Election Day!

Can you believe it is finally here?

Geography Matters has uploaded a blank map of the U. S. with the number of electoral votes indicated for each state. We'll each have one of these handy as we gather around the TV tonight to watch the election returns come in. I'm printing out the most recent polling data this morning; it will be interesting to see how accurate the polls have been when all the votes are counted.

On Sunday, the NYTimes published a graphic that shows the electoral college count and, based on each state's population, how much your vote *counts*.

Why are the votes of the citizens of some states weighted more than the citizens of others? For example, one electoral vote from Wyoming represents 135,000 voters, but one vote from New York represents 429,000 voters.

It is because the electoral votes of each state equals the number of representatives from that state (which are based on the state's population), plus the number of senators from that state (each state gets two no matter what the population).

Wyoming has a small population (a little over 400,000 eligible voters), but they get 3 electoral votes when you add in their two senators.

New York has a much larger population with 29 representatives, so the addition of 2 senators doesn't cause each of their electoral votes to be representative of a much smaller number of people as it does in Wyoming.

I ran some quick calculations on a few states to see what their population per vote would be without the two extra electoral votes coming from the senators, and the population per vote turned out to be between 400,000 and 530,000 in each of those cases. So the addition of those two senators makes a big difference in some states. If you want your individual vote to count more when you're voting for a president, move to a state with a smaller population. :-)

It seems that each election year, there is talk of doing away with the Electoral College and relying on the popular vote to elect a new president. I am fond of our Founding Fathers; they seem to have been very wise men. I hope that we don't ever amend our Constitution to reflect a new method of electing our president.

ETA: Here's a 2004 great article I just ran across that does a wonderful job of describing the Electoral College process.