2008 Electoral College Ball… Go Team!
What Do You Need to Win?
267 Votes versus 271 Votes
39 States Plus D.C. versus 11 States
It’s officially two weeks until Election Day, and we’re already gearing up here for an evening of popcorn in front of the TV. With Dad not being a big sports fan, election night is something like the Super Bowl around here, and this is the first election where the kids realize there’s something like “teams” we root for throughout the night.
That said, if we learned anything in the last two elections, it’s that score keeping is hard. Seriously, if football had scoring rules like the Electoral College I think we’d be looking at a lot more hockey fans out there. Let’s take a closer look!
There are 50 states plus the District of Columbia who are granted electoral votes for purposes of the presidential election. Each state is given a number of votes equal to the number of representatives it has in Congress. Each state has two Senators, plus some number of members in the House of Representative. The number of House of Representatives members from each state is based generally on population. The District of Columbia is granted three votes even though it has no representation in Congress. For the 2008 election, all of this totals up to 538 Electoral College votes.
Most of the states award their Electoral College votes in all-or-nothing contests. If a candidate wins, the candidate gets all of the votes for that state. The exceptions to this are Maine and Nebraska, who divide their votes in all-or-nothing contests at the congressional district level, and with the two votes corresponding to the Senate seats awarded based on the state-wide popular vote. In theory, this could cause Maine or Nevada to split their votes between the candidates, but because these states have a small number of congressional districts (and a correspondingly small number of Electoral College votes), the math generally works out where the state-wide votes and the votes within individual congressional districts always agree. In fact, a college vote split has never occurred, but polls are close in Nevada this year, so keep a watch there for this potential bit of election trivia to expire.
States Sorted Descending
by Electoral College Votes
| State | Votes |
|---|---|
| California | 55 |
| Texas | 34 |
| New York | 31 |
| Florida | 27 |
| Illinois | 21 |
| Pennsylvania | 21 |
| Ohio | 20 |
| Michigan | 17 |
| Georgia | 15 |
| New Jersey | 15 |
| North Carolina | 15 |
| Virginia | 13 |
| Massachusetts | 12 |
| Indiana | 11 |
| Missouri | 11 |
| Tennessee | 11 |
| Washington | 11 |
| Arizona | 10 |
| Maryland | 10 |
| Minnesota | 10 |
| Wisconsin | 10 |
| Alabama | 9 |
| Colorado | 9 |
| Louisiana | 9 |
| Kentucky | 8 |
| South Carolina | 8 |
| Connecticut | 7 |
| Iowa | 7 |
| Oklahoma | 7 |
| Oregon | 7 |
| Arkansas | 6 |
| Kansas | 6 |
| Mississippi | 6 |
| Nebraska | 5 |
| Nevada | 5 |
| New Mexico | 5 |
| Utah | 5 |
| West Virginia | 5 |
| Hawaii | 4 |
| Idaho | 4 |
| Maine | 4 |
| New Hampshire | 4 |
| Rhode Island | 4 |
| Alaska | 3 |
| Delaware | 3 |
| D.C. | 3 |
| Montana | 3 |
| North Dakota | 3 |
| South Dakota | 3 |
| Vermont | 3 |
| Wyoming | 3 |
Half of the 538 vote total is 269, so a candidate must win 270 votes to get a majority and win the game. It doesn’t matter how they get there, but obvious the bigger the haul in one of those all-or-nothing states, the closer to victory. Nearby is a list of the states sorted in descending order by their electoral votes. If you look at this chart, the top 11 states account for 271 votes, or just enough to win the election. In other words, the bottom 39 states and the District of Columbia count as much as those top 11 states. In fact, you have to add up 15 of the lowest ranking contributors just to get close to the 55 Electoral College votes that California racks up.
So why do we persist with this system of all-or-nothing contests? Doesn’t that just perpetuate that whole 2000 election/Florida fiasco? Actually, the Electoral College vote helps encourage candidates to spend time in individual estates, even if it’s only the ones where the contests are close in the polls. If the race was purely decided by the national populate votes, candidates would probably spend virtually all of their time in those top few states since that’s where they’re likely to shift the largest absolute number of votes. The Electoral College encourages candidates to take into account the interests of a wider range of the states, which was really the intent of the system’s designers. Second guessing the Founding Fathers would be a bit like making touch-downs and field goals both count for two points… It might sound reasonable, especially if you’re the kicker, but it’s not football anymore.
When you consider that one of the original proposals was to have Congress elect the President, you’ll probably be just as glad we got the Electoral College system in the bargain.
But back to the numbers. The top 11 states are overwhelming concentrated in the Eastern half of the United States, and the only two big Western states, California and Texas, are respectively and heavily tilted toward the opposing teams. With the outcome of those two states pretty well known, there will be a lot of riding on those remaining top 9 states. For all intents and purposes, our game kicks off 8:00PM EST when polls for the majority of those states will be closed and the national networks will start calling the points.
Several of the big states are tilted one way or the other, but the big open plays in the game are really Florida and Ohio. With the team wearing the blue uniforms solidly polling double digit leads in both California and New York, the red team really needs to tip these wobblers in if they want to stay in the game. If McCain loses these two states, Obama will likely have eight of the top 11 locked up and the game is basically over before half-time. If McCain picks up both of these states, we could be looking at election-overtime. Either way, we’ll have lots of pop corn ready. Go team!
Here’s a few quick math trivia facts to keep your Electoral College-unaware friends (or your kids) amused during the night of CNN and FoxNews channel surfing…
What is the number of Electoral College votes being decided in the 2008 election? 538
How many votes are needed to win? A clear majority or 270 votes will be necessary to win the 2008 Presidential Election.
