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).

Fixing The American Election Process

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Long-time No-see!

Well, with these stupid cauci going on, I had to bring this up one more time. I'll explain to you later why caucuses (cauci) are stupid, but for right now, I wanna show you how we fix one of the main flaws of our government -- the voting process.

(Aside: Many forms of proof that American elections are, in fact, rigged, have been produced for years. That computer programmers can do it with ease is believable. If you're interested, watch this, or at least acknowledge it for a few minutes.. I just happened to run across that video today.)


Anyway on to the point!


I. First Past The Post

Here is the Wikipedia entry for First-Past-the-Post (FPTP). I'm pretty sure I have posted CGP Grey's explanation of FPTP voting before. The United States and several other nations have exclusively "used" this system for many years. The reason for the parentheses in the prior sentence is that FPTP is more of a phenomenon than a method, much less a chosen or preferred method. (And it's even more far-fetched to claim that it is a GOOD method.) Anyway, ^^^watch it again. It's a great video, and it's only 6:30.

I'll go let the dog out while you do.


II. Gerrymandering

Moving on.. One of the main problems (cheats) with FPTP voting, as he pointed out, is Gerrymandering. "In the process of setting electoral districts, gerrymandering is a practice that attempts to establish a political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating district boundaries to create partisan-advantaged districts." (Source)      Continuing: "The resulting district apportionment is known as a gerrymander; however, that word can also refer to the process. When used to allege that a given party is gaining disproportionate power, the term gerrymandering has negative connotations."

A recent Chicago electoral districts map:

(Image Source)     ^^^..A perfect example of bogus alignment.


Here is CGP Grey's awesome explanation of gerrymandering. Once again it is a fantastic video, and is also only 5:26.


III. Shortest Splitline

Now (drumroll), here is how you fix it! But first I must say that in order for this FIX to work, it is imperative that those who draw such lines of electoral districts, do so under absolutely no influence of any party-affiliation. Centrist mathematicians with a strong knowledge of geography (like myself) would be perfect for the job! Seriously though.. it's definitely not rocket surgery, nor brain science, so I'm pretty sure each and every electoral district in the United States, is able to find 1 (ONE) person to perform this task. There are 435 of these districts in the United States!!

This concept is called Shortest Splitline, and it's a concept most of us probably learned before fourth grade. Granted there are some high school freshman level mathematics in progress here, but again, we're talking about just 435 people. The U.S. population (as of 2014) is approximately 320 million people. I would think it would be pretty easy to find these 435 qualified individuals among a population of 320,000,000. Wouldn't you?

Finally, here you go. This is CGP Grey's 3-minute explanation of Shortest Splitline (3:37).


-- By the way, the "Iowa Caucus is an electoral event in which residents of the U.S. state of Iowa meet in precinct caucuses in all of Iowa's 1,681 precincts,* and elect delegates to the corresponding county conventions. There are 99 counties in Iowa, and thus there are 99 conventions. These county conventions then select delegates for both Iowa's Congressional District Convention and the State Convention, which eventually choose the delegates for the presidential nominating conventions. About 1% of the nation's delegates are chosen by the Iowa State Convention." (Source)


* Seriously? The population of Iowa is 3.107 million (again 2014)     ...I wonder how many dozens of these precincts' cauci contain about 11 people?


CGP Grey's Entire YouTube stream

A Round-Tuit

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Human Hotfix Patch

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Starting Him Early

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Duct Tape

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Why The Other Lines Move Faster

...and the obvious way to fix it.



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Gripe

Dear Youtube, PLEASE fix this. Thank you. That's all..

You Can't Fix Stupid

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11 Ways I'd Fix (And Save) The Rock n Roll Hall Of Fame

...a SUPER review by the guys over at 11points dot com.

I first went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum when I was in high school. They were throwing some banquet there for nerds from different area schools and I snagged the invite to this one.

That was 1996, one year after the Hall opened. I distinctly remember my thoughts back then: "Meh. It's like a really big Hard Rock Cafe."

