I just smoked a bowl and was reading some articles and threads about the US's Democratic presidential campaign and just started going off on tangents in my head, I love my weed. I started thinking about the Electoral College and just started writing shit down (at the end of the post in the quotations). Is there anyone here who's good with numbers that could figure out that ratio? This sounds like a homework assignment but this is the crap I think about when I have free time. I'll post if I make any progress (doubtful). "States that have a certain density of population and a specific area between a low and high figure(1) are more likely to be a good “polling†of the United States, it is likely to be split as to who it wants nominated. This means that these large and populous states are likely to be close races, kind of “swing†in either direction. This makes their votes in the Electoral College extremely volatile, as they carry a significant amount of weight in the Electoral College.. Because of the state's “All or Nothing†way of placing votes, it will not likely represent the state's actual closeness of the race, in comparison. These types of states exemplify the reasons why politicians have such a stranglehold on the government (they are the types best suited for winning close elections). 1. A certain ratio of pop. vs. large state area = high, but not as high as CA NY (TX is an anomaly in this regard) {What would the formula be for this to work????}"
Wait what are you trying to find? If that ratio needs to be high, then the top number and bottom number have to be really close to each other, for example 6/8 is a lot bigger than 1/8. That means the important states are the ones with a lot of people jammed together, I guess.
Nah I mean that the ratio is a combination of (a approximation of a certain density of population) / (a state size between X^2 miles^2 in area and Y^2 miles^2 in area). Neither the nominator nor the denominator are a fixed number but do exist within a specific limit, upper and lower bound. A simplistic version would just be averaging the major swing state's ratios (OH, FL, kinda VA, kinda PA).