I’ve seen several people claim that their state’s vote for the US presidential election doesn’t matter because their district is gerrymandered, which does not matter for most states.
Most states use the state’s popular vote to determine who the entire state’s electoral college votes go to. No matter how gerrymandered your district is*, every individual vote matters for assigning the electoral vote. [ETA: Nearly] Every single district in a state could go red but the state goes blue for president because of the popular vote.
*Maine and Nebraska are the notable differences who allot individual electors based on the popular vote within their congressional districts and the overall popular vote. It’s possible there are other exceptions and I’m sure commenters will happily point them out.
Edit: added strikethrough to my last statement because now I have confirmed it.
Of the 50 states, all but two award all of their presidential electors to the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote in the state (Maine and Nebraska each award two of their electors to the candidate who wins a plurality of the statewide vote; the remaining electors are allocated to the winners of the plurality vote in the states’ congressional districts). (source)
YSK the electoral college can get fucked.
Gogo Interstate Compact!
It creates maps like this that make people stay home because they believe their vote doesn’t count.
For me, it’s helpful to remember what the underlying reality is.
Skewed for population and colored on a red-blue scale to reflect vote mix.
When those votes are counted, the resulting electoral votes align to those votes, which results in maps like what you showed. When strategists tune their messages to target demographics they can divide (e.g., rural vs. urban), they’re playing a game of inches and shades on this map of purple goo, and that’s still the reality behind the ultimate electoral vote, even if it doesn’t feel like it.
Keep voting, everyone!
edits: So much autocorrect.
Hey, that’s a neat image. I’ve seen other ways of visualizing the popular vote on a map but this one looks wonky as hell and I like it.
Data can be beautiful. I just found a similar but maybe clearer example from 2016 with a nice write-up about it.
Teaser from that article:
I think the common term for these is “cartogram”.
The red looks like a disease
It really fucking does, doesn’t it?
My brain instinctively rejects that image. Not cause it isn’t accurate; it’s showing what it’s supposed to.
But really, that the shape of it is hostile and threatening and it looks vaguely biological and some creepy shit gets sent up and down my spine about it.
That’s precisely what prompted this post: conversations with friends in Texas who said their presidential vote didn’t count because of gerrymandering.
I agree districts are fucked, but that doesn’t affect the electoral college outcome. Texas is leaning more blue every year and getting everyone who feels like their vote doesn’t matter out and voting anyway is the first step to changing it. (One example source)
The state has 30 million people. Of those, 8M are in the Dallas area, 7.5M are in the Houston area, and about 5M between San Antonio and Austin. That means over 20 million of the state residents live in one of the 4 largest metro areas which are all majority blue.
Yet only 11M voted in 2020. National average turnout in the 2020 election was 66% but Texas was less than 40%, and it’s because of the exact sentiment you called out.
I’m from Texas (but don’t live there now) and I know how disheartening the voting season always felt. I want to fight the perception I’ve heard now from multiple people in Texas that their vote for president doesn’t mean anything, because it absolutely could if everyone gets out to vote.
That’s what hurts so much! The people on the street and the images on tv are so wildly different. In most cases - there’s a bar in Harper that’s probably best to just avoid.
We stopped by with plans to wear a mask in, grab some beers, and then sit outside to drink them. Approached, saw this, decided to skip it.
Yep. It creates voter apathy in statewide races. Texas is in the top 10 lowest in voter turnout. A lot of liberal folks don’t vote due to gerrymandering and due to shit like the state meddling in Harris county and the small number of voting locations in big blue areas.
Exactly what I’m trying to help counter! In just 24 hours I heard two people I know from Texas mention that the presidential vote was affected by gerrymandering. I did my research to confirm that was wrong and have been trying to help fix that false belief since then.
It depends on what they mean by affected. I say that lower voter turnout in Dem areas due to well crafted apathy counts as affected. Some people say that since everyone’s vote counts it’s not because they’re counting legal mechanisms as affected. Of course there are also some folks that just don’t understand and are wrong.
I get what you’re saying and I agree with what you’re attempting here. It affects it because we let it depress us and keep us from voting (not me, I’m in a white suburb and it’s super easy for me to vote a couple of weeks early).
Ah yeah, in both cases I’m referring to they were saying the gerrymandered districts meant their blue votes for president didn’t count. I agree that the apathy strongly affects the overall outcome!
In one case, I tried to correct the perception by saying basically when I said here (popular vote determines the state’s allocation of electoral college votes), and I was “corrected” by my acquaintance that the president race is determined by electoral vote, not popular vote. 🤦🏻♀️
I mean, also true, but that’s nationally. Each of our votes goes towards the 40 electoral college votes that Texas gets, and it’s winner take all. So internal to Texas, each vote counts individually towards our electrical votes. But that’s hard to explain. Hence well crafted apathy.
