# The Electoral College vs the Equal Protection Clause

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-electoral-college-vs-the-equal-protection-clause/774060>\
**Category:** Politics & Elections\
**Created:** [December 6, 2016, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-electoral-college-vs-the-equal-protection-clause/774060 "2016-12-06T22:38:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2016, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-electoral-college-vs-the-equal-protection-clause/774060/21 "2016-12-07T17:17:43Z")

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> [@UDS](#):
>
> With respect to Tom Tildrum, it’s not enough to say that “It’s the voters, not the state, who are granting unequal benefits to one party’s followers”. It’s the state, not the voters, who decides that the candidate obtaining a plurality of votes gets 100% of the electoral votes. In a number of states - e.g. in the current year Arizona, Colorado - this means that one candidate gets 100% of the electoral vote even though an absolute majority of the voters voted for someone else, so it’s clearly _not_ the voters who are deciding how the electoral votes are allocated.

Right, but the relevant question is not who implemented the winner-take-all system but whether that system violated equal protection, and that the assertion that it does is not found in Williams. There, the state acted invidiously to favor particular associational groups, whereas in setting up a winner-take-all system, the state is acting neutrally as among the parties. Nothing that the state is doing in implementing winner-take-all is inhibiting the ability of the parties to compete in the election. That’s what Williams appears to stand for.

Certainly, there may be a legal argument that the constitution requires a certain allocation of the results of the election. The analysis linked to by the OP, however, just does not make that case.

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**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\
**Post date:** [December 8, 2016, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-electoral-college-vs-the-equal-protection-clause/774060/22 "2016-12-08T06:26:16Z")

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> [@DrCube](#):
>
> Do the people who wrote in Mickey Mouse and Tom Sawyer get equal protection too?

Yes. That’s what “equal protection” means.

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