Alternate US States -- What Effects on Elections?

[lpetrich]

How 13 Rejected States Would Have Changed The Electoral College | FiveThirtyEight - "Our state borders define our presidential elections. But what if they were different?"

Our perception of U.S. politics wouldn’t be the same without the Electoral College. Thanks to most states’ winner-take-all rules (Nebraska and Maine are the only two states that can split their votes), the Electoral College turns states into red and blue Legos. We comfortably call California a “blue state” even though it’s home to millions of Republican voters, and we refer to Alabama as a solidly “red state” despite the fact that a third of its voters preferred Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.

National Popular Vote is an end run around the EC, and it has gotten the support of most of the blue states, but not many others.

Our current state borders are fairly arbitrary. Throughout American history, people have been proposing new states, but most don’t appear on the map today, either because they once existed but were later redrawn, or because they simply never caught on. But what if some of these would-be states were around today? Would moving those state borders, without changing any votes, change our political reality?

 List of U.S. state partition proposals - an awfully big list, and the article discusses only some of them.

• Absaroka - N Wyoming + SE Montana + W S-Dakota
• Chicago - as an independent state
• Deseret - Utah, Nevada, most of Arizona, S and W California, SW Oregon, SE Idaho, SW South Dakota, W Colorado, NW New Mexico
• New York City - as an independent state
• Franklin - W end of Tennessee
• Jefferson - N end of California + SW end of Oregon
• Lincoln - W and Central Washington + N Idaho
• Old Massachusetts - that state with Maine
• Original Virginia - that state with West Virginia
• Pico - S California
• Republic of Texas - as a separate nation
• Superior - NW Michigan with nearby Wisconsin
• Westsylvania - SW Pennsylvania, most of West Virginia, W end of Virginia, E end of Kentucky, NE end of Tennessee

The Republic of Texas would give the biggest bump for the Democrats, followed by Superior and Deseret. Most of the proposals would make little difference, or help the Republicans a bit. Chicago and Original Virginia would help the Republicans a lot, like Texas being present.

The article concluded by joining NW Michigan with Wisconsin and NW Florida with Alabama. Hillary Clinton would then have won in 2016, from the remaining parts of Florida and Michigan turning blue.

 

[Derec]

Why not just redraw them all?

 

[lpetrich]

Good idea. It would be nice if someone could have a data file of counties that this was derived from, if it was not entirely drawn by hand.

I've tried to create maps like that using a clustering algorithm, but the results look rather screwy, and I'd still have to work on them.

 

[SimpleDon]

The states are a vestige of the eighteenth century when communication and transportation only moved as fast as a horse could walk. Today the only levels of government that we need are at the local level, cities, towns, etc. and at the national level. Do away with states, counties, townships, etc.; and consolidate all of the small suburban towns and villages that ring all of our major cities and put them under the city's government.

 

[Politesse]

The states are a vestige of the eighteenth century when communication and transportation only moved as fast as a horse could walk. Today the only levels of government that we need are at the local level, cities, towns, etc. and at the national level. Do away with states, counties, townships, etc.; and consolidate all of the small suburban towns and villages that ring all of our major cities and put them under the city's government.

Oh, rural America would LOVE that...