606
this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
606 points (92.6% liked)
politics
19143 readers
3042 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
To be fair, Clinton won the popular vote by a large margin, it's just that the House has not been expanded in 100 years despite the population more than tripling, so some states have outsized impact during a presidential election.
District sizes have nothing to do with Presidential or Senate elections, they are state wide.
Except that California should have like 60x as many votes as Wyoming.
If you increase the members of congress, then that's going to increase the number of electoral college votes needed to win as well. So, proportionally, it all stays the same.
The number of votes per state would go up based on the population of each state, not a straight multiply by x.
They wouldn't though, the people in charge of changing this would not allow states like California and New York to dominate the process, which they would if it were based purely on population.
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.
Congressional districts are divided among states based on the census, and then become the count of electoral votes, which in turn award the presidency. So they have a lot to do with presidential elections.
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. That's how it was always done before they capped the size of the House.
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.
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.