I’ve seen a few analyses critiquing the electoral college. The data-driven critiques I’ve read largely focus on small states, though, where voters in the smallest states have a oversized share of electoral votes. However, many of these states are ignored because of how far the swing towards a given party. What does the *data* say about swing states?
In this analysis, I show the weight of votes in different states by asking “how many votes would it take to change the result, and how many electoral college votes would shift?” Specifically, I show the number of electoral college votes per 100,000 votes difference between 1st and 2nd place. For example:
**Maximum**: New Hampshire with 4 electoral college votes and a difference between Trump and Harris of just over 20k votes, which results in a score of over 30!
**Minimum**: D.C. with 3 electoral college votes and a difference of nearly 300k giving a score of about 1.
**U.S. Average**: Summing all of the differences in votes at the state level and comparing to total electoral college votes (538), we get an “average voter” score of 2.4.
Conclusion: Using this metric of voter impact, “swing states” voters are ~10x more valuable than the average voter. In my opinion, the electoral college should be abolished because (among other reasons) our systems should encourage political parties to value all citizens equally.
Notes for nerds: Data is from Axios’ Election Map as of yesterday, with extrapolating (linearly) states where counting was incomplete. For example, California showed ~6.7 M vs 4.5 M with Axious reporting 63.2% of expected votes counted; extrapolating to 100% gave a final tally of 10.7M vs 7.2 M and a differential of 3.5 M.
I don’t really understand the graph. Sorry friend.
The electoral college should have been abolished after the shit show that was the 2000 election.
Why is New Hampshire weighted as heavily as the heaviest swing states?
[The Wyoming Rule](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming_Rule) is the best answer for this. I don’t think it would’ve changed the outcome as far as the 2024 presidential results, but the house would’ve been significantly different.
It looks like it mostly lines up with the swing state money spend
Would the data look different if you used a weighted vote differential (Delta Harris & Trump)/ (Total votes cast)
TIL about the NPVIC which is almost in effect and would functionally eliminate the electoral college. If more than 270 vote holders can agree (they’re almost up to 259).then they will all vote for the popular choice, rendering the EC impotent. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact
Why should California get to tell Montana and Wyoming what to do?
Look I get there’s a representation issue and I’m fine with restoring the house back to the original prescribed ratio. There does need to be a way to balance population with equal state representation. The two houses of congress do that and so does the electoral college.
Causing a new problem to get rid of an old problem isn’t a solution. It’s just trading problems.
I’ve been saying for years we should adopt a metric for splitting electoral college votes based on the percentage of the population of that state voting.
Winner take all is great in boardgames, not when dictating the livelihoods of 300 million people.
It would more represent the actual votes of the populations, and make being a republican in California or a Democrat in texas worthwhile to vote.
270 votes remains the same, but campaign would be far more encouraged to reach out and support people in all 50 states.
Now the swing states make sense. You can get a lot of EC votes by persuading comparatively few people.
One of many reasons the electoral college needs to go away.
Shows the U.S. is not a Democracy where majority rules and mandates what the entire country should obey. Shows a Representative Republic.
This is essentially a map of how much your vote mattered *to sway the election results in 2024*
The closer the race in your state, the more your vote mattered. It’s honestly kind of a pointless map from a “EC bad” perspective (as I think many were initially led to assume) but more of a “where’s the best bang for your buck for campaigning” map
These colors are also helpful if you want to see how healthy your urine is.
More than the Electoral College, what this is really showing is how bad winner-take-all is.
Although some are more blue or red, every state is actually a shade of purple, and if their votes were actually split accurately, most would go nearly 50-50 every time. Small swings in a few states don’t have the same earth-shattering effects on overall outcome, and nobody can be taken for granted.
States vote in the Presidential election.
At least they got the popular vote this time around. But yes, it’s really clear that the electoral college is an anachronistic joke
This data is not beautiful. It’s not at all clear what it’s intended to represent or how.
He won the EC and the popular vote. Not sure it matters.
I’m actually for the EC, this seems to hint against it.
Apparently not all votes are ***counted*** equally either…
Electoral college is the best. Every state counts.
In argentina we have only popular vote in a vast country with 80% of the population livingn 3 districts out of 24.
The peronist created a whole system of politic clients in those districts and it was our ruin. All the resources, all the policies and all the power goes to a few places creating a heavy political hegemony
Why is Alaska in the 4-8 category when we only have 3 electoral votes?
They were never supposed to be equal.
a little context would be nice
Very cool.
Now do Senators 😏
Pure democracy alienates the minority by definition. Ya goofs
So is this population/electoral votes, or does this chart use some wizardry to include how close elections are in each state?
