Electoral College Math 101 :Why it is more important then ever.

It Shouldn't have to Be this way:

   This post is the result of current events and failure to understand basic(granted still hard) math.

How and why the Electoral College is imperative for keeping civility in a nation that is an ideological melting pot. The people who created this mess could have walked out of the quorum with a pure democracy. What they seem to know is that while a republic can still suffer from many of the flaws of a pure democracy, it (the electoral college) limits the effect of those flaws with a buffer. Without it, that feeling that we all get a voice, that feeling of representation is lost. A slight minority of the people become members of the “flyover states”.

Setting Up Our Country:

We are going to use 5 “states” to keep this simple and use a single issue president race. The states are 1,2,3,4,5. We are going to imagine various situations where the population sizes vary and so do the number of electors. We are also going to keep it a 2 president election with no spoilers. President A believes that the country would be better off if people killed everybody in states 3 and 4. Arguing that the cities need the water and resources that theses two states have. President B, being from one of those states, believes that is simply not true. This assumes “population” means the entire population votes.

Narrative 1: Equal states of Equal population and electoral votes.

So it is a fact that if states 1,2, & 5 agree, 3 & 4 are goners. Might as well give them a bar of soap and send them to the Auschwitz showers. It doesn't even take a Majority. Let us say there is a million in each state. We can safely say that 2 million in states 3 & 4 oppose the measure. In a straight popular vote, we only need 2 million from states 1 & 2. But then 500,001 from the state 5 and state 3 & 4 are goners. In this case, where populations are equal, the poor schleps in the targeted states are goners. The president has the popular vote to win the elections and start his murderous spree.

In this case, if each state got “electors” that needed to receive 50.01% of the sates vote in order to elect the genocide bent president, then there a bleak outlook for the targets. Where it was going to take 2,500,001 votes to elect the genocidal president under the popular vote. In this case, it will only take 1,500,003. 500,001 coming from each of those states. If you are counting that means that 2, 499,997 didn't vote for the maniac president. But he got elected in.

Conclusion: Less people need to agree on the genocide with the electoral vote where the population is equal, BUT they must come from a larger portion of the countries voter considerations. Also in this scenario, the other two states could introduce legislation to murder the people in the first two. Thus creating security through MAD. I started with this version to show just how powerful the electors can be if they were installed in a system where all other things are equal. There is no denying the power of the electoral vote to grant a smaller population a more powerful vote. This is as true today as it was in 1776.

Narrative 2 : Different population sizes But equal electoral votes (like the Senate)

Now let us mix it up a bit and imagine the populations are not equal. Our country has 10 million (I like round numbers) States 1 and states 5 have 3 million each. States 2 has 2 million. And states 3 & 4 have a million each. However, because those states are not as populated they have a lot of resources. Land and water to be exact. Something the crowded states are running out of. SO.. Presidential candidate A is back explaining how “If we kill everybody in states 3 & 4, we can take their land and their water.” Candidate B thinks “genocide is wrong”. (Weirdo hippie) . Now if we are going by a straight popular vote, President A only needs the two states (1 & 5) to start his trail of carnage and death. Even worse, he only needs one full state and 2/3rds of the second state to be all pissed off at how the less populated states are hoarding their resources. He doesn't even give 2 turds about campaigning in state 2. States 2. 3. & 4 combined are only going to amount to 4 million votes. Then a fight over the remaining 3^rd in the state 5. Life and death could come down to one vote. However it they have an electoral system that grants each state equal electors, the “pro genocide” party has to get one half of 3 states. However, they now have to care about what state 2 thinks. Because they can't just pile on the numbers from the states where genocide is popular. They have to get a proportional amount of votes from a state where they are more independent and concerned over mass killings and theft.

Conclusion: The more populous states could actually lose the popular vote, but still win the vote for genocide. The smaller states could Do the same, but then they have a numbers problem if they are going to raise up against a populated state. In either case, a larger portion of the country and voters must be involved in the decision. Where a straight popular vote would only require the two larger states to be nearly unanimous, And if not, maybe pick up a few votes from a vast minority in the 3^rd most populous states to make up for the doubters in their own community. That state is more independent state with ease. With the electoral votes, It must get a consensus from at least 3 states. This is no doubt a much higher bar. With this narrative we show the power of the electoral vote and how things that are truly immoral or have a hard time getting traction require more than those trapped in the choir to agree to them.

