The United States Redrawn as Fifty States with Equal Population

http://fakeisthenewreal.org/reform/

by wdavidturner • 13 years ago

219 200 13 years ago

fakeisthenewreal.org

Whitespace• 13 years ago

Does anyone have a link to a larger version where the New York/LA/Chicago areas are zoomed in?

rcavezza• 13 years ago

This is the biggest I could find: http://gerrycanavan.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/electoral10-...

joejohnson• 13 years ago

Is LA it's own state, or is it part of Temecula?

fivre• 13 years ago

Why would draw any map that increases the size of Gary?

Turing_Machine• 13 years ago

I figured the artist just wanted to get in a dig at Chicago.

sophacles2• 13 years ago

Also, there is already a strong sentiment in all non-Chicago parts of Illinois that Chicago should be it's own state, because it dominates all statewide politics, gets the lion's share of resources, and has a tendency to mess up calculations for needed rural aid for the rest of the state.

Calling the State "Chicago" would certainly add fuel to that fire.

rlpb• 13 years ago

Does this feel backwards to anyone else? States with small populations have inflated sizes. States with large populations are tiny and thus look insignificant.

specialist7• 13 years ago

You're thinking of the size weighted electoral college map.

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2012/

This map depicts how the USA might look today if the state boundaries were balanced for population. Redistricting of the states, if you will.

eCa• 13 years ago

> Keep in mind that this is an art project, not a serious proposal, so take it easy with the emails about the sacred soil of Texas.

(From the original source.)

protomyth• 13 years ago

and using the name Ogallala.......

Swizec2• 13 years ago

You can look at it as a map of population density. Each state contains the same amount of people.

I think it's fairly interesting and nicely shows that most of the US is practically empty.

Ingaz2• 13 years ago

Almost every (large) country is practically empty.

Japan - 4/5 of territory is inhabitable. China - the same. Russia - Siberia is almost inhabited.

jbattle• 13 years ago

I know it's not supposed to be a functional map per se, but I find the typography really hard to interpret - which names are cities, which are states? Is Chicago the capital of Gary? Or is Chicago a state that is surrounded by Gary? What is up with Albequerque and Las Vegas? Are they square because they are large cities, or are they capitals, or what?

Of course this isn't a serious proposal, but I wonder how reorganizing this way would impact government and the current political system.

Redistricting would of course have even more enormous implications (would counties switch states every so often?)

Would Big States be the new Red States?

In this day and age would it be hard to administer an area the size of Shiprock?

Bud• 13 years ago

Seems clear to me; the state names are in all caps. So Chicago is a state, for instance, and so is New York. Also illustrating this, you can see that the city of Detroit is labeled, but the state of Detroit is also labeled in all caps, since there is room to do so in that case.

Edit: You can also see that the state capitals are underlined.

juiceandjuice• 13 years ago

I grew up next to Shiprock, the actual city, in New Mexico, in addition to other places around New Mexico.

The interesting thing is that the "state" of Shiprock would likely be the poorest and most nuclear capable state on this map, containing both Kirtland AFB and Nellis AFB in addition to Los Alamos National Labs and Sandia National labs.

jessaustin2• 13 years ago

I think the states of Ozark and King might rival Shiprock for being the poorest.

It seems weird how many cities are at the very edge of their large states. I know that's common for real states because rivers, but it seems to contradict what they're doing here. Aren't they trying to keep regional economic patterns within the same states? Springfield MO seems to sort with Tulsa, Topeka, or Columbia MO (we're not very original with our city names are we?) far more than with Little Rock or Memphis. Lexington would be more naturally included in any of the nearby states rather than in Blue Ridge.

Also it's hilarious that Toledo isn't even close to being in Maumee. Fort Wayne is the single point where that state intersects with the Maumee River's watershed. A more suitable name for that state would be Wabash or Ohio or, to go by the highway signs, Lincoln.

Still it's all good fun. You could use this as background for a dystopian (or not, depending on your politics) scifi story. Much better than "District 12" or whatever.

msluyter• 13 years ago

Thought experiment: let's say we could implement this tomorrow. What would be the effect on our politics? My theory is that it would somewhat rectify our inherent rural bias[1].

[1] http://teachingwithdata.blogspot.com/2011/06/elections-and-r...

fusiongyro5• 13 years ago

> States with small populations (which tend, of course, to be rural) are overrepresented in the Senate and Electoral College.