It sounds like they’ve been fed the same kind of bullshit that makes people think they’ll pay more in taxes if they have overtime.
Misinformation is a hell of a drug. It’s hard to battle misinformation when the truth is so damn close to what they’re saying even when you know they’re wrong.
You’re doing good work and it’s a hell of an uphill battle. There are a lot of confidently incorrect people out there saying almost the same thing as you, but it’s just wrong enough to be fucking dangerous.
yeah it’s almost like land can’t vote just people
Maps like that are generated to deceive one from the start… They want people to believe all the soil will vote red
I mean to be fair, Texas is a scary thought. It would make me stay home, too. 😜
I live in a blue zone and most reds i interact with are fairly normalish. They’re lake people or church people or those guys that always have a joke or funny story.
It’s not normal to hate.
Not to nitpick, because I completely support what you’re saying, (EVERYBODY VOTE!!!) but, I don’t think it’s mathematically possible for EVERY district to go red and the electorals go blue.
He should have said almost every.
But thanks for pointing out the mathematical truth ☝️
Ok, fair point, lol.
Not nationally, but because Maine uses both Instant runoff voting for presidential elections, and the Congressional district method of assigning electors, it’s mathematically possibly for Maine to split its electors 2-2. eg, the Republican wins both districts individually, while the Democrat wins statewide. Not this year though – needs a competitive 3-way race so the runoffs matter.
Theoretically the electorals could go blue without winning any districts. It would require a third party to win at least one district though.
But if you live in a state that is overwhelmingly one party, your states votes are going to go to that candidate. I live in California, and there not much chance that any California delegates are going to go to Trump. True, the districts didn’t matter for the EC votes, but that doesn’t mean everyone’s vote counts the same.
Also worth mentioning that the number of votes each state gets is based on very outdated logic.
It would be different if there were no EC and it was decided based on the national popular vote.
True, some states are too extreme to ever flip. Then other states like Texas or North Carolina are perceived as firmly in one camp, but they might not be if everyone actually voted.
Also worth mentioning that the number of votes each state gets is based on very outdated logic.
The logic is basically sound but we borked the shit out of the system with the Re-Apportionment Act of 1929.
That needs to repealed / replaced / updated with something like the Wyoming Rule.
Doesn’t that mean the states are just gerrymandered voting districts?
Only way I can parse nominees winning while earning fewer popular votes than their peers… cough (Republicans)
You could look at it that way. I think gerrymandering specifically refers to lines being drawn specifically to create advantage or disadvantage in voting though, and we don’t move state lines that way. So it’s more just like bad district allocation?
also gerrymandering only counts for the house not the senate and president on a national level. plus you have tons of non party votes at the local level
Even in Maine and Nebraska, two of their electrical votes are statewide just some are allocated to CDs. A state’s electrical votes are determined by their total number of senators and representatives. The ones that correspond to the two senators are statewide.
Do states have more or less electoral votes based on population?
Like would California have more say in who becomes president than Idaho?
Or is it that stupid system where each state has an equal amount of votes?
Both actually. Each state gets 2 plus the proportional split ( based on population)of the remaining 435. So California as a whole has more say than Idaho as a whole but each individual voter in California has less say than an individual voter in Idaho.
It’s assigned proportionally but each state gets a few extra votes to give smaller states more weight.
Originally, states would then award these proportionally, but some state got “smart” and realized that if they gave all their votes to the most popular candidate they’d get more attention … other states soon followed suite and Madison went and died before he could fix this abuse of the system (which bothered him).
https://fairvote.org/why-james-madison-wanted-to-change-the-way-we-vote-for-president/
Inbetween. Each state has a number of voters for the electoral college, but it is not proportional to the population of the state. A less populous state vote is worth more than a populous state generally.
That is why Trump became president while losing the popular vote in 2016, and swing states are so important.
Population of a state does dictate the number of electorial votes, which is why California has 54. Florida surpassed population of NY a few years back and now you will see Florida has 30, while NY has 28. On the other hand population is disproportionately represented when it comes to the Senate, because each state has 2 senators, regardless of population.
“Swing states” are just important in the fact that if you already know 60% of a state will vote red/blue you don’t need to campaign there as much, because convincing 10% of the population to change their mind is harder than convincing 3%.
That said, Texas is seen as “Red” and people claim Florida is “Red” these days as well. A 3% flop in 2020 would have made both states blue.
Note that every state that gained electorial votes since last election I believe is expected to vote red though, as they are usually tied to lower taxes and cost of living, which many people I believe moved to when remote work became more prominent (others will argue because people moved for other reasons but that’s neither here nor there when it comes to the number of electors part)
You should know the Electoral College is ridiculous and should be abolished.
I don’t disagree, but it’s the system we have and I want to ensure people aren’t disenfranchising themselves in states that could swing the opposite way if everyone actually voted.
