- 50% due to gender
- 25%+ due to race (African Americans and Native Americans)
- 50% due to age (life expectancy was about 40)
- 25%+ due to property requirement (privileged, but some white men were poor)
The Electoral College Structurally Imbalances Voting
The Electoral College, like much of the Constitution, was a compromise between the States, then grouped, broadly, as slaveholding and non-slaveholding. On the national level, the number of Senators is based on statehood while the number of Congressman is based on the state population, tallied every ten years via the census. Today, on average, there is one Representative for every 784,000 inhabitants of the United States.
But the ratio of population per Representative ranges from one per half-million (West Virginia, 561K) to one per million (Hawaii, 1.011MM). The ratio per Senator ranges from one per 295K inhabitants in the least populous state, Wyoming, to one per 19.8 million in the most populous state, California. The District of Columbia has no Senators, but its Electoral College weight of one per 240K inhabitants is the highest ratio in the nation.
When 16% Approaches the Majority
The smallest 26 states constitute 18% of the population (55 out of 344 million) but nevertheless could control the Senate (52 out of 100 elected members). In the table below, that includes the states from Wyoming to Kentucky.
- Other ways that voting is suppressed:
- Prohibit convicted felons from voting, even after their sentence has been served
- Make registration difficult
- Partisan purges of voters’ rolls
- Restricting hours of voting sites
- Understaffing voting sites, typically in poorer and browner districts
- Gerrymandering
Rich donors, organizations, and lobbyists have access to politicians or concentrated voting blocks that restrict the Overton Window for candidates in ways that are decidedly anti-democratic.
Least Populous 25 States
| State | Electoral College | Population | Pop/Sen | Pop/Rep |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wyoming | 3 | 590,169 | 295,085 | 590,169 |
| Vermont | 3 | 648,278 | 324,139 | 648,278 |
| North Dakota | 3 | 804,089 | 402,045 | 804,089 |
| Delaware | 3 | 931,033 | 465,517 | 931,033 |
| South Dakota | 3 | 931,033 | 465,517 | 931,033 |
| Alaska | 3 | 1,067,410 | 533,705 | 1,067,410 |
| West Virginia | 4 | 1,121,190 | 560,595 | 560,595 |
| Rhode Island | 4 | 1,143,160 | 571,580 | 571,580 |
| New Hampshire | 4 | 1,410,380 | 705,190 | 705,190 |
| Montana | 4 | 1,415,860 | 707,930 | 707,930 |
| Maine | 4 | 1,450,900 | 725,450 | 725,450 |
| Idaho | 4 | 1,769,460 | 884,730 | 884,730 |
| Hawaii | 4 | 2,023,070 | 1,011,535 | 1,011,535 |
| New Mexico | 5 | 2,032,120 | 1,016,060 | 677,373 |
| Nebraska | 5 | 2,139,350 | 1,069,675 | 713,117 |
| Utah | 6 | 2,942,920 | 1,471,460 | 735,730 |
| Nevada | 6 | 2,989,710 | 1,494,855 | 747,428 |
| Mississippi | 6 | 3,107,240 | 1,553,620 | 776,810 |
| Kansas | 6 | 3,264,560 | 1,632,280 | 816,140 |
| Iowa | 6 | 3,320,570 | 1,660,285 | 830,143 |
| Arkansas | 6 | 3,564,000 | 1,782,000 | 891,000 |
| Oklahoma | 7 | 3,707,120 | 1,853,560 | 741,424 |
| Connecticut | 7 | 4,126,900 | 2,063,450 | 825,380 |
| Oregon | 8 | 4,291,090 | 2,145,545 | 715,182 |
| Louisiana | 8 | 4,607,410 | 2,303,705 | 767,902 |
| Total | 122 | 55,399,022 | 1,107,980.4 | 769,430.9 |
| Senators/Representative | 50 | 72 | ||
| The District of Columbia | 3 | 720,250 | 240,083 |
Most Populous 25 States
| State | Electoral College | Population | Pop/Sen | Pop/Rep |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kentucky | 8 | 4,626,150 | 2,313,075 | 771,025 |
| South Carolina | 9 | 5,197,720 | 2,598,860 | 742,531 |