That's the whole point of the Senate: to give states equal weight, not citizens. For that, we have the House, where everybody does (in principle) have equal command of a representative. This is pointing to a feature and calling it a bug.

wtvanhest• 13 years ago

>This is pointing to a feature and calling it a bug.

That depends on if you are a democrat of republican.

Democrats would probably prefer to have every state have equal population and make representation equal for all.

Republicans would probably prefer to keep the old system in place which gives land mass credit over individual people.

I'm not arguing for either one, but saying it is definitely a feature is in the eye of the beholder.

EDIT: I made a bad assumption about who would favor what system. In any event, the basic point stands that one group will think its a bug, while the other group will think it is a feature.

afterburner4• 13 years ago

The whole idea of trying to do that may, in fact, still be a problem.

wutbrodo• 13 years ago

Stating that it's the point of the Senate does not make it desirable. Not to mention the fact that it's not the _only_ point of the Senate: it was also designed to be a smaller, more deliberate body than the House, with each member trying to represent larger (and theoretically more diverse) constituencies with longer term limits (and thus less knee-jerk responsiveness to the whims of the people).

This function of the Senate is IMO far more important than arbitrarily giving group A of citizens multiple times more political power than group B. Equal representation of states was conceived of in a time when our nation was very different. The Senate's current form was an acknowledgement of the fact that each state was sovereign. The framing of our Constitution almost bears more similarity to the EU than it does to the US that we recognize today, at least with respect to the attitudes towards the relative independence of each state.

On top of that, the divisions that made a "state" anything more than an arbitrary administrative division based on an accident of history are largely gone. The urban-rural divide is far more of a dividing line in terms of demography and ideology than state lines are. Citizens of Los Angeles and Richmond, VA are far more similar to each other than they are to citizens of Shasta County, CA or Wythe County, VA. Just look at any per-county electoral map if you don't believe me.

This map, or something like it, preserves all the benefits of the Senate while going a long way to fix what's horribly broken about it: namely, granting huge amounts of political power to arbitrary blocks of citizens.

mikeash• 13 years ago

I would say that you're pointing to a bug and calling it a feature, personally.

newbie123• 13 years ago

"Rural bias" is a feature, not a bug. In allocating power in Congress and the Electoral College, the Founders wanted to give weight to geographic region as well as population. Obviously this benefits lower populated states. America was founded as a union of states, and a republic, and was not designed as a direct democracy. Rule of the urban majority mob would be a lot worse than the current structure.

noahl• 13 years ago

Is it true that they wanted to give weight to geographic regions?

I'm curious because the way I heard the story it went something like, "they needed the House to get the big states to agree to the Constitution, and they needed the Senate to get the small states to agree". That also has the effect you're talking about, but I never heard that it was deliberate. I would be interested in why they set it up that way.

brnstz• 13 years ago

In what ways would it be worse?

afterburner4• 13 years ago

"Rule of the urban majority mob would be a lot worse than the current structure."

That's pretty clearly only your opinion and not an obvious fact. Urban centres tend to vote for more progressive policies in the US, so all you're saying is that would be too progressive for your liking.

slurgfest• 13 years ago

I don't see why people out in the country are any less likely to be part of a mob, or why their vote should be worth something around 10 times what an "urban" person's vote is.

ctdonath2• 13 years ago

It would relieve some of the rural areas of the overwhelming urban bias. Most of New York is rural, suffering from being out-populated by New York City; "upstate" NY would like to secede from NYC and get their freedom/liberty back. I left NY per its political oppression; returning to the same homes now in Adirondack state would be marvelous.

Some states are ripe for "redistricting".

notirk• 13 years ago

While this isn't a hot topic among New Yorkers I know, I did have a professor at b-school (NYU) who went on rants about the amount of money transferred by the citizens of New York City to the rest of the state of NY. If this is true, I wouldn't be surprised if most "downstate" residents wouldn't mind splitting the state in two, also. Seeing the typical political lockup between the senate and assembly in Albany, I think it would be best for all state citizens to split NYS.

tptacek• 13 years ago

Strong objection to any map that puts Chicago in the state of Gary.

bhousel• 13 years ago

Actually, you are lucky. It looks like Chicago is its own state nestled within Gary.

