The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America

by Timothy Snyder

The American electoral college accords victory by tallying the electoral votes of states rather than by the number of individual votes. States are allocated electoral votes not by population but according to the number of federal elected representatives. Since all states have two senators, less populous states have a disproportionate number of electoral votes; individual votes in small states count for far more than individual votes in large states. Meanwhile, millions of Americans in territories (as opposed to states) have no vote at all. Puerto Rico has more inhabitants than twenty-one of the fifty American states, but its American citizens have no influence on presidential elections. American states with small populations are also vastly overrepresented in the Senate, the upper house of the American legislature. The population of the largest state is about eighty times the population of the smallest state, but each has two senators.