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- United States Electoral College Votes by State
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- United States Senate - Constitutional framework
- Electoral College - Con 1: The Electoral College gives too much power to swing states and allows presidential elections to be decided by a handful of states.
Why do California and Texas have more electoral votes than smaller states such as Wyoming and Vermont?
The number of electoral votes assigned to each state is determined by the sum of its members in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate.12
Because representation in the House of Representatives is based on state population, states with larger populations, such as California and Texas, are allotted more representatives and, consequently, more electoral votes.31
Conversely, every state is guaranteed two seats in the Senate regardless of its population size. This structure ensures that smaller states, such as Wyoming and Vermont, maintain a baseline of representation that is not tied to their population. As a result, while larger states have more total electoral votes, the inclusion of two Senate-based votes for every state means that voters in smaller states have a higher proportional influence per capita in the Electoral College compared to voters in more populous states.4512