More info here: http://fakeisthenewreal.org/reform/

I might end up living in the state of "Newark" under this proposal. Not happy.

kibwen• 13 years ago

Looks like Chicago's actually in its own eponymous state, with Gary surrounding it.

angersock• 13 years ago

Come move to Houston! :D

tokenadult3• 13 years ago

I see another comment here has already pointed out that this submission is blogspam, and has been discussed on HN before. Blogspam is disfavored here,

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4583307

as is mentioned in the site guidelines.

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

"Please submit the original source. If a blog post reports on something they found on another site, submit the latter."

AFTER EDIT: The curators here have fixed the link, as pointed out in a reply to this comment.

the_watcher3• 13 years ago

The link to the original and original discussion is below.

radley• 13 years ago

As far as I can tell, this is the original source. The link below (Gary Canavan) is to an article that shows the map, but the map itself came from this submitted post.

Duplicate post? Yes. Blogspam? No.

tokenadult3• 13 years ago

Thank you for bringing to my attention that the curators appear to have changed the link in the submission to point to the original source.

DannoHung• 13 years ago

I wish there were zoom ins of the major metro areas.

pkfrank• 13 years ago

Same. Manhattan and the surrounding buroughs are sure to be effectively dots on this map. Would love to see how many states are represented in the New England cluster.

crusso• 13 years ago

I'm all for refactoring. Every once in a while, you just need to shake up that Etch-a-Sketch.

NegativeK• 13 years ago

Can you imagine the gerrymandering crap we'd have to put up with if state lines could be redrawn?

the_watcher3• 13 years ago

Since this is on the front page, I'll mention it here: I'm most interested in the names and any background anyone has on their origins.

dhosek• 13 years ago

It's on the original site: http://fakeisthenewreal.org/reform/

the_watcher3• 13 years ago

Thanks! Don't know how I missed that. As a "Temecula" native, I didn't know it came from a song, and not from the valley.

adolph• 13 years ago

Big Thicket is a nature preserve that is almost entirely within the areas of Houston and Atchafalaya on this map and not in the area called Big Thicket.

The area called Big Thicket on the map would be hard to characterize as a whole. It is primarily Llano Estacado, northern Texas Hill Country and Piney Woods.

Cushman21• 13 years ago

Somewhat off-topic, but since people are using this to riff on the Electoral College I'll drop in a mention for the National Popular Vote: http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/

Basically: The states themselves can require a fair election for the Presidency without any need for a Constitutional amendment or even a Federal law— this has been robustly defended by legal scholars, and it's already half-way to completion.

If your state isn't on that list, do your country a favor and call your state representative about it.

yakiv4• 13 years ago

Wow. I'd heard about this, but I had no idea it had made so much headway.

From the website: "The National Popular Vote law has been enacted by states possessing 132 electoral votes — 49% of the 270 electoral votes needed to activate it."

From Wikipedia, for additional explanation: "The agreement is to go into effect only when the participating states that have joined the compact together have an absolute majority in the Electoral College. . . . Until the compact is joined by states with a majority of electoral votes, all states will continue to award their electoral votes in their current manner."

I initially thought that the first quote was saying that the national popular vote had gotten to 49% of the 50% of the total pool of electoral votes needed to activate it, but no, that's not what it says. It currently has about 24.5% of the total pool of electoral votes.

gknoy• 13 years ago

I'd be happier to see states allocate votes not all-to-the-same-guy, but rather in proportion to the popular vote. (Whether nationally or in your state.)

So, California might have 20 votes for X, 20 for Y, 10 for Z, and 5 for Q.

That would help ensure that your vote matters within your state, and preserves Some electoral votes for third party candidates. The goal as I see it should not be to elect the Most Popular President, but rather to most-faithfully represent the voting preferences of the constituents. The net result should be similar -- or will be if all states were to do this.

Of course I also dream on being able to vote for contingent people, so that I can vote for a 3rd party candidate, but if he's not going to win, have my vote count for a different candidate. I forget the name of this, but it's complicated yet very elegant. It allows you to vote your conscience and yet not worry about "throwing away" your vote and letting That Guy win because you didn't vote for his most-winning opponent.

