Queries are written in the present tense , even if the manuscript is in past tense . The pitch needs to be more immediate , hence present tense lends the action a little more urgency . Most of the literature on queries supports this . <| sep |> Just for fun , I just did some quick Excel math , and if we adjust the makeup of the electoral college such that the number of EC votes a state gets is proportional to its population , there is still no scenario in which Clinton wins . The fist rule I tried was number of EC votes a state gets its population divided by 625 , 000 , rounding up because that results in a grand total of 538 votes , the same as the current system . In this model Clinton gets 235 votes , which is only 3 more than she got in real life . Values other than 625 , 000 gives almost identical results , as does rounding down instead of up . The point I ' m trying to make is that the EC would still introduce massive distortions even if we got around the often cited a vote in WY is worth three times as much as a vote in CA issue .