| Alabama | 9 | 5,569,830 | 2,784,915 | 795,690 |
| Wisconsin | 10 | 5,833,250 | 2,916,625 | 729,156 |
| Missouri | 10 | 5,991,540 | 2,995,770 | 748,943 |
| Minnesota | 10 | 6,013,650 | 3,006,825 | 751,706 |
| Maryland | 10 | 6,282,890 | 3,141,445 | 785,361 |
| Colorado | 10 | 6,309,380 | 3,154,690 | 788,673 |
| Tennessee | 11 | 6,968,420 | 3,484,210 | 774,269 |
| Massachusetts | 11 | 7,205,770 | 3,602,885 | 800,641 |
| Indiana | 11 | 7,307,200 | 3,653,600 | 811,911 |
| Arizona | 11 | 7,691,740 | 3,845,870 | 854,638 |
| Washington | 12 | 8,059,040 | 4,029,520 | 805,904 |
| Virginia | 13 | 8,887,700 | 4,443,850 | 807,973 |
| New Jersey | 14 | 9,622,060 | 4,811,030 | 801,838 |
| Michigan | 15 | 10,197,600 | 5,098,800 | 784,431 |
| North Carolina | 16 | 11,210,900 | 5,605,450 | 800,779 |
| Georgia | 16 | 11,297,300 | 5,648,650 | 806,950 |
| Ohio | 17 | 11,942,600 | 5,971,300 | 796,173 |
| Pennsylvania | 19 | 12,778,100 | 6,389,050 | 751,653 |
| Illinois | 19 | 13,139,800 | 6,569,900 | 772,929 |
| New York | 28 | 19,997,100 | 9,998,550 | 769,119 |
| Florida | 30 | 23,839,600 | 11,919,800 | 851,414 |
| Texas | 40 | 31,853,800 | 15,926,900 | 838,258 |
| California | 54 | 39,663,800 | 19,831,900 | 762,765 |
| Total | 413 | 287,486,940 | 5.749,738.8 | 791,975.0 |
| Senators/Representative | 50 | 363 | ||
| All 50 States | 535 | 342,885,962 | 3,428,859.6 | 788,243.6 |
The last line in the table above shows that the smallest 25 states have 50 Senators and 72 Congressmen. Their 16% share of population correlates to their 16% control in the House of Representatives; but their 50 Senators add up to 50% of the Senate thereby overrepresenting them in the upper chamber as well as in the Electoral College.
Swing to Marginalization and Other Voting Ideas
Worse still, for many Presidential elections, the key to victory resides in the five to ten “swing states”. While the collection of competitive states vacillates over time, in the Presidential elections of 2016, 2020 and 2024, these eight states were pivotal:
Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and North Carolina.
Voter participation rate ranges from about 45% to 60% during Presidential cycles and closer to 35% in off-cycle years. The efforts to increase participation include voting by mail or automatic registration while acquiring, say, a driver’s license.
There have been elitist theories that posit only educated voters should be allowed to vote. In a more egalitarian setting, how to achieve the goal of increased participation?
Countries like Austria, Spain and France provide paid days off to vote. There are 22 countries where voting is mandatory, including Australia where failure to vote incurs a $20 fine. Electronic voting through, say, the equivalent of an ATM has been discussed, but there are concerns of hacking and a lack of a paper trail.
While voter fraud is often invoked in the United States, studies conclude that the incidence of such fraud is miniscule. For example, in Pennsylvania, during the past three decades, only 39 cases of fraud were discovered out of 100 million votes.
Even in Presidential elections, participation hovers at one in two. Historically, fraud is less than one in a million. In other words, a 50% increase in voter participation would result in 3 out of 4 voting while a 50% increase in fraud would be 78 out of 100 million or still less than one per million. Notwithstanding fraud, actual representation would improve. No system is perfect, but improving participation would appear to far outweigh potential fraud. It would be a worthwhile tradeoff to incur more Type 2 errors while significantly reducing the incidences of Type 1 errors.