Letter to the Editor: Electoral College Unfair to Larger States

This is a letter to the editor I published at the Daily Advance. Posted here for posterity, since they have no online archive:

North Dakota gets three Electoral College votes for its 642,200 residents, one vote for every 214,067 people. New York gets 33 votes for its 19,190,115 residents, one vote for every 581,519 people. A North Dakotan’s vote is 2.7 times more valuable to our political parties than a New Yorker’s.

In 2002 North Dakota received $1.97 for every one dollar it paid in Federal taxes, ranking number one in taxes-paid to spending-received. That same year New Yorkers received $0.80 for every dollar paid to the Federal government. ND takes in a $3.2 Billion Dollar net profit from the Federal Government, while NY takes a $19.8 Billion Dollar net loss. This socialist practice of taking money from productive states and redistributing it to underperforming ones is the direct result of the small states having such disproportionate voting power.

In the 2004 election, 51% of NC voted for Bush, 48% voted for Kerry. In our current winner-takes-all system, Bush gets all of NC’s 15 electoral votes. This makes us a securely “Red State,” instead of a much more valuable “Swing State.” This not only means politicians have no incentive to appeal to North Carolina’s voters, but that 48% of our population goes unrepresented nationally as well.

Under the popular vote method, Bush would get eight electoral votes and Kerry seven. This means politicians would have to start fighting over every single one of NC’s electoral votes instead of taking us for granted.

In passing Senate Bill 954, North Carolina will be joining the growing allegiance of productive, well-governed States who are fed up with mismanaged states being rewarded for their poor-governance. More politicians will make more campaign stops here, and bring more Federal spending with them.