Maine and Nebraska are the notable differences who allot individual electors based on the popular vote within their congressional districts and the overall popular vote. It’s possible there are other exceptions and I’m sure commenters will happily point them out.
I mean, this just says “I didn’t research things and you shouldn’t take what I say seriously” to me.
It means I didn’t go look at the laws of 50 different states, correct. Doesn’t mean I didn’t do any research at all; I did confirm for multiple states where I heard people saying this (OH, NC, and TX) and I confirmed that only those two states allocate votes based on districts while all others allocate all voters to one candidate. Maybe there’s some other method out there other than district-driven or popular vote–driven; I’m holding space that I could be unaware of something rather than trying to claim I know everything.
I took it to mean “I don’t know if this is actually true or not, but I’m going to post it anyway” which is exactly where tons of quickly-spreading misinformation comes from and how it gets passed on.
Specifically, the claim that it’s the popular vote overall seems off to me, though I don’t currently have time to look into it (I did some quick googling but did not get a conclusive answer). What I mean to say is that, yes, all of the electoral votes are allocated to whomever is considered a winner and it is not proportional (except in two states). I was under the impression, however, that it went by districts so whomever won the most districts got the full share of votes (i.e. not the overall statewide popular vote).
I took it to mean “I don’t know if this is actually true or not, but I’m going to post it anyway” which is exactly where tons of quickly-spreading misinformation comes from and how it gets passed on.
followed by:
though I don’t currently have time to look into it
Seriously?
I had to start work and I was talking about actual post rather than comments, but I suppose that’s a fair criticism. I did mean it to mean that I was coming back to it (as I am now).
And what you’re saying now is, “What you said doesn’t align to what I think, so I’m sure you’re wrong.”
So here’s proof:
Of the 50 states, all but two award all of their presidential electors to the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote in the state (Maine and Nebraska each award two of their electors to the candidate who wins a plurality of the statewide vote; the remaining electors are allocated to the winners of the plurality vote in the states’ congressional districts). (source)
And what you’re saying now is, “What you said doesn’t align to what I think, so I’m sure you’re wrong.”
I had to start work so sorry for the delayed response. No, I didn’t assert that you were wrong. I did say the wording left a lot of room to be suspicious.
I appreciate the source above and, indeed, it looks like I was wrong on that specific part (at least according to three other source, including ballotpedia).
Edit for clarity: my reasoning was not “you are wrong because I don’t agree” but rather the wording itself just gave me an off feeling (even had I agreed with it fully).
Thanks for the clarification on your intent. I understand (and appreciate) skepticism; however, I took your original comment to be a dig rather than helpful criticism, but your clarification here helps me read it more positively.
Someone else commented and used words that aligned with my intent behind the comment, which was just to leave open the door that there are nuances I may be uninformed about. But I recognize I could have been more explicit about what research I had done to maybe establish a little more credibility.
Thanks for responding with such a level head!
Yeah, I actually felt bad last night about my wording choice and explanation, so apologies for that. Thank you as well for engaging. Cheers!
I don’t like this perspective … you’re effectively punishing honesty about uncertainty which is almost certainly why so many politician themselves pretend to have super powers, perfect foresight, control, and what not.
Like, can we just have a discussion accepting that op acknowledge they don’t know everything? … because nobody knows everything.
I see your point. There was just something about the wording that really made it feel unfinished/unverified to me and led me down the path of thought I went on. Of course, very few people in the world know everything on a given topic and no one is infallible. I guess it was just the phrasing that really made me suspicious.
I dunno, you haven’t even pointed anything out yet.
Generally, the person stating a claim is the one that needs to substantiate that claim. If someone makes a post and then says in their own post “I’m probably not right but I can’t be bothered to check yet am still going to post anyway”, that strikes me as lazy at best and vain or shady at worst.
I think you’re getting downvotes because you’re projecting a narrative onto @Reyali and using quotes around non-quotes. They didn’t say they were “probably not right.”
I agree, everyone should be skeptical of information someone else is sharing, because we can’t assume intention. But what would motivate someone to say “I’m probably not right” anyway?
What’s interesting to me is that for you, your guard went up for someone admitting a potential of having missed something, which may make you more susceptible to people who are confidently wrong.
Most others’ reaction is the opposite, taking their statement as an attempt to be genuine and open to feedback. If someone invites feedback, is willing to admit they might be wrong, that’s a much better starting point for conversation.
You should vote regardless (downballot blue votes also help resist the creep towards obe-party autocracy).
At the same time, be aware of efforts that might be active in your area to disqualify you:
- Voter suppression
- Registration purges
- Intimidation (threats)
- Intimidation (actual violence)
- procedural shennanigans
- outright election fraud
- violent coup d’etat
The electoral college can lick my rectum polished
