Red states plunder our electoral college votes.

[Nambe]

11 "red states" make up "the heart of the solid Republican Mountain West and Great Plains" and have a population of 18.6 million. The state of New York, in contrast, has a population of 18.9 million. Nonetheless, New York has 33 electoral votes while the other 11 states have a combined total of 52.

Wyoming, with the lowest population of all the states, has the greatest number of Electoral Votes relative to its population. Conversely, California with 55 Electoral Votes, is the most under-represented state.

[Eloriel]

1. Good info. Thanks. n/t

[prodigal_green]

2. the whole electoral college system is undemocratic

in fact, the whole notion of the Senate is undemocratic. I see no reason why a land mass should have representation over a population.

[treepig]

4. of course it's undemocratic

that's what happens when you live in a republic (which is what the usa is), not a democracy.

if you don't like that, i suggest you hop in small boat, sail over to cuba, and apply for refugee status. otherwise, quit whining.

:freak:

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[pschoeb]

11. Do you know what a Republic IS?

Technically any government without a Monarch is a Republic, which comes from latin Res Publica or "of the People". So saying we are a Republic doesn't mean were not a democracy, and in fact The USA was founded as a Democratic Republic, as opposed to an Aristocratic Republic or any other form of Goverment without a Monarch. Technically speaking, almost all Democracies are Republics, but not all Republics are democratic. By the way Cuba is a Republic as well, so if one wants to escape Republican goverment, one could go to Saudi Arabia.

[treepig]

12. no, i had no idea.

otoh, others seem to have no idea what a joke is (guess the :freak: was not enough indication thereof?)

[pschoeb]

15. I assumed your line on Cuba was sarcasm

But I was actually addressing the widespread thought in the USA, that Republics and Democracies are two different things. I've heard people from every political stripe tell me this, when it's the left, it's usually used to imply that since we are a Republic we can't be truly Democratic. On the right it's used to argue that our Forefathers did not found a Democracy but a Republic, and we should respect their wisdom. I assumed even though you weren't serious about people moving to Cuba, you were serious about the Republic is not Democracy point.

[stellanoir]

3. a true democracy would have overhauled or

scrapped the electoral college after 2000's debacle.

But NOOOOOOOOOO instead we got HAVA, these crappy insecure voting machines that don't even function properly, and redistricting in many areas that favors the Pukes.

The illusion that we still a representative government is truly a royal sham.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

6. It's the scourge of the Senate- 2 per state no matter what

This is a good way you put it though. :mad:

[BOHICA06]

7. This is why a Kerry win ...

may not mean a Kerry win.

Kerry - 49% Bush -47% ALl Others - 3%

could sill mean an electoral victory for Bush. It's all about the States.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

8. Here's the populations of 10 of those states and EV/capita

I haven't included AZ and Nevada here:

Montana 902,195 -3 300,732
Idaho 1,293,953 -4 323,488
Wyoming 493,782 -3 164,594
N. Dakota 642,200 -3 214,067
S. Dakota 754,844 -3 251,615
Nebraska 1,711,263 -5 342,252
Colorado 4,301,261 -9 477,918
Utah 2,233,169 -5 466,639
Kansas 2,688,418 -6 448,070
Oklahoma 3,450,654 -7 492,950

By comparison, California, with 55 EV's and 33,871,648 people, takes 615,848 people for each elector.

[stevedeshazer]

9. Respectfully, I disagree

I know it is popular on DU to condemn the concept of the Electoral College. It's convenient to do so for the left at this time in our history, because more left-leaning people are concentrated in urban areas than ever before in US history.

Nevertheless, there is no guarantee that this will always be so.

I've heard and read opinions from people who even want a "new" Constitutional Convention so we can begin amending it, or even re-writing it. That's a very bad idea.

Our system is not perfect, but opening the door to changing it while the radical right is in charge strikes me as a much greater risk than the Electoral College system itself.

My view is that we should reinforce the Constitution as it is.

I guess that makes me sort of a true conservative in this respect.

[VirginiaDem]

10. while the electoral college is a bad idea all in all,

don't make the mistake of accepting the talking points that we have an inherent disadvantage. For every Red advantage there's an equal (mas o menos) Blue advantage somewhere else. Definitely Bush has a small state advantage but it's not as great as it looks on the map. There are several states with 3-4 electoral votes that go Blue; off the top of my head, we've got D.C., Vermont, Rhode Island, Maine, Delaware, Hawaii and maybe another somewhere. Also, the Red area is over represented but they're wasting popular votes by cramming all of their support into these states. When Utah, with five electoral votes, gives Bush a 25 or thirty percent lead, there are hundreds of thousands of wasted votes. To me, the best percentage to lead by is between 10 and fifteen. Anything above that is overkill. The Reds have a lot of states like this. Also, look at California: sure, it's underrepresented but I'll damn sure take it. By leading that state by about 10-12 points we've got a comfortable margin that can't be overturned in a close race (barring severe weirdness). What the Republicans get in California is literally tens of millions of wasted votes.

[pschoeb]

13. I think Electors go by Voteing Age Population estimate, not population

So you don't count people who are under 18. So if you use these numbers, and still come up with a difference then we might have a problem. The standard statistic used is VAP or Voting Age Population.

[treepig]

14. no, EC goes by total population estimates determined by the census folk

and that includes illegal aliens, which gives states like texas and california a few extra EC votes (OK, maybe one or two).

of course, the illegal aliens themselves can't vote, hence the votes of actual citizens are worth more - thereby at least somewhat off-setting the advantages of wyoming and vermont (or are there a lot of canadians illegally living in vermont?)

on edit, here's a newsmax (sorry - but they're the ones concerned about this issue because of their racist tendencies) link:

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/10/24/102835.shtml