Abstract

Your vote doesn't count...but how it was counted does.
Track: Census and Statistical Data
Authors: luke wenschhof

Whether or not the Electoral College is really a fair way to elect presidents in the United States has been a question for years but seems to have come more to the forefront recently. There are many arguments against the abolishment of the Electoral College, or the skirting of it, chief among them that urban areas would unfairly influence the outcomes of elections and that rural areas would be overlooked. This study done as part of the University of Southern California's GIS Master's program focuses on the "swing states" and uses GIS, a statistic known as Voter Power, and cartogram thematic maps to look at the spatial relationships of the 2008 Presidential election concerning this issue in attempt to answer this question: is it really the case that urban areas would wield more electoral power without the Electoral College?