Let’s put this one under “shower thoughts” since it is one. I was washing my hair and thinking about the upcoming presidential election (as are many, I’m sure) while also reflecting on the 2016 election. 2016 was an election that was undoubtedly gamed using the rules of the system against the will of the people. How else do you get 49.46% of the popular vote but 56.88% of the electoral vote? We saw the same thing happen in 2000 and there’s no reason to believe it won’t become a long-term tactic. While gerrymandering concerns districts on a smaller scale, the states essentially serve the same function on the national stage through the electoral college. Since state borders aren’t likely to be redrawn and the electoral college probably isn’t going away, what can be done?
Firstly, why not abolish the electoral college? Because it’s written into Article II, Section I of the Constitution. To change or eliminate it would require an amendment, which involves an enormous amount of bipartisan work or a single-party super majority in both the House and Senate. “The Constitution provides that an amendment may be proposed either by the Congress with a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate or by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the State legislatures.” (source) As has been shown twice in less than 20 years, such an amendment would benefit only one party. Best of luck getting McConnell to agree to even allowing a vote.
If you can’t beat em, join em. Literally.
This brings me back to the idea of gerrymandering. Of course, it can’t be done on a state level, but what if we shifted the populace rather than the borders? My shower thought experiment was about exactly that. If we look at the results of the 2016 presidential election by state, it’s evident that some contests weren’t even close. And yet, the results would have been the same if the margins were 50,000 or 5,000,000. In the most extreme, Clinton won California by just over 3.4 million votes. If 3 million of those people hadn’t turned up at the polls at all, her electoral score wouldn’t have suffered. But what if they turned up somewhere else instead?
Here’s my logistical nightmare of a thought: what if the DNC (or a sympathetic independent entity) starts sponsoring relocation for people in states with wide margins to states with thin ones? Incentivize people who may not even need to quit their jobs thanks to the way COVID-19 has prompted so many employees to become remote. If you can work remotely in California, why not Michigan (16 electoral votes, 11,612 margin), Ohio (18 electoral votes, 454,983 margin), or even Florida (29 electoral votes, 119,770 margin)? Relocating less than 20% of California’s margin to other states could have a huge national electoral impact while not changing the results of its own 55 electoral votes.
Of course, the biggest issue with this is finding 600,000 voters (significantly less if we ignore Ohio, but for some reason I WANT IT) willing and able to relocate to these specific states. What counties do they come from, where do they go, is there even housing for them? It’s a lot more complicated than my simple shifting of numbers from column A to columns B, C, and D. But it’s not impossible with enough strategic planning and funding. And this is how we know that conspiracy theories are utter bullshit. Because if I can come up with something like this in the shower, people with a lot more resources would have started doing it quietly long ago rather than put money behind whatever the fuck Q Anon thinks they fund. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
Spurr of the Moment 