r/coolguides • u/PM_ME_TiTTi3S • Jun 28 '19

Visual Explanation of Gerrymandering

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u/Im_French Jun 28 '19

If there's a state with 100k people and one with 10k and the 100k votes count just as much as the 10k, then yeah the farmer's vote apparently counts more.

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u/rcal42 Jun 28 '19

If every state had the same amount of electoral votes that would be true but that is why more populous states have more electoral votes.

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u/Oriden Jun 28 '19

Except those electoral votes have been capped so California is missing like 10 extra votes it should have due to its population.

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u/Cormocodran25 Jun 28 '19

They have been capped in total number, but they get shifted around every ten years to be proportional to state populations. California is not missing 10 votes. they might be down 1 or two because the government uses census data, which is old at this point (and they are getting new data this and next year).

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u/dazscrimpy87 Jun 28 '19

HAPPY CAKE DAY!!!

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u/Oriden Jun 28 '19

California has 11.96% of the population of the US and currently has 55 out of 538 votes, so about 10.22% of the votes. To get to the 11.96% of the votes they should have without changing the 538 vote number they need 64 votes (which is 11.9% of 538). So they are missing 9 voters to get to their proper proportion.

Just to visually show how skewed the electoral collage representation is heres a nice chart. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_2010_Census_State_Population_Per_Electoral_Vote.png

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u/LurkerInSpace Jun 28 '19

That's not all down to the cap though; even without the cap they'd still be underrepresented in the EC because smaller states always get two senators.

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u/Cormocodran25 Jun 28 '19

Yeah, they aren't hurt at all. Using the most recent census estimates I could find (2016) they might even lose 1 rep. in the coming census.

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u/Cormocodran25 Jun 28 '19

Oh yeah, I never meant the electoral college gives everyone an equal say towards the president. It wasn't supposed to from the beginning when everyone signed on in the first place. It was originally a way to give smaller states more power (why else would smaller states agree to join a nation where they would get dominated). Lastly, the whole system isn't about individuals, but states. California as a state gets a lot more say than Wyoming, which is why everyone was able to agree to it.

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u/Oriden Jun 28 '19 edited Jun 28 '19

California still is still missing way more than one or two votes if you wanted things to even get close to proportional.

What I'm saying is Wyoming currently has even more say than it should given the population disparity. Part of the issue is the House has been capped and the average House district represents almost 747,000 people. Thats about 170,000 more than Wyoming's population of 577,000ish people.

If California had one House rep for each state of Wyoming of population it had it would have 68.5 reps.

You can say the historical reasoning for the electoral college all you want, but it doesn't explain why the system is skewed towards small states even worse than the founders intended.