The power of the ballot: In which states do voters have the most, least?

Americans go to the polls on November 8 to cast votes in the 2022 election.

WalletHub released its report on 2022’s States with the Most and Least Powerful Voters.

The personal finance website compared the relative clout of 2022 voters in swinging the House, Senate and gubernatorial elections by calculating the Voter Power Score for each state and for each type of election.

According to the report, Minnesota had the most powerful voters in the House elections while Wyoming voters were most powerful with the Senate and gubernatorial elections.

Minnesota was followed up by Alaska, Maine, Colorado and North Carolina with powerful voters in the House elections.

In the Senate elections, Wyoming was followed by Vermont, Alaska, New Hampshire and North Dakota. In gubernatorial elections, Wyoming was followed by Vermont, Alaska, Maine and North Dakota.

Experts offered comment on whether they think it is fair that all states are represented by only two senators regardless of population.

“Fairness is in the eye of the beholder. If you are from a state with a lower density population, say Wyoming, you probably think it is only fair that you get a say, whereas people in places like New York and California rail against the system,” Dr. Monika L. McDermott, professor at Fordham University, said in a press release. “America’s Founding Fathers designed the system purposefully to avoid popular majorities riding roughshod over the rights of minorities (‘the tyranny of the majority,’ as Madison famously called it). Given our deeply and increasingly polarized politics and the partisan division that is currently inherent in the rural-urban divide…people on the losing side of this design are reexamining the idea.”

According to Don Critchlow, Director of the Center for American Institutions at Arizona State University, America’s Founding Fathers in 1787 “gave great thought to ensure representation to states with small populations. The compromise reached was to have each state represented by two elected representatives in the Senate and House of Representative membership based on the population of the state as arrived at by a Census conducted every ten years. In 1911, Congress limited membership to 435. Any change in Senate membership based on population would have to come through Constitutional amendments, which need three-fourths of the states (38 of 50 states). In other words, this is not going to happen as smaller states would not likely not vote for such an amendment. Nor should they. We do not want both bodies of Congress, the House, and Senate, to be dominated by more populated states to their own political advantage. Such a result would disenfranchise millions of voters who live in less populated states.”

Should we reform how votes are apportioned in Congress (both the House and the Senate)? If so, how?

“We should absolutely consider reforms to Congressional representation,” Associate Professor at George Mason University Jeremy Mayer said in the press release. “The problem is, in the Senate, it would take, not just a constitutional amendment, but a unanimous one to do this. That is because the equal representation of states in the Senate is the one thing about our constitution that cannot be changed by regular amendment…In the House, some changes could be done at the state level that would be relatively easy. They do not require a constitutional amendment. Two big proposals are out there. First, states can adopt non-partisan commissions to draw the lines. Several states do that currently, and it reduces the non-competitive seats and increases what we call ‘swing seats’ – seats that either party, with a good candidate and good national tides, can win. Indeed, Congress could require that, under its power to regulate Congressional elections, and Congress should in fact do that…Second, rank-choice voting would greatly reduce the hatred and polarization in Congressional elections.”

Dr. E. Fletcher McClellan is a professor at Elizabethtown College, and said that little can be done to reform Senate representation without abolishing the filibuster, which gives minorities power to block Senate action.

“As for the House, there are several methods of reforming representation. First, some states have independent commissions to draw House district boundaries. For the most part, the districting patterns are more representative of the state population and where people actually live. Second, states such as Maine and Alaska are turning to ranked-choice voting (RCV), in which voters rank their candidate preferences on the ballot and, if no candidate receives over 50% of the vote in the initial count, the second choices of voters for the candidates with the fewest initial votes are counted. This has the effect of making candidates appeal to a broader spectrum of voters…Third, some political scientists want states to create multi-member Congressional districts and allocate votes by proportional representation. This would encourage the formation of third parties by awarding seats to parties with small percentages of the vote. Multi-party coalitions would have to be formed in the House to govern the chamber and pass legislation. Of course, voters would have more choices on the ballot, which most people support,” McClellan said.

Experts provided opinions about the consequences of having so many gerrymandered, non-competitive House districts and how it impacts governance.

“The Constitution allows for state legislatures to set districts. The Supreme Court since Baker v Carr (1962) enables federal courts to hear Fourteenth Amendment-based redistricting cases. The Court recently ruled against New York Democratic legislature redistricting. Gerrymandering is intended by both parties to ensure safe seats for their respective parties. Many states have established state commissions to create fair districting, but even these commissions have encountered complaints about being partisan. The fact of the matter, taking politics out of elections and districting is an impossible task if we think a perfect system can be created. The best that we can hope for is that districting becomes as fair as possible, whether overseen by a state commission or the federal courts,” Critchlow said.

Not all House districts are gerrymandered, according to McClellan, and some place may just have one party with overwhelming numbers.

“That said, the fact that, according to Nathan Gonzales of Roll Call, there are only 81 competitive races this year in the House (and this is a comparatively large number due to widespread redistricting after the 2020 census) is a huge problem for governance. Members of Congress in non-competitive seats need only worry about opposition in primary elections, where only the most partisan and ideological voters participate. This makes members more ideological, exacerbating partisan polarization. This in turn fuels gridlock in Washington, D.C.,” McClellan said.