![[OC] [2024 U.S. Election] Not all votes are created equal](https://www.europesays.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/zw4o5ys8i40e1-1920x1024.png)
28 comments
I’ve seen a few analyses critiquing the electoral college. The data-driven critiques I’ve read largely focus on small states, though, where voters in the smallest states have a oversized share of electoral votes. However, many of these states are ignored because of how far the swing towards a given party. What does the *data* say about swing states?
In this analysis, I show the weight of votes in different states by asking “how many votes would it take to change the result, and how many electoral college votes would shift?” Specifically, I show the number of electoral college votes per 100,000 votes difference between 1st and 2nd place. For example:
**Maximum**: New Hampshire with 4 electoral college votes and a difference between Trump and Harris of just over 20k votes, which results in a score of over 30!
**Minimum**: D.C. with 3 electoral college votes and a difference of nearly 300k giving a score of about 1.
**U.S. Average**: Summing all of the differences in votes at the state level and comparing to total electoral college votes (538), we get an “average voter” score of 2.4.
Conclusion: Using this metric of voter impact, “swing states” voters are ~10x more valuable than the average voter. In my opinion, the electoral college should be abolished because (among other reasons) our systems should encourage political parties to value all citizens equally.
Notes for nerds: Data is from Axios’ Election Map as of yesterday, with extrapolating (linearly) states where counting was incomplete. For example, California showed ~6.7 M vs 4.5 M with Axious reporting 63.2% of expected votes counted; extrapolating to 100% gave a final tally of 10.7M vs 7.2 M and a differential of 3.5 M.
Source: https://www.axios.com/visuals/presidential-election-results-2024-updates-harris-trump (accessed 11/09/2024)
Tool: https://www.mapchart.net/usa.html
I don’t really understand the graph. Sorry friend.
The electoral college should have been abolished after the shit show that was the 2000 election.
Why is New Hampshire weighted as heavily as the heaviest swing states?
[The Wyoming Rule](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming_Rule) is the best answer for this. I don’t think it would’ve changed the outcome as far as the 2024 presidential results, but the house would’ve been significantly different.
It looks like it mostly lines up with the swing state money spend
Would the data look different if you used a weighted vote differential (Delta Harris & Trump)/ (Total votes cast)
TIL about the NPVIC which is almost in effect and would functionally eliminate the electoral college. If more than 270 vote holders can agree (they’re almost up to 259).then they will all vote for the popular choice, rendering the EC impotent. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact
Why should California get to tell Montana and Wyoming what to do?
Look I get there’s a representation issue and I’m fine with restoring the house back to the original prescribed ratio. There does need to be a way to balance population with equal state representation. The two houses of congress do that and so does the electoral college.
Causing a new problem to get rid of an old problem isn’t a solution. It’s just trading problems.
I’ve been saying for years we should adopt a metric for splitting electoral college votes based on the percentage of the population of that state voting.
Winner take all is great in boardgames, not when dictating the livelihoods of 300 million people.
It would more represent the actual votes of the populations, and make being a republican in California or a Democrat in texas worthwhile to vote.
270 votes remains the same, but campaign would be far more encouraged to reach out and support people in all 50 states.
Now the swing states make sense. You can get a lot of EC votes by persuading comparatively few people.
One of many reasons the electoral college needs to go away.
Shows the U.S. is not a Democracy where majority rules and mandates what the entire country should obey. Shows a Representative Republic.
This is essentially a map of how much your vote mattered *to sway the election results in 2024*
The closer the race in your state, the more your vote mattered. It’s honestly kind of a pointless map from a “EC bad” perspective (as I think many were initially led to assume) but more of a “where’s the best bang for your buck for campaigning” map
These colors are also helpful if you want to see how healthy your urine is.
More than the Electoral College, what this is really showing is how bad winner-take-all is.
Although some are more blue or red, every state is actually a shade of purple, and if their votes were actually split accurately, most would go nearly 50-50 every time. Small swings in a few states don’t have the same earth-shattering effects on overall outcome, and nobody can be taken for granted.
States vote in the Presidential election.
At least they got the popular vote this time around. But yes, it’s really clear that the electoral college is an anachronistic joke
This data is not beautiful. It’s not at all clear what it’s intended to represent or how.
He won the EC and the popular vote. Not sure it matters.
I’m actually for the EC, this seems to hint against it.
Apparently not all votes are ***counted*** equally either…
Electoral college is the best. Every state counts.
In argentina we have only popular vote in a vast country with 80% of the population livingn 3 districts out of 24.
The peronist created a whole system of politic clients in those districts and it was our ruin. All the resources, all the policies and all the power goes to a few places creating a heavy political hegemony
Why is Alaska in the 4-8 category when we only have 3 electoral votes?
They were never supposed to be equal.
a little context would be nice
Very cool.
Now do Senators 😏
Pure democracy alienates the minority by definition. Ya goofs
So is this population/electoral votes, or does this chart use some wizardry to include how close elections are in each state?
This is saying that mi has only 100k voters
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