Electoral College Grossly Unfair Say 150 Million Computer Simulations

WASHINGTON - Jan. 31, 2023 - PRLog -- A major new study of the Electoral College, including simulations of some 150 million different presidential elections under differing assumptions, clearly demonstrates that voters in the least populous states have the least voting power by a ratio of about 1-3.6, notes mathematician and public interest law professor John Banzhaf.

By calculating the "Banzhaf Index of Voting Power," which has become the accepted standard for measuring voting power under the Electoral College as well as under many other voting systems, tens of millions of computer simulated elections prove that voters in California have about 3.6 times more voting power - i.e., the ability to affect the outcome of the presidential election with their votes - as voters in Ohio.

"The results of this paper confirm Banzhaf's observation that weighted voting does not grant people equal impact on the Electoral College," the authors conclude, but note that the magnitude of the disparity hasn't changed very much since Banzhaf - an MIT graduate then in law school - published his own calculations in the 1960s.

Banzhaf's analysis was seen as revolutionary when it was first published because it upended the popular assumption that it was the citizens in the least populous states who had the most voting power in presidential elections; because, as many argued, even the most sparsely populated state was allocated 3 electoral votes.  For this reason, representatives from these smaller states had, up until that time, strongly opposed any efforts to change the Electoral College.

As a result of Banzhaf's calculations, the Electoral College came close to being abolished,

Until that happens, citizens in the most populous states will enjoy the greatest voting power, although in practice the votes and voting power of many individual citizens may mean little in states which are either overwhelmingly red or overwhelmingly blue, notes Banzhaf.

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