Cushman21• 13 years ago

> The goal as I see it should not be to elect the Most Popular President

The goal is for every American citizen's vote for President to count for exactly as much as any other citizen's. That means, yes, the person who gets the most votes wins. How else can it work?

I'd encourage you to take a look at the National Popular Vote's site, especially http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/pages/answers.php . They've put quite a bit of thought into it.

euroclydon4• 13 years ago

I suppose you also feel we should reconfigure the Senate? It is certainly not evenly apportioned.

Cushman21• 13 years ago

I think there are good arguments for abolishing the Senate and returning the House to proportionality, but at least everyone gets a vote for their Senator that counts. You can't use the disproportionality of the legislature to defend disenfranchisement of Americans on a national scale.

saraid2162• 13 years ago

The purpose of the Senate isn't to ensure the people's voice; it's to ensure the States' voices. If we did away with the Senate, we should seriously think about doing away with the Tenth Amendment as well and consolidating state law into a single national codex: they both rest their existence on the same principle.

Steko10• 13 years ago

Here's the two big problems with the National Popular Vote:

(1) "it's already half-way to completion". Yes with all blue states. Basically changing the system will favor one party. The other party will not favor it meaning you lose 1/4 to 1/3 of the states. And you lose another 1/4 to 1/3 of states because swing states will also not favor it (they would stand to lose billions in advertising). So this sort of coalition will tend to always be stuck around 1/2 to 2/3 of where it needs to get to.

(2) "without any need for a Constitutional amendment" Technically yes you don't but then you're depending on the goodwill of other states. If some state doesn't like the way the election is going to turn out they can bust the coalition by changing their participation at the last moment. That's a recipe for disaster, the rules for the election should be as clear and open as possible as far in advance as possible.

scarmig2• 13 years ago

As to 1)...

Actually, at least in the USA's current configuration, the electoral college appears to favor Democrats. A tie or small Romney win in the national popular vote, for instance, would have more likely than not equated to an Obama win.

I think it's genuinely about ideology, here: favoring the will of the people over the historically contingent existence of the electoral college is making a kind of ideological statement. The kind that appeals to many liberals and is a turn-off to conservatives.

Cushman21• 13 years ago

I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but look, just read the site.

http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/pages/answers.php

MYTH: A national popular vote would undermine a partisan advantage in favor of the Republican Party in the small states.

The small state issue sometimes serves as a surrogate for the unstated political concern (and misconception) that the small states confer a partisan advantage in favor of the Republican Party. However, this belief does not reflect current political reality. In the last six presidential elections (1988 through 2008), six of the 13 least populous states have regularly gone Republican (Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, and South Dakota), while six others (Hawaii, Vermont, Maine, Rhode Island, Delaware, and the District of Columbia) have regularly gone Democratic. New Hampshire has been, in recent years, the one closely divided battleground state among the 13 smallest states (having supported the Democrat in 1992 and 1996, the Republican in 2000, and the Democrat in 2004 and 2008).

http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/resources/Withdrawal-V6-2...

  An attempt to change the “rules of the game” contrary to clause 2 of Article IV  
    ● would violate the Impairments Clause of the U.S. Constitution and be void; 
    ● would violate existing federal law specifying that presidential electors may only 
      be appointed on one specific day in  every four-year period, namely the Tuesday 
      after the first Monday in November (i.e., election day);  
    ● would invalidate the “conclusiveness”  of that state’s results under  existing 
      federal law specifying that presidential electors must be appointed under 
      “laws enacted prior” to the Tuesday after the first Monday in November;
    [et al]

specialist7• 13 years ago

Basically changing the system will favor one party.

Temporarily.

Demographically, the USA is transitioning to a Democratic super majority every where but in the US House (because of gerrymandering).

Long term, the parties will realign along the new normal, as the country moves back to the left.

The reason is Duverger's Law. With winner takes all form of elections, the political spectrum will always split into two parties, as each tries to attain the smallest winning coalition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duvergers_law

In other words, no matter how big the pie, it's always split in two.

(The parties might even switch "polarities", for lack of a better word. As they've done approx every 70 years for the first 229 years. Seeing how conservative Democrats have become, there's a huge void in the political left. It's be easy for a reborn Republican party to reinvent itself to fill that void.)

AnthonyMouse4• 13 years ago

> Basically changing the system will favor one party.

