Protests following the election of Donald Trump as head of the United States continue across the country, highlighting in particular the fact that Hillary Clinton won more votes than the Republican candidate. The peculiarities of the American electoral system indeed allow a candidate having collected fewer direct votes to be elected, and this if he wins the majority of the votes of the voters. This was the case this year, as already in 2000.
However, is the American system unfair? Not that easy. Explanations.
Does a citizen’s voice have the same value everywhere?
Each state has as many votes in the electoral college as it has representatives in Congress. This weight in the Senate and the House of Representatives being proportional to its population, the same goes for the votes in the electoral college.
However, there are variations. Across states, the number of electors per million people can vary between one and five. Eleven states have more than three voters per million heads. However, these states are the 11 least populated in the country and represent only 2.5% of the population. Only 7.4% of the population is found in states with 2 or 3 voters per million people. The vast majority of Americans, the remaining 90.1%, therefore have virtually the same representation.
What consequences on the investment of candidates in the different States?
Intuitively, one might think that it is more interesting for candidates to convince citizens whose voice weighs two or even three times more than the average. In reality, the “winner-take-all” system, that is to say of the attribution of all the votes of a State to the winner in the latter, makes the gross number of large voters greater than the number of voters. number of votes per head. The voices that weigh are therefore those of the large States. In particular, those of the large states in the balance, where each additional vote greatly increases the chances of winning many voters, and therefore the election.
The number of Democratic or Republican conventions and meetings in each state is a good indication of the importance given to them by the parties.
As can be seen on the map, the candidates get involved in priority in the States in balance, and among these States the electoral investment decreases with the number of large voters. Florida, the “Swing State” with 29 voters, was the scene of 71 public meetings out of a total of 400, or 18%. Conversely, California and Texas, traditionally acquired by Democrats and Republicans respectively, have only been the scene of one meeting each despite their significant weight in the electoral college.
Focusing on these key states and in balance seems to be paying off. Of the 12 states where more than 10 meetings took place, 6 switched from the Democratic camp to the Republican camp between 2012 and 2016. With their total of 89 voters, they were enough to determine the winner.
Is it very different from a direct election?
In the end, more than the size of a state, the stake therefore focuses on its strategic importance. Which relativizes the criticism saying that things would be different in a direct system, as in France:
In our country, the candidates will focus on the socio-demographic categories that are not necessarily the most numerous but that they have above all the most chance of rallying to their cause.
In the United States, the structure of the system means that these categories are replaced by the states, but the principle remains the same. This is all the more true as the States sometimes coincide with specific majority sociological profiles. For example, city dwellers overwhelmingly voted for Clinton, which is part of the reason why she won votes from highly urbanized states.
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