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The US Redrawn As 50 Equally Populated States
First time accepted submitter Daniel_Stuckey writes "Bam! For anyone that's paid a speck of attention to the tedium of political redistricting, which happens while a state grows unevenly, (and must dynamically respond to density, electorate disparity, natural resources and ridgelines, etc.), this is straight out of some psychedelic dream. For Democrats, it could be straight out of a nightmare. That's because Freeman's map necessitates 50 equally populous United States. His methods for creating the map are explained thusly: 'The algorithm was seeded with the fifty largest cities. After that, manual changes took into account compact shapes, equal populations, metro areas divided by state lines, and drainage basins. In certain areas, divisions are based on census tract lines... The suggested names of the new states are taken mainly from geographical features.'"
They're not states. One of his key design constraints was the Electoral College, and only states get to vote in the Electoral College.
Washington, DC gets included since it does have EC votes. That messes with the Congressional representation, but he didn't make than explicit design constraint.
The purpose of the electoral college was to avoid having the most important office in the federal gov't be victim to popular fervor. In a direct election, radicals can be too easily elected (see tea party). This system prevents that in theory (along with the voting system of the electors: in seperate areas. This prevented one guy from giving a moving speech and changing the minds of everyone.)
This assumes people from different parts of the country are interchangable and are going to be happy no matter how you group them. The problem is that isn't the case; you think things are politically polarized now, a plan like this would be even worse.
You think the people in Highway are going to be happy being governed by politicians in Oregon that doesn't really care what's going on in a set of islands hundreds of miles away because they massively outnumber them don't need their votes anyways? You think the people in Montana and Idaho are gonna be happy being controlled by the busybody Mormons in Utah? And Shiprock is probably going to have an actual shooting war when Lubbock and Abilene figure out that Austin is going to dominate them electorally.
This speaks to doing away with winner-take-all rules that many states have. I can pretty much guarantee that people living in central California have little in common with people living in downtown San Francisco, ideologically speaking. So why should the latter get to speak for the former? Yet in California, all electoral votes have been magically switched leading people to think the whole of California is liberal. I've been saying this for the past 20 years that the political divide in this country is not about Republican vs. Democrat. It's much more about ruralite vs. urbanite. When you look at election results broken down by county instead of by state, you see a much different picture. Urban districts generally vote liberal Democrat while rural districts vote conservative Republican. Party ideology aside, people in rural areas have vastly different priorities than those who live in cities. People who live in cities often are so full of themselves that they think only they know what's good for city dwellers as well as those who live in the country and they tend to impose legislation without having the slightest bit of experience living in the country.
Of course they do. See Wyoming- a single person's vote in Wyoming is worth 3/563000 =5.32e-6 of an electoral vote (based on 2012 census data). A vote in California is worth 55/37200000= 1.47e-6 votes. A person in Wyoming is worth 4 times as much. That's completely unfair.
Now historically it makes sense- it dates back to right post revolution where we were really 13 nations who decided to band together into 1, and it was a compromise to get the small states to go along with it. It stopped making sense when we became a real nation beyond point of breakup- basically after the civil war it was outdated. Now, due to geography its a system that's totally unfair.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
The whole indirect voting systems like the US Electoral College were created to deal with the logistical problems of giving every citizen the vote.
Uh, no.
We have the electoral college because we live in a federated representational republic, not a democracy. The individual citizens of the United States don't get a vote for president. Our states do. We only get a vote to tell our state government who we would prefer they vote for. And, they don't even need to listen to us (and have in the past chosen to vote against the will of the people)!
In this day and age, the only purpose of indirect elections is to give undue weight to rural areas.
In this day and age, we forget that Massachusetts and New York and Virginia, etc, saw themselves basically as sovereign nations, only joining together in that pesky federal government business to give them a united front in dealing with the old European powers. We forget, in this era of "excuse anything with the Commerce Clause", that the vast majority of the constitution took great pains to refer to the states as such, rather than as mere political subdivisions of the whole.
You also forget that before that whole "one man, one vote", having a voice in government depended solely on how much land you owned. Urbanites didn't give farmers more of a voice out of charity, but rather, the large landowners graciously allowed the unlanded to have a voice at all.
Has the time come when we should realign our political system with modern perceptions? Or should we respect that we have such an archaic system for damned good historical reasons?
Personally, I think the recent gun ownership debate has brought exactly this issue to the center of attention - We have urban yuppies who've created their own violent crimes hell, trying to take guns away from rural areas with almost no violent crime. Perhaps the Founding Fathers understood something about us that we have forgotten.
Have you any idea how many US cities and counties, let alone states, have Native American names already? Alaska (through Russian), Arizona (through Spanish), Hawaii, Idaho (disputed), Illinois (through French), Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan (through French), Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming are all derived from Native American words in some form or another. That's almost 40% of the states.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Geography is beautiful. I made this my wallpaper yesterday.
