Does the Electoral College Advantage Small States? Examining the Realities and Implications
The Electoral College, a cornerstone of the American presidential election system, has been the subject of intense debate, particularly concerning its impact on states with smaller populations. This article delves into the question of whether the Electoral College advantages small states, examining the numerical representation, political influence, and historical context surrounding this complex issue.
The Structure of the Electoral College
The Electoral College is a body of electors chosen to elect the President and Vice President of the United States. The number of electors each state receives is equal to its total number of Senators (always two) and Representatives in Congress (based on population). This allocation formula results in smaller states having a disproportionately higher number of electors per capita compared to larger, more populous states.
Numerical Advantage: A Closer Look
Each state gets two Electoral Votes for its two senators, no matter how many people live in the state, smaller states have more Electoral College representation per voter. For example, a voter in Wyoming has four times as much say in the Electoral College as does a voter in Texas. This numerical advantage is often cited as evidence of the Electoral College favoring small states. However, the extent to which this numerical advantage translates into real political power is debatable.
The Winner-Take-All System and Spectator States
Despite getting a bump in Electoral Votes relative to their populations, small states that vote consistently red or blue are still just spectator states in the current state-winner-take-all system. In practice, a voter in Wyoming counts for just as much as a voter in California. Because almost all states currently give all their Electoral Votes to a single candidate, even if many voters within the state voted for someone else, a voter in little, safe Wyoming or Vermont matters much less than a voter in big, battleground Florida or Pennsylvania.
Under the winner-take-all system, which is employed by almost all states, the candidate who wins the popular vote in a state receives all of that state's electoral votes. This system diminishes the influence of individual voters in states that are considered "safe" for one party or the other. In these states, candidates have little incentive to campaign or address the concerns of voters, as the outcome is largely predetermined.
Read also: Understanding the Electoral College
Battleground States: Where the Real Power Lies
The presidential race is fought and won, not across the country as a whole, and not in small states, but in battleground states. These are the handful of states where the margin between the two major parties is thin, and so all their Electoral College votes are up for grabs under the state-winner-take-all system. This is where candidates campaign, campaigns spend money, and presidents spend more federal funds once in office to boost their chances of reelection. Battleground states are the ones that matter. Of the ten main battleground states in 2020, six of them are in the top ten biggest states. And nine of them are in the top twenty largest states. Bigger states have more diverse populations, making it more likely that voters might be closely divided, creating stiff competition between the two parties. Plus, bigger states offer more bang for their buck, more Electoral College votes per victory. Together, these ten battleground states hold 151 electoral votes, nearly five times as many as the ten smallest states.
The Impact on Political Strategy and Representation
The Electoral College influences campaign strategies and resource allocation. Candidates tend to focus their efforts on battleground states, where their time and money are most likely to yield electoral votes. This can lead to a neglect of issues and concerns specific to smaller states or those with predictable voting patterns.
The small states were given additional power to prevent politicians from only focusing on issues which affect the larger states. Ironically, there is a study that concludes that larger states are actually at an advantage in the Electoral College.
Historical Context and the Compromise
The distribution of congressional representatives (and consequently of electors) was not happenstance, but rather the result of a purposeful compromise among the states, in consideration of the wide variation in state populations. The Constitution embodies several such accommodations, so as to prevent a small number of large states from dominating political outcomes.
In the founding of our nation, the Electoral College was established to prevent the people from making "uneducated" decisions. There is no reason, in this modern day, to assign this responsibility to a set of individual electors.
Read also: UCF Application Strategies
The Senate's Small State Bias
The root of the institutional imbalance is in the structure of the United States Senate. Because the constitution allots two senators to each state, regardless of population, the senate has in recent decades taken on a decidedly small state bias. That means that more than 39 million people in those 21 states have 42 votes in the Senate while the same number of people in California have just two. Since California votes Democratic by large margins, if those 44 senators were allotted on a per capita basis, they would overwhelmingly tilt Democratic by a margin of about three to one, or 33 to 11. But because each state gets two senators, and a majority of those 21 states vote Republican, the actual tally is 25 Republicans and 19 Democrats. That’s a swing of 28 seats. Just to break even in the Senate, Democrats need to win more of the national vote for Senate than the Republicans. With the even split in the current Senate, the 50 Democratic senators represent 56.5% of the voters, while the 50 Republican senators represent just 43.5% of the voters. Because so many Republican senators come from very small states, the last time they represented a majority of voters nationally was in 1996. The small state bias in the Senate carries over to the Electoral College since each state gets an Electoral College vote for each of its senators. So small states get proportionately more electors.
Alternative Perspectives and Proposed Reforms
Kristin Eberhard, Director, Climate and Democracy and author of Becoming a Democracy: How We Can Fix the Electoral College, Gerrymandering, and Our Elections, is a researcher, writer, speaker, lawyer, and policy analyst who spearheads Sightline Institute’s work on democracy reform and on climate action. She is available to discuss tested, safe, fair COVID-19 election practices, state by state. electoral college system.
We the people can make the Electoral College better reflect the will of every voter, not just swing state voters. But if every vote counted equally, if the candidates were seeking to earn the most votes across the country, then every voter would hold more power and get more attention from candidates and campaigns.
Read also: Cumulative vs. Weighted GPA Explained
tags: #does #the #electoral #college #advantage #small
