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Old 07-02-08, 07:26 PM   #103 (permalink)
The Mark
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Re: Who Will You Vote For?

Quote:
Originally Posted by the makeout hobo
Lets say the Electoral College was done by representatives only. Wyoming residents and Californians would be more or less equal, since congressional districts are about the same size (Yes, I know Wyoming's population is smaller than a standard CD, but lets ignore that for now.) If it was just by reps, everyone would have about the same vote. But since it's done by senators too, those few thousand people in Wyoming get two extra votes tacked onto their total, while the millions and millions of people in California get the same extra two votes tacked on. That means the people in Wyoming get more of a vote. Make sense now?
Yes, but if that map in a previous post is correct, Wyoming still has only 3 EC votes, even with the two senators. Doesn't seem like much, so why does it matter? Is an election going to turn on which candidate Wyoming choses?

But nonetheless, using the below sources for population level, I'm going to play around with a calculator!
Wyoming pop estimate 2006 link
California pop estimate 2006 link
Total population x percentage of pop below age 18 = Population of voting age:
California: ~ 26,942,129
Wyoming: ~ 393,464
Number of EC votes / Population of voting age = ~ number of EC votes per resident of the state in question:

California: ~ 0.000002004
Wyoming: ~ 0.000007625

Interesting...

I hope I used the calculator properly....I double-checked each calculation.

Anyway, this seems to indicate that a resident of voting age in Wyoming gets ~ 0.0000055 more of an EC vote than someone in California....as of 2006, and assuming no voting fraud/errors or some such.

If the 2 senatorial EC votes were removed, that would reduce California to 52 and Wyoming to 1, which changes the EC per resident of voting age to:

California: ~ 0.000001930
Wyoming: ~ 0.000002542

This is a difference of ~ 0.0000006 in favor of Wyoming.

It seems you are correct, the makeout hobo.
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