It is pretty neat, but it still reflects 18th century thinking. If I look at my interests, beliefs, and the political issues that are important to me, my geographical location has little to do with it. Congresspeople shouldn't represent geographical regions, but specific groups of people, where ever they are. So every two years we hold an election, the top 435 get elected, and their constituents are the specific people that voted for them. Their vote in congress should be proportional to their number of constituents. What would be even better, is if an elected representative isn't keep promises, a voter should be able to go to a website, and switch to another.
The purpose of the electoral college was to avoid having the most important office in the federal gov't be victim to popular fervor. In a direct election, radicals can be too easily elected (see tea party). This system prevents that in theory (along with the voting system of the electors: in seperate areas. This prevented one guy from giving a moving speech and changing the minds of everyone.)
The Electoral College was the result of a political compromise at the 1787 Constitutional Convention because the participants couldn't make up their minds how the President should be selected. Just about every possible method was suggested by one participant or another, and the Electoral College was just the one that happened to pass.
We can respect the work of the Founding Fathers without treating them as infallible gods. In fact, refusing to think for ourselves and instead treating their work as a kind of Holy Scripture is completely against the Enlightenment values that they stood for.
There's the British system: The people vote, someone emerges on top, and none of us can figure out exactly what goes on in between.
Do you even know why there is a Senate? The Senate's obstruction is deliberate. The Senate is the chamber where bad bills which would become bad laws are supposed to die. It may seem like it "prevent things from getting done" but that's why it's there, because it is far better than the knee-jerk nonsense of two-year term political hacks who would enact virtually any law just so something "can be seen to be done" before their next election season.
There is a reason that our Republic has 'undemocratic' elements. Pure democracy fails, fails quickly, and terrifyingly transitions through ochlocracy to some form of autocracy. This has been understood and demonstrated since antiquity (see Polybius et al), and it is why our founders were wise enough to establish a more complex, resilient, synthetic system of government.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
To the founders, the "Senate problem" was a solution, not a problem. Proportional representation was not the ultimate goal; it was a goal that needed to be tempered. The Senate does that.
"The Founders" weren't one unified body. The bicameral system was a compromise between large-state representatives who wanted proportional representation by population, and small-state representatives who wanted all states to have an equal vote.
The people we usually think of as "Founding Fathers" – most notably James Madison and Alexander Hamilton – wanted proportional representation and weren't too thrilled about the Senate, though they were willing to accept it to avoid scuttling the whole enterprise. According to Wikipedia, "Madison argued that a conspiracy of large states against the small states was unrealistic as the large states were so different from each other. Hamilton argued that the states were artificial entities made up of individuals, and accused small state representatives of wanting power, not liberty." The people who were gung-ho for an equal representation Senate were much more marginal figures, such as Gunning Bedford, Jr.
The key insight of the US federal structure as originally embodied in the Constitution was that every constituency deserves a hearing - the people are represented in the House, the states are represented in the Senate, and the President is elected by whatever means the States appoint - they can be more or less democratic in the selection of electors. A necessary consequence of the first-past-the-post system with specific electoral districts used in the US is that it is designed to produce a two-party state. Third parties have to influence one of them. Yes, third parties matter less here. On the other hand, it relentlessly forces both parties' platforms to the center of the electorate, strongly curbing radical influence.
The problem is the small state bonus. In 2000 Bush wouldn't have won without the extra votes that small states get beyond what they're populations justify. Candidates for President rarely if ever campaign in larger states because we have less pull than the smaller states do.
What's worse, is that these same states that are sparsely populated also tend to be welfare states where they're contributing far less to the federal tax receipts than they're receiving in tax dollars. All while fighting to eliminate programs that are necessary to keep the urban decay to a minimum.
Idaho? Youdaho!
I think it's possible to accept that 1) there are damned good historical reasons and 2) that those historical reasons no longer apply and the system should change. Your post has brings some interesting historical facts, but history only explain problems; it doesn't justify them.
The GP's notion sounds like a standard "parliamentary" system. How is that going to lead to Balkanization? For that matter, considering how polarized we are in the USA right now, would it really be any worse?
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rarely if ever campaign in larger states
No, they rarely campaign in states that always vote the same way, large or small. They campaign like maniacs in NH and IA because they're early, and they campaign like hell in the major swing states - ask anyone from Ohio.
That one favors the GOP so it's evil. No really, the wonkish left has been in a panic recently over a proposal to do just that in a few of the swing states (Pennsylvania and Ohio, I think).
Actually the reason it favors the GOP is that the proposal is just to do it in states that went Democratic that happen to have Republican governors. The Republicans certainly weren't proposing splitting up the electoral vote in Texas, Georgia, and North Carolina. Just the states they lost.
