Washington • When it comes to electing the president, not all
votes are created equal. And chances are yours will count less
than those of a select few. For example, the vote of Dave Smith
in Sheridan, Wyo., counts almost three-and-a-half times as much
mathematically as those of his wife's aunts in northeastern
Ohio. Why? Electoral College math. A statistical analysis of the
state-by-state voting-eligible population by The Associated
Press shows that Wyoming has 139,000 eligible voters those 18
and over, U.S. citizens and nonfelons for every presidential
elector chosen in the state. In Ohio, it's almost 476,000 per
elector, and it's nearly 478,000 in neighboring Pennsylvania.
But there's mathematical weight and then there's the reality of
political power in a system where the president is decided not
by the national popular vote but by an 18th century political
compromise: the Electoral College. Smith figures his vote in
solid Republican Wyoming really doesn't count that much because
it's a sure Mitt Romney s