Electoral College Math California Wyoming

California has 55 electoral votes.

Electoral college math california wyoming.

Electoral college math popular vote trump clinton california founding fathers. The electoral college is a body of electors established by the united states constitution which forms every four years for the sole purpose of electing the president and vice president of the united states the electoral college consists of 538 electors and an absolute majority of electoral votes 270 or more is required to win the election. Consider that california the most populous state has 39 144 818 residents and 55 electoral college votes. In the senate california and wyoming are equals.

It s easy to see when you do the math. There are a total of 538 electoral votes and the number of votes each state receives is proportional to its size the bigger the state s population the more votes it gets. The funky math of the electoral college. Subtract trump s california votes from his national total and get 58 501 018 from the rest of the country.

Although wyoming had a population in the last census of only 563 767 it gets 3 votes in the electoral college based on its two senators and one congressman. In fact to make up for. Article ii section 1 clause 2 of the. An elector in wyoming represents around 150 000 voters whereas a california elector represents the votes of some 500 000 residents.

Each vote cast in wyoming is worth 3 6 as much as the same vote cast in california. California in addition to having the most electoral seats it is also the most populous state with an estimated population of 39 6 million. Because each elector in california represents 3 18 times as many people as each elector in wyoming the standard explanation tells us that wyoming has 3 18 electoral votes to each one of. Under the electoral college system each state is assigned a certain number of votes.

Voters from sparsely populated states like wyoming are able to pack over three times the electoral punch than in large states like california. How can that be you might ask. That means that in the electoral college each individual wyoming vote weighs 3 6 times more than an individual californian s vote. That s the most extreme example but if you average the 10 most populous states and compare the power.