finance from NYC.

I don’t claim my political power begins and ends November 4th, and begins and ends in the Presidency. I have a lot more influence than a Montanan. It would be disingenuous to claim otherwise.
Math Nerd Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Wouldn’t the correct metric be the probability of affecting the outcome times the # of electoral college votes? FL, PA, OH have more than 5 times the electoral votes, and less than 5 times the probability of effectiveness.
fostert Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
“Oh, bullshit. Who financed the campaigns?”

Well, the Obama campaign is mostly financed through very small donations that carry no influence. How many people who gave Obama $100 got a quid pro quo for their donation? I’m guessing zero. Many of us have donated to the Obama campaign because he agrees with us on national issues, not because we think our donation will somehow influence him on our local issues. If we want to have influence on local issues, we write check to our House or Representatives candidate and deliver it to him in person so we get a chance to talk to him.
fostert Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
You’re right Math Nerd, but if you are really a math nerd, you’d notice that the information is already contained in the chart. I looked at the graph and immediately noticed that Colorado has more influence than New Mexico or New Hampshire, but not as much as Virginia. The chart is nice because it separates the two issues and allows the viewer to recombine them. Of course, if you really want to get sophisticated, look at Nate Silver’s tipping point analysis. He weights it by the likelihood of a state bringing a candidate to 270. That’s the real metric.
tomemos Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
“It is absurd and contemptible for you, as a Californian, to not admit that you already have a massive and likely disproportionate say, directly thru your Congression delegation…”

Ooh, I’m sorry to tell you, but I, as a Californian, have the same number of representatives as anyone else: one. In fact, here’s what’s great: there are more voters in my congressional district than there are in Wyoming’s congressional district, and yet the two congressmen get the same number of votes! So that’s another way in which the big states just lord it over the small states, I guess: by getting fewer votes per capita.
Colatina Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
I think this is the same logic behind MY’s suggestion to privatize lotteries in order to get slightly better odds for the consumer. In that case it actually made a tiny bit of trivial sense. Of course here with a national vote, your chances of deciding the election with your own vote would still be very very small.

I don’t like the electoral college. But look on the bright side, you non-swing state people. You can vote your conscience for a third party candidate, knowing the battle has been won by one side or another in your state. Whereas if there were a national vote we would all probably feel bound by solidarity with the best likely candidate to avoid the potential spoiler candidate. Nader’s not a spoiler in Utah or Massachusetts.
tomemos Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
“I have a lot more influence than a Montanan.”

And does he or she get more Presidential attention to compensate? Hell no; Montana’s not a swing state. Pennsylvania has plenty of people and plenty of influence, and it gets about five speeches a week from each campaign.

You still have not acknowledged that the swing states are not all or even mainly states that are poorer or more likely to be neglected than others.
fostert Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
“I have a lot more influence than a Montanan. It would be disingenuous to claim otherwise”

Do you really? The company you work for certainly does, but does your company agree with you on all the issues? In Montana, you actually have the chance to walk into your Senator’s office and talk to him. Try that in Texas. I bet if you tried for thirty years, you might get in. But it probably wouldn’t be the same Senator, and the issues will have changed by then. I used to live in Texas, and Kay Bailey Hutchison wouldn’t give me the time of day. The only way for a regular person like me to have influence is to meet a state legislator in a bar (I lived in Austin), and feed him drinks while I talk to him. But that doesn’t really work on the presidential level, does it?
KCinDC Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
No, Math Nerd, the difference in electoral votes is already taken into account in the calculation of how likely it is that a particular state will make the difference.
bob mcmanus Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
You still have not acknowledged that the swing states are not all or even mainly states that are poorer or more likely to be neglected than others.

Swing states are “swing” obviously because they are more evenly ideologically balanced. This is not their fault, nor does it have much to do with the electoral college.

Yexas and California are not major campaign stops because they are ideologically imbalanced. I do not think it wise to try to correct for the preferences of millions with a Constitutional Amendment or National Movement.

Maybe you can change Texas. As I am a lefty, I will welcome y’all down here. BYOB.
tomemos Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
“Swing states are “swing” obviously because they are more evenly ideologically balanced. This is not their fault, nor does it have much to do with the electoral college.”

Um, well, it does, because your entire argument for the electoral college has to do with the idea that it gives representation to states that would otherwise be overlooked due to economy, population, etc. But in fact the states that are visited are visited due to the arbitrary fact of ideological balance, not because it’s more fair that way.

“I do not think it wise to try to correct for the preferences of millions with a Constitutional Amendment or National Movement.”

“Correcting for the preferences of millions” is actually what democracy is for. FYI.
Hedley Lamarr Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
The chart clearly indicates that Texas voters can safely stay in bed next Tuesday.
fostert Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
“nor does it have much to do with the electoral college.”