What it will do is favor states that aren't swing states. Which is the large majority of both states and electoral votes. Texas would be a huge winner in a transition to the popular vote because it has so many people in it, and is currently almost completely ignored in Presidential politics. Most of the South is in the same boat.

And as I'm looking at the map right now, let me point out something extraordinarily dangerous about the current system: Florida has the largest number of electoral votes of all the swing states, and demographically it's full of retirees who don't live in the same zip code as their children or grandchildren.

Even if you're an arch conservative cotton farmer in Alabama, how does it help you that decisions about whether we send your children to college or to war are unjustifiably disproportionately influenced by a bunch of retired Giuliani-era East Coast elites with no connection to the future? Wouldn't you at least want to be able to cast your own vote and have it mean something, rather than blindly assuming that newly Floridian retired state employees from Jersey and Queens will necessarily have interests that coincide with your own?

earlyresort• 13 years ago

The United States has a federal government for a reason. The government is constructed in such a way that the majority doesn't get whatever it wants, if that majority isn't broadly representative of America as a whole.

In particular, the Electoral College ensures presidential candidates must appeal to a wide variety of people, from across multiple regions of America - instead of just focusing on running up the totals in large cities, which is what would happen if the Electoral College didn't exist. In the last election both political parties had to pay attention to the entirety of the electorate, from every county, in states as diverse as Florida, Ohio, Virginia, and Nevada.

You could do America a favor by calling your state representatives and telling them what a goofy idea this is.

Cushman21• 13 years ago

Please read the site. You are exactly wrong.

http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/pages/answers.php

MYTH: Candidates would "fly over" most of the country under a national popular vote.

This criticism applies to the current system of electing the President—not a national popular vote.

Under the current system, two-thirds of the states are indeed "fly-over" country. In 2004, the presidential candidates concentrated two-thirds of their campaign visits and money in just five states, 80% in just nine states, and 99% of their money in just 16 states. As early as the spring of 2008, the major political parties acknowledged that there would be only 14 battleground states in 2008. In 2008, candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their campaign events and ad money in just states, and 98% in just 15 states.

nikcub2• 13 years ago

Look at the last few election campaigns, the candidates spend all of their time in tossup states with a large number of college votes. The candidates only go to New York or California to raise more money to spend in Ohio of Florida.

ruswick3• 13 years ago

Or did you miss the 6 months of campaigning this year in which the candidates spent almost the entirety of their time and money in a handful of districts?

The electoral college coerces candidates into appealing only to a small number of strategic areas.

If anything, a popular vote liberates candidates because they can make gains anywhere, and appeal to minority (the minority political party, that is) populations in areas where they wouldn't have bothered to go otherwise because the winner-take-all system makes it fruitless.

When every vote counts, candidates have an incentive to appeal to everyone.

johngalt• 13 years ago

I've already seen that site, only it was at a different URL.

http://www.CaliforniaAndNewYorkShouldRuleTheWorld.org/

Cushman21• 13 years ago

Oh well, since I'm here anyway...

http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/pages/answers.php

MYTH: Only the big states would matter under a national popular vote.

...

If anyone is genuinely concerned about the possibility that a candidate could win the Presidency in a nationwide popular vote by winning 100% of the popular vote in the 11 largest states, they should note that the situation is even worse under the current system. Under the current state-by-state winner-take-all system, a candidate could win the Presidency by winning a mere 51% of the popular vote in the 11 largest states. That is, under the current system, it is possible for a candidate to win the Presidency with a mere 26% of the nation's popular votes.

tunesmith• 13 years ago

I used to object to switching to the popular vote, for various constitutional reasons.

But I came across one justification that blew away all my objections.

Namely, the House of Representatives was originally designed to grow along with the population.

If it had been allowed to keep growing, then that "built-in advantage" of less-populous states would have dissipated. In other words, that built-in advantage wasn't actually built-in. The system was designed to degrade it over time.

In other words, if it had continued as it was, we'd have somewhere around... I forget, 3500 - 4000 representatives today. And that would change the electoral college calculations, to the point that they would almost exactly mirror the popular vote. It's asymptotic, but as the population grows, the (unrestricted) EC approaches the popular vote. It's worth noting that if the house of reps had been allowed to keep growing, Gore would have beaten Bush via electoral-college counting, hanging chads be damned.

