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A federal judge has blocked the state of Hawaii from enforcing a recently enacted ban on firearms on its prized beaches and in other areas including banks, bars and parks, citing last year’s landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling expanding gun rights.
It doesn’t really matter if a state is “empty”, what matters is the population not the density.
And for what it’s worth: of the ten states with the least population, half generally vote for Democrats (HI, VT, DE, RI, ME). They are often overlooked in these discussions because they are mostly small in area too.
Population density absolutely matters, because when an ignorant person looks at an electoral map, by county, it looks like a couple small blue dots in a sea of red. If the wrong person shows them that map, it can become pretty simple to convince them that Democrats are cheating them because, “just look at all that red!”
It is also about how districts in larger, more empty states, use that mostly empty area to gerrymander their blue population centers. You can’t do that in smaller, highly dense, states.
And then, there’s this: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-04-01/how-the-density-of-your-county-affects-how-you-vote
I was responding to someone who said that “empty” states have disproportionate power in the electoral college and Senate. Their emptiness does not give them undue power, regardless of what ignorant people think.
Hawaii isn’t in the ten least populous states and Maine isn’t a blue state. It’s not a straight sort, but Republicans far and away benefit from the unequal representation of the Senate and Electoral College.
Maine has voted for the Democratic candidate in every presidential election in the past 30 years. It’s true that it has a Republican Senator, but if that means it’s a battleground state then by the same logic so are Montana and West Virginia. Those incumbents are popular despite their party, but when they finally leave the Senate they will be replaced by someone in the opposite party.
But you’re right that Hawaii is not one of the ten smallest. It’s eleventh. However, I left out New Hampshire, which voted for the Democratic candidate in every presidential election in the past 30 years except one. So of the eleven smallest states, six consistently send Democrats to the electoral college.
While it’s still arguable that Republicans have unfair representation in the Senate and EC, the issue is more complicated than simply blaming the small states. Or for that matter the big states: the top ten include three red (FL, TX, OH), three blue (CA, NY, IL) and four battlegrounds (GA, NC, MI, PA).
LOL, wut? There’s nothing arguable about that. Republicans very definitely have an unfair senate and electoral advantage entirely related to being more popular in less populated states (which, with the notable exceptions you’ve highlighted, tend to also be more rural).
You’re cherry picking top ten and bottom ten like the whole swath of states in between don’t also have unfair allocation and thus don’t matter, while being pretty inconsistent with your battleground state definitions to suit your sorting needs (NH is blue because it only voted R once in 30 years, while every battleground you listed has the same history, and red Florida and Ohio have been 50/50).
While your point about population vs. density is correct, everything else seems to be trying to muddy the waters about the EC rather than just point out an interesting factoid or offer a pedantic correction. There’s no serious argument that the EC isn’t unfair from an individual voter perspective and biased toward one side from a national perspective.
First, I’m using the common definition of battleground states, which is states that are currently considered winnable by both sides. That doesn’t include New Hampshire, or any of the smallest states.
Second, arguable means you can make a good argument for something, so I think you just proved that it’s arguable. It is not a slam dunk.
The only advantage of less populated states is that they get two “free” electors regardless of their population. This effect is strongest in small states, where it helps both parties equally.
Looking at all the states, the maximum advantage to a presidential candidate is the difference between the number of states they won times two. For example, if both candidates win 25 states, then the two “free” electors per state will cancel out and the electoral college will be determined solely by the number of representatives in the states that each side wins. Or to put it differently, if the Constitution were “fixed” so that electors were strictly awarded by population, then the winner would never change in a 25 to 25 split.
Of course, if one candidates wins 26 states and the other wins 24 states, then the first candidate could potentially get four “unfair” electors by winning more small states. But historically, the electoral college is won by much larger margins. The only modern candidate who might have won if the Constitution were “fixed” would have been Gore, and that was a highly unusual election. Otherwise, the small state advantage hasn’t made a significant difference in our lifetime.
You’re arguing that the EC’s unfairness is unimportant, not that it’s fair. And ignoring the senate imbalance where just a couple extra votes is a massive change.
So since it’s unimportant, let’s change it to be fair. Except I don’t think you really feel it’s unimportant and actually care very much about those two extra votes.
You seem to be implying that I don’t want Democrats to win, but I can assure you that’s not the case. I still do think that the extra votes in the EC are unimportant, and we should focus our efforts on things like voter suppression that have an actual impact.
I am especially concerned when Democrats are defeatist about elections (ie “The Constitution is hopelessly stacked against us in the EC”). Fair or not, the presidency is very winnable. So is the Senate: when was the last the time the GOP held a supermajority? They may have a rural advantage, but we have other advantages, including educated voters and women.
And I can think of two or three amendments that I would work towards (cough, Second Amendment!) before worrying about the EC.