Are you fu***ng crazy? It has everything to do with the electoral college. With a national popular vote, both candidates would be spending a lot of time in Texas and would be addressing your issues. A few percentage point swing in Texas would add up to a lot of votes. And that would be a very good thing. The most sensible people I’ve ever met on the immigration issue are Texans. And it doesn’t matter which side they are on, at least they understand that their economy depends on illegal immigration. Texans really understand the real impacts of reform. Their input would be really nice to have on that issue. Instead, we really on the uninformed opinion of those from Iowa. I’d love to see national candidates have to talk about this issue in front of the people who are on the front lines of it.
fostert Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
“I will welcome y’all down here.”

Are you just welcoming “y’all”, or “all y’all”?
CitizenE Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
I think this year every voter is important. The larger the turnout, and the larger the victory for Obama, the louder the statement will be to ourselves and them that the right understand the rest of us are dissatisfied with their approach to governance and being in a civil society; if all they have to offer is their way or the highway, well then hit the road Jack or Joe or John–whatever your name is, until you can sit down with the rest of us and work things out like adults.
bob mcmanus Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
The chart clearly indicates that Texas voters can safely stay in bed next Tuesday.

Too late. Early-voted today. Straight-ticker ‘D’

Not sure if the Senate seat is in play. The amendment concerned the financing of the regional hospital and was important.
larrybob Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
if NPV means that once solidly blue areas are now going to victimized by endless political commercials, count me out. one of the joys of living in chicago is the complete absence these past 28 years of any serious national political ad campaign on my tv. except for the kirk-seals race, there is simply little going on on my tv…during a colts game a couple of weeks ago, i saw an obama ad which gave me hope that either obama had a lot of money to spend or that indiana was in play.
Brad Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
The thing most people are complaining about – swing states getting disproportionate attention – is not necessarily endemic to the electoral college. The states’ decision to allocate in a winner-take-all fashion is the real issue. Granted, the system gives states a strong incentive to allocate that way, but you could amend the constitution to prevent winner-take-all allocation and still keep the 2 vote small-state bonus. Instead, the focus is on the quixotic, and in my opinion, unconstitutional NPV nonsense.
fumphis Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
Brad, you’re splitting hairs. For all practical purposes, the term “Electoral College” is a metonym for the current system of winner-take-all elector allocation, as practiced by 96% of the states. The disproportionate heft of swing states is absolutely a feature of that system, and one that will never go away if the system remains.

The whole point of NPV is that it provides Electoral College reform without an amendment. And it is perfectly and self-evidently constitutional. Nor is it quixotic. I’m willing to bet that after the next close election, we’ll see a greatly renewed focus on it. Remember, it only needs a few of the big states (TX, NY, CA + a few more would almost do it) to work.
TH Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
I’m sure others have already, but let me note that Obama holds statistically significant leads in all 4 of the states that “matter”.

Hmm…
fostert Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
“if NPV means that once solidly blue areas are now going to victimized by endless political commercials, count me out”

As a Coloradan, I can understand your sentiment and still say that you can’t even imagine what it’s like. We are bombarded. But fortunately, the technology gods have provided us with Tivo. I only see those commercials at super fast forward, and with no volume. At that speed, they’re no worse than car commercials.
Emrys Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
Having lived most of my Life in Colorado and having felt in previous elections that my vote was about worthless, I’m actually pleased to have my vote, in this election, be meaningful. It’s about time!
Meng Bomin Says:
October 29th, 2008 at 1:03 am
The electoral college is almost certainly one of the stupidest institutions in American electoral politics. In most elections, each citizen gets one vote. The Presidential election is the only election that I know of where this is not the case and there is no rational reason why it should be the case.

The EC keeps us in check because in our very partisan country with very f-ed up elections the margin of error is often higher than the vote difference between candidates.

Oh, so we should just choose an arbitrary system regardless of its disenfranchisement of those with a minority opinion within a state (i.e. Texas Democrats, California Republicans, etc.), its negative impact on the political process, the abnormal emphasis that a few states receive, and the fact that having a well-placed Secretary of State (i.e. in Florida or Ohio) can make manipulating an election much easier than NPV would ever make it is a good rationale?

Rural and declining areas of the country would see their national influence severely reduced. It’s a good thing that every four years somebody gives a damn what people in Ohio think.

Rural areas are already marginalized. I suppose you mean “rural states”. There’s no reason that a Wyoming voter should have about 3 times the representation in the EC that a California or a Texas voter has (actually, this is a result of the outdated institution we call the Senate, where Wyoming voters get about 70 times the representation that California voters get).

Now, on the topic of Ohio voters, focusing economic policy on the views of a small subset of the American population is not healthy for guiding toward an economic policy that is in the interest of the nation as a whole, which is what the President of the United States should represent. The people of Ohio would have a voice in a NPV election…it would be exactly the same voice that voters in every other state have. But I suppose that the downtrodden in Kentucky, Mississippi, and Alabama don’t really matter.

