How Many Californians Is Your Vote Worth?

This article by Geoffrey Himes is published by Paste Magazine. Here is an excerpt:

This is the question we should all be asking ourselves: How many Californians is my vote worth? When it comes to the Electoral College, a vote cast in Montana, Alaska or either Dakota is more than twice as powerful as a vote cast in California. Those are all red states, but the same doubling is true for such small, blue states as Vermont, Delaware, Rhode Island or New Hampshire.

So where does the Republican advantage come from? How has the G.O.P. twice won the White House in this century while losing the popular vote? It comes from all the states where each vote is worth between 125% and 200% of a California vote: South Carolina, Alabama, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Utah, Iowa, Arkansas, Mississippi, Kansas, Nebraska and West Virginia.

If you live in California, you might feel outraged that your vote has been so devalued by an 18th century mechanism designed to protect slave owners and other small-state aristocrats. You might feel the same way if you live in New York, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina or Virginia, where your vote is roughly equal to a California vote. When you hear conservative scholars nattering on about protecting small states, you might respond, “Why should my vote count for less than another American’s?”

Read the full article here. Also, see related Democracy Chronicles articles like those on the Founding Fathers, Election History, or even seen our section on American Democracy.