This Is How To Fix The Electoral College

We all know its purpose. It's to "even-out" the vote, so that all of the giant metropolitan areas across the country don't dominate the election.. blah blah blah.

Rolling Stone is certainly not a source I would usually cite, and/nor proudly expect positive consequences for pretty much anything - especially rock 'n' roll - but here's a good article from them I ran across a week or two ago... and I'll quote the most important part below, you know, for the lazy.

"Wyoming, the nation's lowest population state, has just over 560,000 people. Those people get three electoral votes, or one per 186,000 people. California, our most populous state, has more than 37 million people. Those Californians have 55 electoral votes, or one per 670,000 people. Comparatively, people in Wyoming have nearly four times the power in the Electoral College as people in California. Put another way, if California had the same proportion of electoral votes per person as Wyoming, it would have about 200 electoral votes." (Source)

Yep, it's just simple math, people. Each state's electoral vote total needs to be proportional to the population of each state. That was the intention some 240 years ago, anyway. However the simple fact that each state (regardless of population) has exactly two senators, and that the number TWO helps to determine the number of electoral college votes for each state, is absurd!

So here's the fix:
Click it to enlarge!

Original Content (Data from Wikipedia)

And it needs to be edited before every election. I'm pretty sure the government has several statisticians employed, who can accurately project the population growth of each state based on the last census each time. If not, there are probably a few available. It's not that difficult.

By the way, with that fix I also just created 1,105 extra jobs (and growing).

Freedom?

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It's all the stupid drug laws, and the never-ending, unwinnable war on drugs...

The Fastest Growing City in the U.S.

By Brad Rollins at the San Marcos Mercury

San Marcos, TX is the fastest-growing large city in the United States, according to updated population estimates announced today by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The city added 2,339 new residents — an increase of 4.91 percent — between July 2011 and July 2012, the bureau said,

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pushing its official population above 50,000 for the first time. South Jordan, Utah was the second fastest-growing with a 4.87 percent increase to 55,934.

San Marcos Mayor Daniel Guerrero said news that San Marcos’ population is well beyond booming does not come as a total surprise based on “the growth trends that we’ve seen over the last 10-15 years.”

“We knew San Marcos is a growing city. The population of Central Texas as a whole is booming and San Marcos happens to be in the center of all that action. So we ended up with the largest gains,” Guerrero said. “When you have that kind of proximity to Austin and San Antonio — and you’re three hours away from every major city in Texas — those are certainly big facets” in attracting new residents.

Texas State University is a leading factor in the city’s growth, the mayor said, as is the city’s and county’s aggressive drive over the last decade to update and expand roads and other infrastructure. In addition, he said, “San Marcos’ overall natural beauty is something that brings people in.”

Elsewhere in the Interstate 35 corridor, Austin moved from the 13th most populous city in the nation to the 11th with a population of 842,592, according to the new estimates. San Antonio grew to 1,382,951 residents and kept its spot as the seventh-largest city in the U.S.

Continue on to the full article..

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50 U.S. States of Equal Population

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We Don't Even Know

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Mapping People Living with an HIV Diagnosis

Do click to enlarge..

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Just something to think about. More importantly, it's something to take a few minutes, and look at critically. Look at several counties you've been a part of. Look at poor states, and rich states. Look at the borders, and the big cities. It's a map that completely blows away most of your pre-determined thoughts, isn't it?

Shanghai 1990 - 2010

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Population Seven Billion

Motorists crowd at a junction during rush hour in Taipei, on October 29, 2009. There are more than 8.8 million motorcycles and 4.8 million cars on Taiwan's roads and nearly all motor vehicles and inhabitants are squeezed into a third of the island's area. (Reuters/Nicky Loh)(Source)

The United Nations Population Fund estimates that on October 31, 2011, the world's population will reach 7 billion. Just 200 years ago, there were only 1 billion people on the planet, and over the next 150 years, that number grew to 3 billion. But in the past 50 years, the global population has more than doubled, and the UN projects that it could possibly grow to 15 billion by the year 2100. As the international organization points out, this increasing rate of change brings with it enormous challenges. Meeting the basic needs of so many will mean growing, shipping, and distributing more food while providing more clean water, health care, and shelter -- all without inflicting too much further damage on our environment. (Source)


People gather to get water from a huge well in the village of Natwarghad in the western Indian state of Gujarat on June 1, 2003. (Reuters/Amit Dave)Source

Much of [this] growth has happened in Asia — in India and China. Those two countries have been among the world's most populous for centuries. But a demographic shift is taking place as the countries have modernized and lowered their fertility rates. Now, the biggest growth is taking place in sub-Saharan Africa.

Due in part to that region's extreme poverty, infant mortality rates are high and access to family planning is low. The result is high birth rates and a booming population of 900 million — a number that could triple by the end of the century. Population expert Joel Cohen points out that, in 1950, there were nearly three times as many Europeans as sub-Saharan Africans. If U.N. estimates are correct, there will be nearly five sub-Saharan Africans for every European by 2100. (Source)

Here is a super video explanation:

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Click here to see 42 images from The Atlantic Dot Com's article "Population Seven Billion"

Even more here at Boston Dot Com's The Big Picture..

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Welcome To America

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USA Slave Population Distribution 1861

This map, showing “the distribution of the slave population of the southern states and the United States,” was created in September 1861 based on statistics from the eighth Census. Says the NOAA:

“President Lincoln frequently consulted this map in considering the relationship between emancipation and military strategy… Lincoln would look at the map and send his armies to free blacks in some of the highest density areas in order to destabilize Southern order. The Emancipation Proclamation became law on Jan. 1, 1863.”

Click here or the header image to get a closer look at the map..

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U.S. Population 1950-2010

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What If..

Click to enlarge-a-rooski..

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The BosWash Corridor

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I've actually noticed/thought about this on many occasions. Living near San Antonio, we have Austin within an hour, Houston within 3 hours, Waco 3 hours, Dallas is about 4.5..

How "lucky" are these 30-40 million people to have this many huge metropolitan areas around them! Note: You can also include Providence, Trenton, Newark, and Richmond if you wanted to. And if you go a little bit further you also have Raleigh, Greensboro, Charlotte, and (gulp) Atlanta!

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World Population

Here's a really interesting stat I ran across today, but one which I would like to expand upon. It deals with the population of the world, its estimates from wayyy in the past, and the estimates 30-40 years into the future.. along with some fairly accurate numbers in between:

The world's population has doubled between:

1181 & 1715 (534 years)... approx. 375 to 750 million

1715 & 1881 (166 years)... approx. 750 to 1500 million (or 1.5 billion)

1881 & 1960 (79 years)... approx. 1.5 to 3 billion

1960 & 1999 (39 years)... approx. 3 to 6 billion

At this rate it will be at 9 billion by about 2038, and will double from 6 billion to 12 billion (gulp, that's 1,200,000,000, or 1.2 trillion) by about 2079 or 2080.


Here are some more graphics to help illustrate what I've just said:






























Source 1 & Source 2


Click to enlarge!