It is simply absurd for people from the large-pop states to claim political oppression because of one fairly minor Constitutional move toward balancing and distributing political power.

Hah! Distributing is correct, balancing is not. States have arbitrary boundaries that don’t say anything in particular about the interests of those within them. Ultimately it isn’t about big state vs. little state, urban vs. rural, or liberal vs. conservative. It’s about people. The President of the United States should represent the American people. Right now, the President of the United States represents mainly the voters of the swing states.

Anyway, the wonderful fairness of the electoral college led to a civil war, which isn’t exactly a sparkling endorsement, but since that civil war, the paradigm concerning states rights has essentially nullified the arguments for both the electoral college and the senate.

Oh and the notion of winner-take-all congressional districts (I’m looking at you, Maine and Nebraska) is actually more fundamentally stupid than the electoral college. The reason for that is pretty simple: gerrymandering.
Stephen Says:
October 29th, 2008 at 2:12 am
Look, if CA, TX or NY flip the election is lost usually. The people in these states have votes that don’t count because of what? Because the states are very unlikely to flip! If the whole USA where one Electoral District, it would be less (I repeat LESS) likely to flip then CA, TX, or NY all of which are smaller then the USA, and so the probability of your vote counting would be LESS then the probability in one of these big states.
Stephen Says:
October 29th, 2008 at 2:19 am
Correction to the above is when these states are way out of line with the national polls, this is true in this cycle for NY and CA, but TX is pretty close. So with a NPV everyones votes would count less then TX votes in the above chart.

I don’t thing NPV is a bad idea – but I would worry about fraud. Under the current system an extra 1000 votes in Idaho make no difference whereas an extra 1000 in Florida matter a lot. With NPV an extra 1000 anywhere in the country count the same.

The electoral college essentially digitizes the signal, which reduces errors.
fostert Says:
October 29th, 2008 at 3:05 am
“The electoral college essentially digitizes the signal, which reduces errors.”

Oh come on, if you’re even saying that, you know something about digital errors. The Electoral College undersamples, which creates more errors. And on top of that, it missamples. If you wanted to create a digital model of the American electorate, the Electoral College is about as bad as you could do. Digitation only works when when you sample beyond what is perceivable. Think about the first digitation of Miles Davis’ ‘Kind of Blue’. It sucked, and everyone could tell. They undersampled, and we all knew.
mainstreet Says:
October 29th, 2008 at 8:07 am
Thanks for making my day, Matt. You’ve vindicated my choice to spend $130 to DHL my New Hampshire absentee ballot back to my sylvan hometown. Money well spent!
stephen Says:
October 29th, 2008 at 10:01 am
“Oh come on, if you’re even saying that, you know something about digital errors. The Electoral College undersamples, which creates more errors.”

No question, it is a bad analogy, the signal is not properly digitized if your goal is to get a reflection of the popular vote. You don’t need Miles Davis to show you this, the presidential election in 2000 does. But the digitizing still makes it less influenced by noise or attempts to influence. I would be in favor of a NPV, if it was digitally sampled properly or even if there were some effort at national standards for voting.

If you want to change an election, that is close, you need a few thousand votes in a few states around the country in our current system and the states are by definition the ones that matter. In NPV, you need a few 100 thousand votes but you can collect them where ever you wish.
alan Says:
October 29th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
by this logic your vote counted more in 2000 (when the guy with the most votes LOST) than it did in 1972 (when Nixon won in a landslide, winning 49 states). Just because your state tends to agree about who to vote for does not make your vote count less. Clearly SOMEONE’S vote counted in 1972, or George McGovern would have been president!
susan Says:
October 30th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
The small states are the most disadvantaged of all under the current system of electing the President. Political clout comes from being a closely divided battleground state, not the two-vote bonus.

Small states are almost invariably non-competitive in presidential election. Only 1 of the 13 smallest states are battleground states (and only 5 of the 25 smallest states are battlegrounds).

Of the 13 smallest states, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Alaska regularly vote Republican, and Rhode Island, Delaware, Hawaii, Vermont, Maine, and DC regularly vote Democratic. These 12 states together contain 11 million people. Because of the two electoral-vote bonus that each state receives, the 12 non-competitive small states have 40 electoral votes. However, the two-vote bonus is an entirely illusory advantage to the small states. Ohio has 11 million people and has “only” 20 electoral votes. As we all know, the 11 million people in Ohio are the center of attention in presidential campaigns, while the 11 million people in the 12 non-competitive small states are utterly irrelevant. Nationwide election of the President would make each of the voters in the 12 smallest states as important as an Ohio voter.