Then you tie in the rampant gerrymandering that passes for redistricting these days, there would only be a few places worth campaigning.
Actually, a similar system seems to work ok for the Catholic Church, which could be considered as a non-geographically oriented political entity, complete with it's own laws, court system, a voluntary constituency which also funds it's operations voluntarily through their own contributions. Not shabby, especially when you consider it's lasted for 2000 years, which is longer than any government has.
American Third Position
Finally, a real choice!
That's a guaranteed recipe for fragmentation and Balkanization.
Is that a bad thing? With our current system, large blocks of representatives behold to their parties obstruct everything. Anything that weakens the power of political parties, and enables representatives to vote their conscience, should be good thing.
I don't know if that's quite true. I live in a small state and there's very little campaigning ever done here. Why? Same reason that there's not a lot of campaigning done in other states: it's pretty much a given that no matter who runs under the Republican ticket, they'll get the most votes here. Kind of like how it really doesn't matter in California and New York, because they're going to go to the Democrats. Why bother campaigning beyond a token appearance when everyone already knows that baring any major scandals, the results are practically a given. So really, it's just the states that have early primaries or the swing states that get the most attention.
Also the system was originally designed in such a way so that the larger, more populous states wouldn't have too strong of an influence over the federal government.
We have the electoral college because we live in a federated representational republic, not a democracy
You seem to think that this is a good thing.
I certainly do.
It bothers the crap out of me to see uninformed people voting for their representatives. To see them voting on actual decisions? No quicker way of destroying the country that I can think of.
Before I'm accused of defining "uninformed" as "believes differently than I do," I'll just point out that I follow my own guidelines, and unless I've taken the time to research the issues and all of the candidates running for a particular office meticulously, I don't cast a vote. Which generally means that I rarely vote, and when I do I leave most of the ballot empty, voting only for those offices for which I've taken the time to study every candidate and the relevant issues. I refuse to potentially cancel out the vote of a more informed citizen.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
I haven't run the numbers, but the electoral college favors less populous states by guaranteeing a minimum of 3 electoral votes. California has 66 times the population of Wyoming but only 18 times the number of electoral votes. My initial guess would be that the voters in rural Western states (Wyoming, Montana, the Dakotas, Idaho, etc) would lose clout in this scheme, and those are all Republican strongholds.
However, the 10 least populous states (+DC) are Wyoming (R), Vermont (D), DC (D), North Dakota (R), Alaska (R),
South Dakota (R), Delaware (D), Montana (R), Rhode Island (D), and New Hampshire (swing)
So that's a 50-50 split pretty much: both parties benefit from the electoral college.
The top 10 states are California (D), Texas (R), New York (D), Florida (swing), Illinois (D), Pennsylvania (swing), Ohio (swing), Georgia (R), Michigan (D?), and North Carolina (swing?). So 4 D, 2 R, and 4 swing states (depending on how you define them): so maybe the Dems suffer a bit from the electoral college at this end of the spectrum.
The hard question is what happens when you split these states up: Atlanta freed from the rest of Georgia goes blue, but the middle of Pennsylvania goes red without Philly and Pittsburgh, etc. So maybe the article is right that when you run the numbers it disadvantages Democrats, but I'd be interested to see the analysis because I don't understand how you come to the conclusion that this favors Republicans without it.
(I know this isn't a serious proposal so apologies for geeking out over it. :)
Just because many people use it incorrectly does not make that usage correct.
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"It is pretty neat, but it still reflects 18th century thinking"
Spoken like someone who doesn't understand the constitution.
We do not have a single election for president. We have 50 SEPARATE elections for president. Each state decides who best represents it's population and all electors (with few exepctions) go to that cadidate and the number of electors is based on population.
We need to remember we do not have a "democracy" by design. It's a consitutional republic based on federalism. And if you want to understand the reasons for that feel free to read the federalist papers (particularly Federalist 10).
"Congresspeople shouldn't represent geographical regions, but specific groups of people, where ever they are"
Um -- they don't represent regions. The do represent "specific groups of people". They are called their "electorate". I'm sorry, but my representative wasn't selected by the San Gabrial mountains, but by the majority of the people in his disctrict. Those very specific groupe of people.
"But my local economy matters very little me."
Either you are lying or you don't know what you are saying.
Do you live in the slums? Does it take 20-60 mins for the cops to arrive if you call them? Are your streets covered in potholes? Are the local restaurants and food stores infested with rats and roaches? If it really doesn't matter to you, and the economy was so bad there was very little tax base to pay for these things, this would be your life.
Trust me -- your local economy matters VERY MUCH to you.