So there's nothing sacred about the less populous states. Their advantage only exists because of the much-later agreement to freeze the growth of the house of reps.

Cushman21• 13 years ago

Thanks for pointing that out: to quote the site again, "The Founding Fathers did not create or anticipate—much less favor—our current system of electing the President."

Even more interesting, they note that the Constitutional Convention did consider electing the President by a direct national popular vote, which proposal failed by... wait for it... one vote.

yakiv4• 13 years ago

> Advantages of this proposal

> * Preserves the historic structure and function of the Electoral College.

I think we may be sort of putting the cart before the horse here. The purpose of the electoral college was to get the states to agree to adopt the system (right?). Now we're supposed to preserve the thing meant to get the states to agree by destroying the states?

just2n7• 13 years ago

No, the point of the electoral college was to elect a set of representatives that would make the journey to DC to cast their votes to elect the president. You have to realize when the US was formed that traveling from California to DC wasn't a quick plane flight, and we didn't have communications technology that could transmit information from one point in our country to any other point in milliseconds.

The electoral college is no longer necessary, and should be abolished as it only causes problems that were acceptable in the 1800s, but are no longer acceptable today.

talmand7• 13 years ago

I think you're reaching a bit here. When the Constitution was written there were thirteen states along the East coast. There was no California for an elector to travel from to go to D.C. to cast their vote. I have never heard of the travel time as a reason for the inclusion of the Electoral College in the Constitution. I seriously doubt that's a justifiable reason for such a thing.

I'm curious as to what problems the EC causes that you state were acceptable in the 1800s but are no longer acceptable today. From my perspective the problems would most likely be political in nature. So any problems that existed 200 years ago would much be the same today.

I'm not the biggest fan of the EC but I believe it more desirable than true Democracy, as that only leads to mob rule. In that case the states with the highest populations would be in a position to rule over the smaller, less populated states. This was part of the debate of the EC in the first place.

afterburner4• 13 years ago

I don't believe that was the main concern at the time, what I've read from the arguments at the time was that the electors (the guys in the Electoral College) were supposed to be people you had voted for that you trusted to make the right decision about who should be president. This sounds silly now, but at the time they really thought that they could avoid having a party system (or at least many people thought this), and they also wanted to separate the choice of president from the uniformed rabble of the masses. Not that that conceit survived contact with reality...

scythe• 13 years ago

As a resident of Atlanta, I am strongly in favor of any reform that miraculously puts me in a blue state...

evandena• 13 years ago

...with water.

kunai2• 13 years ago

This really looks incredible, even if it is simply fantasy.

The names are far better than the states we have now... I mean, Utah? Where's the excitement in that? Ogalalla is where it's at. Texas? Really? Big Thicket sounds way better.

Jokes aside, I think rather than abolishing the College completely or doing something as radical as splitting up states, the real solution is perhaps to count the popular vote for each state: for example, if California had 66% of the popular vote for the Blue, it could be counted as a Democratic victory. Likewise, if Texas got 12% blue, it would be a Republican victory.

First one to 26 wins.

stephengillie2• 13 years ago

Instead of Rainier, this state would probably prefer our first choice, Columbia.

(There was fear Columbia would be easily confused with the District of Columbia, so our state was named Washington after the president.)

saraid2162• 13 years ago

I actually kinda like that I'd be living in Seattle, RR.

euroclydon4• 13 years ago

I've read this three times, and isn't that the way the EC works now?

kunai2• 13 years ago

Nope. The electoral college assigns "points" to each state based on its population. So rather than 50 equal points, we have 270. This kind of system is woefully outdated and allows for an unfair advantage in populated states. If the states had one point each, rather than being weighted through population, the result would be much fairer and not the clusterfudge of a mess it is right now.

stephengillie2• 13 years ago

Almost exactly 1/2 of the US population lives east of the Mississippi, which is only about 1/3 of the continental US's land area.

3am2• 13 years ago

So far I have to agree with David Kurtz at http://talkingpointsmemo.com/ - my favorite part is that it renames Alabama in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

talmand7• 13 years ago

I'm from Alabama and if we were to rename the state on a historical figure I would suggest Rosa Parks over Dr. King. But I fear the chosen name is an attempt at humor at the expense of the white people of the state. Which is unfair to them and to most especially Dr. King.