The fact that the bonus of two electoral votes is an illusory benefit to the small states has been widely recognized by the small states for some time. In 1966, Delaware led a group of 12 predominantly low-population states (North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Kentucky, Florida, Pennsylvania) in suing New York in the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that New York’s use of the winner-take-all effectively disenfranchised voters in their states. The Court declined to hear the case (presumably because of the well-established constitutional provision that the manner of awarding electoral votes is exclusively a state decision). Ironically, defendant New York is no longer a battleground state (as it was in the 1960s) and today suffers the very same disenfranchisement as the 12 non-competitive low-population states. A vote in New York is, today, equal to a vote in Wyoming–both are equally worthless and irrelevant in presidential elections.

The concept of a national popular vote for President is far from being politically “radioactive” in small states, because the small states recognize they are the most disadvantaged group of states under the current system.

As of 2008, the National Popular Vote bill has been approved by a total of seven state legislative chambers in small states, including one house in Maine and both houses in Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It has been enacted by Hawaii.

see http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
susan Says:
October 30th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Most of the medium-small states (with five or six electoral votes) are similarly non-competitive in presidential elections (and therefore similarly disadvantaged). In fact, of the 22 medium-smallest states (those with three, four, five, or six electoral votes), only New Hampshire (with four electoral votes), New Mexico (five electoral votes), and Nevada (five electoral votes) have been battleground states in recent elections.

Because so few of the 22 small and medium-small states are closely divided battleground states in presidential elections, the current system actually shifts power from voters in the small and medium-small states to voters in a handful of big states. The New York Times reported early in 2008 (May 11, 2008) that both major political parties were already in agreement that there would be at most 14 battleground states in 2008 (involving only 166 of the 538 electoral votes). In other words, three-quarters of the states were to be ignored under the current system in the 2008 election. Michigan (17 electoral votes), Ohio (20), Pennsylvania (21), and Florida (27) contain over half of the electoral votes that will matter in 2008 (85 of the 166 electoral votes). There are only three battleground states among the 22 small and medium-small states (i.e., New Hampshire, New Mexico, and Nevada). These three states contain only 14 of the 166 electoral votes. Anyone concerned about the relative power of big states and small states should realize that the current system shifts power from voters in the small and medium-small states to voters in a handful of big states.

Recent polls show a high level of support for a nationwide election for President in Vermont (75%), Maine (71%), Rhode Island (74%), and Arkansas (74%). More than 70% of the American people have favored a nationwide election for President since the Gallup poll started asking this question in 1944. The recent Washington Post, Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University poll shows 72% support for direct nationwide election of the President. This recent national result is similar to recent statewide polls in California (69%), Connecticut (73%), Massachusetts (73%), Michigan (70%), and Missouri (70%).

see http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
susan Says:
October 30th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
The state-by-state winner-take-all system is not a firewall, but instead causes unnecessary fires.

Under the current system, there are 51 separate vote pools in every presidential election. Thus, our nation’s 55 presidential elections have really been 2,084 separate elections. This is the reason why there have been five seriously disputed counts in the nation’s 55 presidential elections. The 51 separate pools regularly create artificial crises in elections in which the vote is not at all close on a nationwide basis, but close in particular states.

If anyone is genuinely concerned about the possibility of recounts, then a single national pool of votes is the way to drastically reduce the likelihood of recounts and eliminate the artificial crises produced by the current system.

see http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
susan Says:
October 30th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
The purpose of the National Popular Vote bill is to eliminate the state-by-state awarding of electoral votes and instead award a majority of the nation’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most votes in all 50 states (and DC). It is the current state-by-state awarding of electoral votes that permits a second-place candidate to win the White House. It is the current state-by-state system that makes votes unequal in presidential elections. It is the current state-by-state system that makes three-quarters of the states politically irrelevant in presidential elections. Under the winner-take-all rule, candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, or pay attention to the concerns of states where they are comfortably ahead or hopelessly behind. Instead, candidates concentrate their attention on a small handful of closely divided battleground states. This means that voters in three quarters of the states are ignored in presidential elections. In 2004, candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their money and campaign visits in five states; over 80% in nine states; and over 99% of their money in 16 states.

Under the National Popular Vote plan, the focus of the campaigns and media in the months prior to the presidential elections will be on polls of the national popular vote, not on state-by-state polls from a handful of closely divided battleground states. There will be no red states and no blue states, only the United States.

Under the current system, voters in three-quarters of the states are not politically relevant in presidential elections; a second-place candidate may occupy the White House; and every vote is not equal. Ultimately, the choice is whether it is more important for the winner in a particular state to receive the state’s electoral votes or for the winner of the entire country to win the White House.

The National Popular Vote bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).

The National Popular Vote bill has passed 21 state legislative chambers, including one house in Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, North Carolina, and Washington, and both houses in California, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The bill has been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These four states possess 50 electoral votes — 19% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.

See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
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Matt Yglesias

Will Your Vote Matter?

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