The Iron Yuppie

I've been doing a little math (and a lot of formatting) and I was fascinated by the floor effect of the current electoral vote system. This would not have affected the past election, but it certainly would have affected the strategy by each of the teams.

                              

State           Population	EV	EV/Pop      Vote

Texas           22,118,509	34	0.0000015    Rep

California      35,484,453	55	0.0000015    Dem

Florida         17,019,068	27	0.0000016    Rep

New York        19,190,115	31	0.0000016    Dem

Illinois        12,653,544	21	0.0000017    Dem

Michigan        10,079,985	17	0.0000017    Dem

Pennsylvania    12,365,455	21	0.0000017    Dem

Georgia         8,684,715       15	0.0000017    Rep

New Jersey      8,638,396       15	0.0000017    Dem

Ohio            11,435,798	20	0.0000017    Rep

Virginia        7,386,330       13	0.0000018    Rep

Indiana         6,195,643       11	0.0000018    Rep

NC              8,407,248       15	0.0000018    Rep

Arizona         5,580,811       10	0.0000018    Rep

Washington      6,131,445       11	0.0000018    Dem

Maryland        5,508,909       10	0.0000018    Dem

Wisconsin       5,472,299       10	0.0000018    Dem

MA              6,433,422       12	0.0000019    Dem

Tennessee       5,841,748       11	0.0000019    Rep

Missouri        5,704,484       11	0.0000019    Rep

SC              4,147,152       8	0.0000019    Rep

Kentucky        4,117,827       8	0.0000019    Rep

Oregon          3,559,596       7	0.0000020    Dem

Minnesota       5,059,375       10	0.0000020    Dem

Colorado        4,550,688       9	0.0000020    Rep

Oklahoma        3,511,532       7	0.0000020    Rep

Alabama         4,500,752       9	0.0000020    Rep

Louisiana       4,496,334       9	0.0000020    Rep

Connecticut     3,483,372       7	0.0000020    Dem

Mississippi     2,881,281       6	0.0000021    Rep

Utah            2,351,467       5	0.0000021    Rep

Arkansas        2,725,714       6	0.0000022    Rep

Kansas          2,723,507       6	0.0000022    Rep

Nevada          2,241,154       5	0.0000022    Rep

Iowa            2,944,062       7	0.0000024    Rep

New Mexico      1,874,614       5	0.0000027    Rep

WV              1,810,354       5	0.0000028    Rep

Nebraska        1,739,291       5	0.0000029    Rep

Idaho           1,366,332       4	0.0000029    Rep

Maine           1,305,728       4	0.0000031    Dem

NH              1,287,687       4	0.0000031    Dem

Hawaii          1,257,608       4	0.0000032    Dem

Montana         917,621         3	0.0000033    Rep

Delaware        817,491         3	0.0000037    Dem

Rhode Island    1,076,164       4	0.0000037    Dem

South Dakota    764,303         3	0.0000039    Rep

Alaska          648,813         3	0.0000046    Rep

Vermont         609,890         3	0.0000049    Rep

DC              574,096         3	0.0000052    Dem

Wyoming         495,304         3	0.0000061    Rep

.

Yes, these are not voting populations, but for the sake of argument, let's assume that an equal percentage of voters vote in each states. Because each of the states must have a minimum of 3 electoral votes, citizens in very small states have a much greater effect on the election than those in large states do. For instance, my vote is worth (in electoral votes) roughly 1/2 of a person's vote in Delaware, almost 1/3 as much as someone from Alaska and nearly 1/4th as much as someone from Wyoming! It is possible to say that those from smaller states (14 out of the bottom 20 least populous states voted Republican) have far more a say in the election than those in the top ten in population (5 out of the top 10 voted Republican). It did not make a difference this time (a reweighted measure came up with 279 to 259 (approximately, due to rounding error)), but it certainly does make an interesting case for electoral college elimination/reform. It also says that in the current environment, simply writing off a large amount of the smaller states (which the Democrats did) is a real mistake.

UPDATED: Added a link, some grammar and the caveat about voting population.

UPDATED AGAIN: Needed to fix layout in IE.