This week, while visiting my parents back here in Cleveland, I returned to the Hall for the first time in 14 years. My thoughts now: "They've had a decade and a half to improve this place and it's still like a really big Hard Rock Cafe. Only less crowded."

I don't think this list topic is particularly commercial... nor do I think this list will even crack my top 200 most viewed. But it's something I need to write for three reasons. One: On the outside chance that someone from the Hall reads this, takes it to heart, and saves the place and helps the city. Two: I need a cathartic outlet after going to that place with optimism in my heart. And three: They charge a jaw-dropping $22 for admission. I need to make a list about it so I can write that insanity off.

Here are 11 steps that need to be taken to fix (and, quite possibly, save) Cleveland's beloved Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. Because, quite frankly, it sucks worse than the Shitty Beatles. (Which isn't just a clever name.)

1. Allow people to take photos.
Normally, when I write a travel list -- like my 11 Points on the Jack Daniels distillery or Fenway or Wrigley -- every point is accompanied by a photo I took. That is not the case here. The Hall does not allow photos.

And they MEAN it. You have to check your camera at their coat check. There are signs every few feet reminding you. And I even passed a SNIPER as we went on the top floor... literally, an employee who stands there, from on high, radioing down to the guards below when he spots someone taking a photo.

They say this is because many of the artists (or their estates) agreed to donate their stuff under the condition that it not be photographed. That may be sporadically true, but seems suspect to me. My most cynical side says they don't want a ton of photos out there because, once people actually see the crapiness within for free, it will discourage anyone from actually coming to the Hall.

Fortunately, with the rest of my plan items below, the Hall would become so much more of a multimedia experience that a photo of John Lennon' Sgt. Pepper's jacket could hit the Internet and not push the Hall into the red for a quarter.

Let people take photos of their trip to the museum. They're paying $22 and seeing stuff they want to remember. And if the photos are of cool enough stuff, it might even... wait for it... make people want to actually travel to Cleveland to see the Hall.

2. Don't cluster everything on the ground floor.
So you enter the museum, head to the ground floor, and go into the main display area. You walk around for at least an hour, seeing memorabilia and such, and say to yourself, "Wow! This was just one floor! I can't wait to see the rest of the museum." Then you leave the ground floor and find... virtually nothing. A few random cases of more of the same memorabilia, a few exhibits that may or may not interest you... and that's about it.

For some reason, the Hall decided to put 99 percent of the museum in one huge room on the ground floor. It was like that in 1996, and it's like that today.

It's kind of like someone who decided to watch "The O.C." on DVD. You get about halfway through the first season and you think, "This show is amazing! There's a fight at a rich people's party every episode. Not to mention so many sexy results." Then, eventually, you find yourself halfway through the third season realizing the show used up everything it had in the first season and is now just presenting a meager shell of itself. That's a completely terrible metaphor for the basement of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Having everything on one floor creates all sorts of problems. One: Congestion. Everyone's in the main room. Two: It renders the rest of the museum useless. And three: It makes this giant building feel like an enormous waste of space.

So, here's what I propose: Split it up and use the full museum. Divide the main room into smaller rooms and take us on a tour through the history of rock and roll through those rooms.

You know how an art museum has an ancient Egyptian room, a Renaissance room, an Impressionism room and on and on until finally you're in a modern art room where the pièce de résistance is like a giant jar of fish heads with a Ziggy cartoon taped to it? Do that. Give us a Motown room, a '60s San Francisco room, a grunge room, a Beatles room, an Elvis room. Start with the roots of rock in the basement, then take us all the way up through today by the fifth floor. And when we get there, have it lead right into the Hall of Fame itself.

3. Break the displays up by performer.
Right now the displays are by era -- everyone from one era stuffed into one or two cases. It's OK, but it leaves them so incredibly jammed that you can't possibly examine everything. It really doesn't have the (I think) intended effect of making you see how these acts all contributed to these major musical epochs -- it just looks like a glass-encased thrift store.

Continue to the rest of this gem..

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