It was not designed to produce a two-party state. There's a great deal of evidence (for example, Federalist Paper #10) that many of the designers of the Constitution were, in fact, trying to create a non-partisan system. Unfortunately, with few real-world examples to take lessons from, they did not see how the system they were designing would inevitably lead to a two-party state.
It's no accident that most democracies to be founded after the United States have chosen not to directly copy its system of government.
Where do you shop for food? Where do you eat, if and when you eat out? Who provides the telecommunications services you need? How far away is the nearest plumber, electrician, or hospital? In a large city, you have a huge variety of choices on most of these. In a rural area, such simple things as choice of cell phone provider usually boil down to a monopoly because only one carrier has service at your house. You most assuredly depend on your local economy.
"It is pretty neat, but it still reflects 18th century thinking"
...
And if you want to understand the reasons for that feel free to read the federalist papers (particularly Federalist 10).
So, how is reading the document written 1787 supposed to convince him it's not 18th century thinking?
Hell, let's compare it to Mississippi (same website), which I think we can all agree is a quintessential red state.
In short, WA is ignored because there is essentially zero chance it will go R in a national election (regardless of its Congressional delegation's composition). Are you being deliberately obtuse?
Even in the mid 19th century Walter Bagehot in his great defence of the Westminster system; The English Constitution, saw the US electoral college as a failed institution that had never really fulfilled its intended function.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
welfare states where they're contributing far less to the federal tax receipts than they're receiving in tax dollars
is a very tired meme. The federal government spends most of its money on defense, interest, and income transfers, of which Social Security and Medicare are by far the largest. The red states get the defense dollars because the South has warm weather year-round and the West has cheap land for bombing ranges and secrecy. The red states get income transfers because, well, they're full of retirees (and, to a lesser extent, poor people).
If you want a properly indexed graph, check out this, which is the net flow of federal dollars as a percentage of each state's GDP over the past 20 years. Notice that the three mega-reds are West Virginia (poor whites), Mississippi (poor blacks), and New Mexico (poor Indians), and that there's a lot of red down the Eastern Seaboard, where the Northeast retirees go, and in the Mountain West, where the California retirees go.
Are you suggesting that means-testing Social Security and Medicare is on the table for the Democratic Party? Because I'd totally be on board with that. Hell, if the Democrats are going to become fiscally responsible, I'll become one. I'm tired of the Jesus freaks in the R column anyway.
The problem is the small state bonus.
The small state bonus doesn't exist. Part of the Electoral College design was intended to give small states a boost, so they're not completely dominated by their larger brethren, but the founders didn't have the mathematics necessary to really understand the effect of their design. We do now, and the conclusion you reach by evaluating the situation according to the various vote power measures is that in fact the reverse is true. The power of bloc voting means that power disproportionately accrues to large blocs, which means large states in this context.
If all states were to allocate their electoral votes proportionally, then small states really would get a boost. As it is, they're actually disadvantaged by the system. Not as disadvantaged as they'd be without their extra vote or two, but still disadvantaged.
Candidates for President rarely if ever campaign in larger states because we have less pull than the smaller states do.
Nonsense. They focus their campaigning on the states whose vote isn't a foregone conclusion. Obama didn't need to campaign in California or New York, and there was no point in him campaigning in Texas. Both Obama and Romney spent lots of time in Florida, however; a swing state with 25 electoral votes is important to them.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Where the fuck do you get off thinking people are "special" and need special representation based on race? The only "race" that needs representation is the human race.
The fear is not bogus.
Republicans managed to win more congressional seats while losing the popular vote (for the congressional elections). So it's not a fantasy that such a system gives them an advantage.
The gerrymandering is not bogus. While a state may lean one way or another, the distribution of the votes is not uniform, therefore Republicans and Dems will tend to win in states that the other party generally has an overall majority in. Gerrymandering is real, and is easier for Republicans because Dems votes are concentrated in urban areas and tend to be overwhelming. There was a fairly large precinct in the last election without a single Republican vote. Congressional districts tend to be the same size, so if, as a party, your supporters are concentrated in a single urban area, you get really large margins there. If you are trying to win an election, all other things equal (especially overall number and distribution of voters), you want to win by slim margins, and have your victories spread out.
Secondly, the only states where this was proposed were states that vote Democrat and have Republican controlled state senates and governors. Basically, the system rather blatantly takes away Democrat electoral college votes in the states the Dems are winning, while leaving them unchanged in the states that the Republicans are winning. Ignoring the 2 electoral college votes given to each state for the senators it has, if all states that vote Dem did this, they would lose up to 40% or so of their electoral college vote, and could never win a presidential election. For this alone, the idea is deeply repugnant. The fact that a "serious" politician actually discusses this should be unsettling to all voters. When politicians lose elections, they should either change to suit their electorate or quit, not change the rules to get into power regardless of the electorates wishes.