3am2• 13 years ago

I think it's an attempt at humor at the expense of _racists_. I don't see why any non-racist white person should be concerned about it.

isalmon• 13 years ago

Disclaimer: I'm not from the US.

Question: Can somebody explain to me why on Earth can't they just calculate every single vote and whoever gets the most of those win the election? Why do you need this over-complicated system of states, electoral votes, blue vs. red states, etc? Why is it NOT fair if the majority elects their president?

Steko10• 13 years ago

No one makes an argument for fairness that's worth taking seriously. But the reality is that the people that would lose power under direct majority vote don't want to change and the 90%+ overlap with majority vote for the winner means there's rarely sustained outrage about "unfair" results (and those are in very close contests anyway).

tbrownaw3• 13 years ago

We started out as a collection of states that wanted to present a united front, and smaller states didn't want to have no say (so we get the senate and electoral college) while larger states didn't want their individual voters to have no say (so we get the house of representatives). I'd compare the early structure to the EU, but I haven't looked much at history since highschool.

talmand7• 13 years ago

Despite the overreach of the Federal Government of the last few decades, some say since the Civil War, we are still a collection of states to attempt to present a united front. But the apparent lack of that united front is bigger than just discussing the pros and cons of the Electoral College.

The EU structure from what I know is a similar idea, but I'm not familiar enough with the details on the EU to comment much more than that.

jmccree3• 13 years ago

Because the United States was created as a union of formerly independent self governing states (Of varying levels between colony and full nation state). Think of a stronger form of the European Union. This is referred to as the Federal Government. Each member state has it's own state government, laws, police, military etc. The federal government is elected by the states, as it's role in general is to govern the states and interstate matters.

If you are not familiar with the US, you may not realize that for instance "murder" is not a federal crime. Each state has it's own laws to cover "murder", and these crimes are investigate by state police authority. Federal laws (historically at least) only govern interstate laws and laws affecting state governments.

The electoral college and senate are designed to give each state fair representation in the federal government. AFAIK, there is no federal requirement that people even be allowed to vote for president. In the past the congress/legislatures of some states would decide who to vote for, but now almost every state now uses the popular vote to decide who that state will vote for in the electoral college.

talmand7• 13 years ago

You are correct, each state can decide on its own how it portions out the electors for President. Most of them currently use a winner takes all system for their electors. Some states break them up according to vote totals. In the past the state legislatures often chose the electors. But over time this has changed to popular vote methods, as you say, which is interesting since that eventually lead us to a discussion about abolishing the Electoral College in favor of a national popular vote.

Not is there only no Federal requirement for people to vote for President, there's nothing in the Constitution about the right to vote in the first place. It's more like a privilege that can possibly be taken away. There is a list of reasons in the Constitution that cannot be used to prevent you from voting, many of them added in later via the amendment process. Most of the language of the Constitution doesn't actually give rights to the people, but restricts the actions of the government. The "right" to vote is considered a human right to determine your own leadership, but technically the states can prevent you from voting for any number of reasons. One common example is you lose your ability to vote if you commit a felony. I bet in some states it's even being convicted of a lesser charge is the threshold.

If you do have a "right" to vote, according to government, then it most likely will come from your state's Constitution.

talmand7• 13 years ago

Actually it shouldn't create as much drama as it does. In our nation's history, I believe only three elections for President had a disagreement between the Electoral College and the national popular vote. In the vast majority of the elections the system works just fine.

The main reason for not having a straight popular vote count is a historical fear of true democracy. Some would say that popular vote leads to mob rule, I being one of them, and that must be avoided. Our own history shows examples of popular vote being used to take advantage of the minority, but that's mostly been on the local and state levels.

Our Federal government was partly designed from the beginning to avoid popular vote problems. There are several checks and balances in place to prevent a majority from absolute rule over the minority. We have three branches of government that keep each other in check in many ways. The most confusing in today's terms is Congress. Congress itself is made up of two bodies, the Senate and the House. The House is supposed to be have elected members based on population of the states, meaning they represent the People. The Senate was originally meant to represent the states, not the People, but since they are voted upon directly by the People it ruins the point of the Senate. Many people forget that the original intention of the Senate was to represent the State's interests on the Federal level. That's why there are two Senators per state, each state gets equal vote. A quick look at the powers given to the Senate versus the House shows which each was intended to represent. Congress writes the laws of the land within the restraints as defined by the Constitution, which often they don't follow. The President, who often used to be voted on by the State legislatures, represents the Nation as a whole. But the states currently decide how to choose electors, most choose popular vote within their state, that ultimately vote for President. He/she (one day) signs into law the bills that Congress passes. The third branch, the Supreme Court, decides on whether laws are valid under the Constitution after a series of rulings from lower courts. Arguments can be made on whether they should be rewriting laws or creating new ones from scratch, of which they do. Supreme Court Justices are nominated by the President, confirmed by the Senate (see? state's interest on the Federal level), and are given lifetime tenure to try to avoid political influence.

