• chaogomu
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    51 year ago

    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.

    • Jordan Lund
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      -131 year ago

      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.