Narrative 3: Different population sizes and different electoral votes.

In this narrative we are going to have to mix partners. First there are a total of 20 electoral votes in this scenario. State 1 has 6 with 6 million people. State 5 has 5 electoral votes with 5 million people. In a nation where there are only 5 states, if the two most populated states come to an accord, the more sparely populated states have no recourse. State 2 has 4 electoral votes with 4 million people. State 3 has 3 with 2 million people, and state 4 has 2 electoral votes with only 1 million people. Intentionally this is created just for voting for a president and not making laws. When it comes to representation in the branch driven by population, the votes are closer to 1 per million. Because it is so easy to have just the two most populous states get together and vote to harm the less populated states, this leverage in electing a president that doesn't favor genocide is important. The president is also the Commander in chief in this nation.

Beyond the two state super majority, every other combination will require the participation of a 3^rd state to elect that president. This does give a lot of weight to those two largest states when it come so selecting a president. However it is unlikely they will end up with a combined vote. They have a larger population to convince. Other systems wold have weighted these two states in a way that they HAD to seek the approval of a smaller state to name the president. This form of electoral voting system forces the formation of wide spread coalitions. If there is even a small 3^rd party candidate in the electorate, it can help keep this process compassionate. But the “magic number” to elect the genocidal president outside the super majority is 3. It will take at least 3 states to have a majority and vote to elect. 6 and 4 won't do it, neither will 5 and 4. While the two most populous states will drive the way the election is leaning, especially the largest, they have the ability to lose the presidency even though they win the popular vote.

Conclusion: If just a majority of people were all that was required, the most populous state would always elect the president, the other states would have no sense of voice in the matter. By weighting the electoral system, a much more broad representation of the nation as a whole is required for a presidential candidate to win. Likewise, there is no way for the more rural states to elect a president without the aide to get at least one of the more populous states.

Final thoughts: 

So yes!! When it comes to electing a president, the densely populated areas are supposed to work harder than the sparsely populated. That is the point! Because a president is a single point of contention. One person who must represent them all. The more people want to abolish the Electoral College the more we need it. That is what differentiates a “Representative government” such as a “Republic” over a pure democracy. It is a core value that the people who came up with this government worked really hard to come up with. The fact of the matter is that when the popular vote elects a president, the electoral college was a formality. It is the very point that the founders were driving at, that the popular vote was occasionally subdued by the electoral college. There would be no reason to even bother making that whole thing up if they didn't mean for that to be the outcome this last time. There was less than a 1% variation. We are not talking some kind of wide margin. You can't start picking and choosing which parts of the Constitution's founding pillars you don't like because you didn't win. That is What he Franklin meant when he said, “If you can keep it” I have no doubt. Because people who lose want to change the rules.

This is “hard math” there is no doubt. This generic simplification is further complicated by a modern world where ideas and beliefs are no longer held in check by natural boundaries and insurmountable distances. I am amazed at how many states are so clearly one philosophy or the other. But now, more than ever, when the thing that defines us is not what our families, communities, or even churches believe, but what our life experiences are. We still can generalize certain truths from those who live in heavily populated areas have very different concerns and requirements from their government than those who live in the more rural areas. I have to tell you that many times I have felt compelled to believe that the Electoral collage was a waste and an injustices. I too believed “They founding members just wanted to make sure we didn't elect an idiot, well that didn't work.” It wasn't until I sat down to do the math, so watch how the numbers could be manipulated, did I understand that that couldn't be further from the truth. The idea was that we have a government founded on the idea of maximizing the need to get as many people from as many different backgrounds on board with a decision. To be as inclusive as possible and still arrive at a decision.

So when Elizabeth Warren starts calling for an end to the Electoral College, the appropriate response should be “how about we put an end to people who have no freaking clue how our government was established and works being in legislative branches? Politicians so often lead with their mouths to say the things that are reflective of either their ignorance, or the perceived ignorance of their supporters.

The way we physically elect people is broke. There are new “Democracies” out there doing it way better than we are. They are doing it in ways that would not rip the heart out of our Constitution's objective animal. Ranked Choices is currently a favorite for granting people a feeling of satisfaction. This “picking of the lesser evils” is far more damaging than useful. You know why people like Warren wouldn't advocate such a system, because she would never win. Her's, just as the idiots on the other side, mainstay is that they cater to the most extreme idealists in our culture an leave a the largest portion of us in the center feeling we have no representation.