To complicate things further, most states follow the Federal government in terms of their design of state level governments. Typically the local levels, city and county/parish, tend to go a much simpler route.

So, is it complicated? Yes, it is and that is by design. You can go the quick and easy route of popular vote for major things but history shows that's just a bad idea overall. The system is designed to force people to think, to debate, and to somehow agree before action is taken. Sadly, over the years the system has been degraded in an effort to be "more fair" to somebody. Often politicians wish to "tinker" with things to make things more fair, as long as it gives them an advantage over their political opponents in some way.

Don't feel bad over your confusion, most over here are confused by it as well.

Also, the red/blue states thing is drama created by the news media. I would imagine most everyday citizens could care less.

danielweber2• 13 years ago

Is there any legal concept of "nationwide popular vote"? The media reports it, but isn't it something they decided to make up on their own?

justin66• 13 years ago

> Why do you need this over-complicated system of states, electoral votes, blue vs. red states, etc?

The overly complicated bits of the electoral system aren't an accident, they originally existed to provide a way to award more votes to slaveholding states. There just wouldn't have been a lot of people (remember, most of the founding fathers didn't count slaves as people) voting in those southern states, so they'd feel underrepresented.

These things take a long time and a lot of effort to change once people figure out whether the system benefits them or not.

rtkwe• 13 years ago

I don't think this would solve the electoral college problem because a candidate would go to the neo-states with the highest density and beable to work up more votes quicker due to the higher densities. I think we should just drop the EC completely or at least step away from the winner take all system.

just2n7• 13 years ago

Even if you TRY to make votes equally powerful by adjusting state boundaries to equalize population, you still ignore the fact that the electoral college is like a MASSIVE round-off error, and thus entirely fail to succeed in your goal and in understanding the essence of the problem, in general.

To massively simplify things: consider that there are only 3 states. State A is 60/40, state B is 45/55, and state C is 50/50. All 3 have identical populations. Now states A and B are marginally won before the election, so the race is tied and the decision lies in C. That means 1/3 of the population actually gets to decide who is going to be president. And a small fraction, some 2-3% of that state's population will actually be deciding voters (the loose cannons, the ones who could go either way). So you're down to 0.67-1% of the population deciding who will be the president. And that's completely ignoring how HORRIBLY BAD a simple majority vote is. It essentially guarantees a 2-party system. C.G.P. Grey has some nice videos on YouTube explaining the basics, if you're interested.

You don't fix an utterly broken system by changing the inputs. You fix it by throwing it away and building a better one. As interesting as the resulting map is, this is just a pointless exercise.

jrajav• 13 years ago

> And that's completely ignoring how HORRIBLY BAD a simple majority vote is. It essentially guarantees a 2-party system.

Yes, personally I think this is a much more important issue than the electoral college.

duaneb• 13 years ago

I'm just at a loss as to why my state has the previously unknown name of "Willimantic", a state which also contains Providence, Hartford, Springfield, the Five College area....

nikcub2• 13 years ago

Good luck telling Montana they are now part of Utah

The real issue with this is that you would have to change all the states every so often to account for population shifts.

Besides, the states have long histories that you would lose. Better fixing the electoral college, which is what is really broken.

erehweb• 13 years ago

Problem: Redistricting states every x years would introduce unwelcome difficulties into government. E.g. what happens to state workers in towns that move from one state to another? Would states have a disincentive to invest in their border regions, knowing that they might end up becoming their neighbors' problems in a few years?

Raphael• 13 years ago

The districts don't have to be the same as the states.

cardine• 13 years ago

It would be really cool to see what the 2012 election would've looked like with this map.

The United States Redrawn as Fifty States with Equal Population

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