Hacker Read top | best | new | newcomments | leaders | about | bookmarklet login

Actually, it doesn't.

Wyoming (the least-populous state) has .183% of the US population, so it should have .183% of the US House seats if they were fully proportional. It actually has .230% (1 / 435)--about 1.25× the power it should have. Rhode Island getting two House seats gives it about 1.34× the power it should have. Montana having only one seat leaves it at about 0.673× the power it ought to have.

As quantization errors go, the House's quantization isn't terribly distortive.



view as:

Yes but the Electoral College is House+Senante.

So Wyoming gets 4 EC votes.

So... WY gets 4 EC votes with it's 578k population.

My state of NC only gets 15 with it's population of almost 11M.

In what universe is that fair or just?


The alternative view is that CA, MA, and NY already get a Democrat candidate 95/270 or 35% of the way to the Presidency with just 20% of the population. Do those states really need a greater impact?

That's rather a disingenuous way to twist the numbers.

Those states are 20% of the population and 17% of the EC.

By taking advantage of the tiny states the EC can be won with less than 30% of the vote

https://www.npr.org/2016/11/02/500112248/how-to-win-the-pres...


A universe where were the United States of America, not just America.

We were supposed to be a group of states with a fairly limited federal government. I think it’s really unfortunate that’s been largely done away with.


"Fair and just" is out the window as soon as others get to decide how the fruits of 40% of my labor gets spent without my consent. At this point, we might as well just change the rules as we go along because you can't really point to the system we have now and say "it's fair" or "just" in a 100% clearly defined and unambiguous sense that we can all agree on.

Legal | privacy