Brutal New Poll Shows Trump Losing Big to Biden, Even With Third Party Spoiler
Brutal New Poll Shows Trump Losing Big to Biden, Even With Third Party Spoiler
The size of the electoral college is based on the size of the House, because the House (currently) has a fixed size, the states each get a set number of electoral votes, that do not actually match the populations of those states.
This is due to a law passed in 1929 called the permanent apportionment act, which froze the size of the House, despite the fact that we've added two new states since then.
So States like California have less electoral power than they should, while states like Rhode Island have more than they should. Well, technically Rhode Island should have more as well, every state should have more.
Increasing the number of congressional districts would also necessitate increasing the number of votes needed to win.
Right now, each state has 1 per Congressman and 1 for each of 2 Senators.
538 total with 270 needed to win (50.18%).
So if you add house members, let’s say we do something crazy and double it for everyone:
976 electoral college votes (538-100 because the Senate votes are fixed. 438*2 then add the 100 Senators back in).
Now you need 488 to become President. The problem remains, all you did is change the scale.
Increasing the number of congressional districts would also necessitate increasing the number of votes needed to win.
Right now, each state has 1 per Congressman and 1 for each of 2 Senators.
538 total with 270 needed to win (50.18%).
So if you add house members, let’s say we do something crazy and double it for everyone:
976 electoral college votes (538-100 because the Senate votes are fixed. 438*2 then add the 100 Senators back in).
Now you need 488 to become President. The problem remains, all you did is change the scale.
But you wouldn't just double it for each state. You'd increase the total number of House seats, and then portion them out according to the populations of each state.
Currently, Wyoming has just one House seat. If you double the number of total House seats, Wyoming still only gets one. They currently have a larger impact on Presidential elections than they should if it were decided strictly by population, and that's due entirely to the Electoral College and the cap on the size of the House.
Literally no one has ever suggested doing it the way you keep suggesting.
It would be something like the Wyoming rule because just scaling the house by an arbitrary value is asinine.
There is no reason to have arbitrary lines determine the vote rather than people.
The problem is the people proposing the change and the people in charge of implementing the change are two different groups of people. ;)
You think, for a minute, the people responsible for blocking Merrick Garland from getting a Supreme Court hearing, are going to give states like California even an inch more power in Presidential elections, well… you have a greater faith in humanity than I do.
The only reason they haven’t changed the congressional makeup is because they haven’t (yet) figured out how to empower low population red states at the expense of high population blue states.