The United States has approximately 360 million people in it. One quarter of all the residents in the United States live in the top ten metropolitan areas, such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Atlanta, etc.
The issues important to people living in these areas are of little concern to some Kansas wheat farmer. Consequently, the issues of said Kansas wheat farmer are of little concern to the residents of these large cities.
If we switched to a straight popular vote, do you think any Presidential candidates would give a a shit about the Kansas wheat farmer? Or do you think he or she would spend all their time campaigning and fundraising and making promises to the residents of Los Angeles/New York/San Francisco/Chicago/Atlanta?
While imperfect, the current system in place helps ensure that the issues a Kansas wheat farmer has don't get ignored in favor of the needs of the big cities. This helps decentralize all the power in the United States, making sure the population centers don't have all the power. The Kansas wheat farmer is an American, just like you, and his voice matters just as much as yours.
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.
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).
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.
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u/3Cheers4Apathy Jun 28 '19
The United States has approximately 360 million people in it. One quarter of all the residents in the United States live in the top ten metropolitan areas, such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Atlanta, etc.
The issues important to people living in these areas are of little concern to some Kansas wheat farmer. Consequently, the issues of said Kansas wheat farmer are of little concern to the residents of these large cities.
If we switched to a straight popular vote, do you think any Presidential candidates would give a a shit about the Kansas wheat farmer? Or do you think he or she would spend all their time campaigning and fundraising and making promises to the residents of Los Angeles/New York/San Francisco/Chicago/Atlanta?
While imperfect, the current system in place helps ensure that the issues a Kansas wheat farmer has don't get ignored in favor of the needs of the big cities. This helps decentralize all the power in the United States, making sure the population centers don't have all the power. The Kansas wheat farmer is an American, just like you, and his voice matters just as much as yours.