It takes 19 other states (38 Senators) to equal California's number of voter support.

Dianne Feinstein received a little under 6 million, and Barbara Boxer received a little under 7 million votes to get their senatorial seat. Their support totals 12,888,250 votes in two separate elections. Based on the information provided by the Federal Election Commission, the total number of winning votes supporting the two Senators of California is close to the same number as the total amount of winning votes for all Senators of:

Alaska
Arkansas
Delaware
Hawaii
Idaho
Kansas
Maine
Mississippi
Montana
Nebraska
New Hampshire
New Mexico
North Dakota
Oklahoma
Rhode Island
South Dakota
Utah
West-Virginia
and Wyoming combined.

These 19 states delivered each two senators, 38 in total, with a combined number of winning votes of 12,893,422.

In the United States, a California voter for the US Senate is the least valued voter. When each winning vote in California is given a value of 1, then only 3 out of the 49 other states had a ratio of value per winning vote that is close to our value: New York, Florida and Texas have values between once and twice that of California. The value ratio of only another five states falls between 2 and 4. Where New York, Florida and Texas elected their two Senators with a number of people that is somewhere between half as many and as many voters as we need to elect our two California Senators, these five states needed just a winning voter block the size between a half and only a quarter of that of us to get their two Senators elected.

And that was the good news. The nineteen states mentioned above, all had a value ratio greater than 10, with nine of these states having a value ratio of more than 20 when comparing them to California's voter value.

The California voter is the least represented voter in the US Senate. The best represented voter lives in Wyoming, where the voter value is 44.24 greater than a voter casting a winning vote in California. To elect their two Senators, Wyoming needed a winning voter block that is only a little over 2% the size of California's winning voter block. If a California Democrat moves to Wyoming, his or her vote multiplies in potential value 44.24 times, while a Wyoming Republican moving to California sees his or her voter value diminish with almost 98% (actually the number is zero, since Republicans can currently not elect a Senator in California). Less than 300,000 people voting Green need to move to Wyoming to ensure two Green Senators in the United States Senate. If 316,819 people voting for the Reform Party moved to Delaware, the Reform Party could ensure two Senators too. That is, if there are no Green or Reform voters in those states, these parties need to double the voting population of these states with voters of their own. If only the right amount of voting Libertarians would move to New Hampshire and help the already Libertarian-leaning population focus more towards their goals, the outcome could be theirs long before doubling the voting population.

On average the other 49 states have a value ratio of 5.88 compared to the 1 of California. Read in the opposite direction, California should receive close to 6 times as many Senators as today — twelve — if we want to give the California voter the same fair representation as the rest of the nation has. When taking out the ten most populated states, the average voter has a value ratio of 8.94, and California should receive close to 9 times as many Senators as today — eighteen — to give us the same voter value as the winners in these 40 states currently enjoy.

Learn more about the voter discrepancies for electing our President and US House of Representatives

Home    Contact Us    Tour    Site Map