Can there be a tie? Absolutely. If both parties end the night with exactly half the total, or 269 votes, the sitting House of Representatives decides the election. If the House vote is a tie, the Senate (which has 101 votes including the Vice President, so it can never have a tie), decides.
How many different ways could the Electoral College votes be cast? In theory, with 51 different contests (ignoring the Nevada/Maine complexity), there are 2^51 or 2,251,799,813,685,248 potential ways the combination of individual elections could be decided. No matter how you slice it, that’s millions of times more than the actual number of voters. How’s that for counter-intuitive?
How many of the largest states are needed to win the Electoral College? Alternatively, what’s the fewest number of states a candidate needs to win the election? The top eleven states total 271 votes, or one more than what is necessary to win.
What’s the range of votes assigned to individual states? California has the most Electoral College votes at 55. Seven states and the District of Columbia have the fewest at 3 votes each. The average state has 10.5 Electoral College votes.
Election 2008 Home State Advantage
13 Votes versus 24 Votes
Who has the “home state advantage”? Obama and Biden share 24 votes (21 from Illionois and 3 from Delaware) compared to 13 for McCain and Palin (10 from Arizona and 3 from Alaska). The Vice Presidential picks did little to tilt either candidate’s chances in the Electoral College math.
Some sources:
Breakdown of Electoral Votes by State
The winner-take-all rule (awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who gets the most votes inside the state) is not in the U.S. Constitution. It is strictly a matter of state law. The winner-take-all rule was not the choice of the Founding Fathers, as indicated by the fact that the winner-take-all rule was used by only 3 states in the nation’s first presidential election in 1789. The fact that Maine and Nebraska currently award electoral votes by congressional district is another reminder that the Constitution left the matter of awarding electoral votes to the states. All the U.S. Constitution says is “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors.” The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the states over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as “plenary” and “exclusive.” A federal constitutional amendment is not needed to change state laws.
See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
Comment by susan — October 21, 2008 @ 3:21 pm
The major shortcoming of the current system of electing the President is that presidential candidates concentrate their attention on a handful of closely divided “battleground” states. In 2004 two-thirds of the visits and money were focused in just six states; 88% on 9 states, and 99% of the money went to just 16 states. Two-thirds of the states and people were merely spectators to the presidential election. Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or worry about the voter concerns in states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. The reason for this is the winner-take-all rule under which all of a state’s electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state.
Another shortcoming of the current system is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide. This has occurred in one of every 14 presidential elections.
In the past six decades, there have been six presidential elections in which a shift of a relatively small number of votes in one or two states would have elected (and, of course, in 2000, did elect) a presidential candidate who lost the popular vote nationwide.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Every vote would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections.
The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
The National Popular Vote bill has passed 21 state legislative chambers, including one house in Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, North Carolina, and Washington, and both houses in California, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The bill has been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These four states possess 50 electoral votes — 19% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
Comment by susan — October 21, 2008 @ 3:21 pm
The purpose of the National Popular Vote bill is to eliminate the state-by-state awarding of electoral votes and instead award a majority of the nation’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most votes in all 50 states (and DC). It is the current state-by-state awarding of electoral votes that permits a second-place candidate to win the White House. It is the current state-by-state system that makes votes unequal in presidential elections. It is the current state-by-state system that makes three-quarters of the states politically irrelevant in presidential elections. Under the winner-take-all rule, candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, or pay attention to the concerns of states where they are comfortably ahead or hopelessly behind. Instead, candidates concentrate their attention on a small handful of closely divided battleground states. This means that voters in three quarters of the states are ignored in presidential elections. In 2004, candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their money and campaign visits in five states; over 80% in nine states; and over 99% of their money in 16 states.
Under the National Popular Vote plan, the focus of the campaigns and media in the months prior to the presidential elections will be on polls of the national popular vote, not on state-by-state polls from a handful of closely divided battleground states. There will be no red states and no blue states, only the United States.
Ultimately, the choice is whether it is more important for the winner in a particular state to receive the state’s electoral votes or for the winner of the entire country to win the White House.
Comment by susan — October 21, 2008 @ 3:22 pm
Evidence as to how a nationwide presidential campaign would be run can be found by examining the way presidential candidates currently campaign inside battleground states. Inside Ohio or Florida, the big cities do not receive all the attention. And, the cities of Ohio and Florida certainly do not control the outcome in those states. Because every vote is equal inside Ohio or Florida, presidential candidates avidly seek out voters in small, medium, and large towns. The itineraries of presidential candidates in battleground states (and their allocation of other campaign resources in battleground states) reflect the political reality that every gubernatorial or senatorial candidate in Ohio and Florida already knows–namely that when every vote is equal, the campaign must be run in every part of the state.
Further evidence of the way a nationwide presidential campaign would be run comes from national advertisers who seek out customers in small, medium, and large towns of every small, medium, and large state. A national advertiser does not write off Indiana or Illinois merely because a competitor makes more sales in those particular states. Moreover, a national advertiser enjoying an edge over its competitors in Indiana or Illinois does not stop trying to make additional sales in those states. National advertisers go after every single possible customer, regardless of where the customer is located.
Comment by susan — October 21, 2008 @ 3:23 pm
There would never be a tie in the electoral vote, because the compact always represents a bloc consisting of a majority of the electoral votes. Thus, an election for President would never be thrown into the House of Representatives (with each state casting one vote) and an election for Vice President would never be thrown into the Senate (with each Senator casting one vote).
Comment by susan — October 21, 2008 @ 3:25 pm