Fifty States with Equal Population

The state of GARY? Good luck getting a majority of residents of that region to agree to that name...

Somehow it just seems so wrong when you look at the proposed West Coast states.

Shouldn't Shasta be right next to Orange? And whyu isn't the a Grape or Cream Soda?

*why

And I just learned my kids "new math".....

The term "firelands" came from a region between the current Toledo and Cleveland that was set aside by the Congress for land grants to the Connecticut victims of British raids and seizures during the Revolution. Hence, lands for people who were burned out by the British.

At that time, the region containing Cleveland today was known as "New Connecticut".

"The driver for this is the discrepancy the electoral college causes where smaller states have an advantage of the more populous states."

What?

You can get to the 270 electoral votes needed to win with just the 12 highest populated states. There is no advantage for the smaller states.

The only fair way would be to do away with the electoral college altogether and just count the popular vote.

^^^I believe what JustaSooner is saying is that states with small populations have a disproportionate number of electoral votes compared to more populous states. For example, Wyoming with .18% of the population has 3 votes, whereas Ohio with 3.74% of population has 18.

Exactly. Wyoming has 1 elector for every 177k people. Texas has 1 elector for every 715k people.

Elva, there are a lot of things we can do if we actually achieve the amending of the US constitution. But that's stunningly difficult in these partisan times. In fact, the two-party duopoly that rules us, is probably perfectly content with the EC, making it politically impossible to change it, much less get rid of it.

The EC is the result of a few old compromises, some of which still apply today. Once I finally understood what those were, I decided that there were worse systems of election than the EC... direct popular voting being one. Changing states like the present Congressional districts change, is a solution, except it breaks more than it fixes. The real solution, physically, is to rescind statehood. One real nation, the only state. And that does more than just break things, it raises socio-economic demons. Ironically that simplification of government will only make a larger government that trods on our rights and prosperity even more.

The reality facing the United States is that it became too big to sensibly manage as one nation a long, long time ago. Balkanization is what must occur, some time in this century. Russia had to deal with it; so must we. So the state model will actually be the likely solution state. Some of those fanciful names on the constant-population map will become a reality. Exciting times, as long as you hate your kids and grandkids, which from all the evidence seems to be the case for American parents today. We keep propping up an imperial model that can't survive, and our progeny will pay the price required during its dissolution.