• svtdragon@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Congressional districts are divided among states based on the census, and then become the count of electoral votes, which in turn award the presidency. So they have a lot to do with presidential elections.

    • Jordan Lund@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      Increasing the number of congressional districts would also necessitate increasing the number of votes needed to win.

      Right now, each state has 1 per Congressman and 1 for each of 2 Senators.

      538 total with 270 needed to win (50.18%).

      So if you add house members, let’s say we do something crazy and double it for everyone:

      976 electoral college votes (538-100 because the Senate votes are fixed. 438*2 then add the 100 Senators back in).

      Now you need 488 to become President. The problem remains, all you did is change the scale.

      • jpj007@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        But you wouldn’t just double it for each state. You’d increase the total number of House seats, and then portion them out according to the populations of each state. That’s how it was always done before they capped the size of the House.

        Currently, Wyoming has just one House seat. If you double the number of total House seats, Wyoming still only gets one. They currently have a larger impact on Presidential elections than they should if it were decided strictly by population, and that’s due entirely to the Electoral College and the cap on the size of the House.