What if Guam and Puerto Rico voted?


While the Electoral College system causes the US presidential election to hang in the balance, it's easy to get distracted by an interesting feature in the bizarre framework for electing the president. There are some good questions that can be asked, and could lead to a better system.

There are areas of the US that aren't states: do they get to vote? It turns out there are two categories. 

In the first, it turns out the 3 representatives from Washington DC count as votes in the Electoral College, even though they don't vote in Congress. That's what brings the Electoral College to 538 = (3 + 435 + 100).

The other Territories of the United States have no representation in the Electoral College, but do apparently have representation at party conventions. Curiously, Guam did run a presidential ballot just to make this point.

Totalling up all the Territories, the Electoral College disenfranchises a population of up to 4 million, or about 1% of the US population, based on the 2010 census. That's arguably enough to swing the election, particularly if several low-population territories became a states with 3 electors each (2 senators and 1 representative) like Wyoming or Alaska. 

But ponder for a moment that the most populous territory, Puerto Rico, is believed to have declined in population following Hurricane Maria in 2017. And, the United States response to support Puerto Rico was much more meagre than many residents expected as US citizens. Could this be as a result of their lack of democratic represesentation?

Hurricane Maria over Puerto Rico in 2017

So, what if territories like Puerto Rico had representation, or actually became states? It appears sensible to suggest this would enhance awareness of climate change, with particular focus on impacts of more frequent and more intense storms because of where the populated territories are.

So, what's this really about: I started out trying to explain the extra three votes in the Electoral College to my daughter, got confused, went away and woke up with the conclusion better democratic representation of territories in US presidential elections could make a difference in our planet's climate resilience.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On the 'How to Science' debate

Image
A recent letter-to-the-editor raises a familiar question: is there a singular 'Science' to defend?  There have always been schisms in science. Their visibility comes and goes. Perhaps the entry of mātauranga into consideration in Aotearoa resembles the emergence of global change issues (during 1990-2005), most notably climate change, that defied the scale and pace of 'normal' scientific activity. Here, normal was generally defined by Kuhn. It seems to me that one of our most prominent scientists has carefully warned us about these debates. I was perhaps lucky to be educated as an earth and environmental scientist comfortable with multiple epistemologies. Yet, this luck allows me to see a painful history. There has been long-standing schism between the often dominant experimental sciences, which follow a linear or iterative method of hypothesis testing well known as 'the scientific method' versus the historical sciences, which have so artfully unwoven the histor
Read more

The Overseer Files

Image
Just before we all suddenly returned  to  a snap lockdown, and excellent use of scientific models to manage New Zealand COVID  response, we were wading through a much less rosy review of one of Aotearoa's most important scientific models - used for farm nutrient management and water quality regulation. I had prepared some comments at the Science Media Centre's (SMC) request for Expert Reaction as an Environmental Scientist and as President of the NZ Association of Scientists . Neither they nor science correspondents in the media have time for a deep dive into the topic at the moment so I'm filing my comments here for discussion. An MPI-commissioned  peer review report  has concluded that key aspects of the Overseer model used for water quality regulation are not fit for purpose. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment (PCE) has  described  the report as “devastating”, while those responsible for the model defend it to users.  The contrast confirms an undesirable
Read more

Defining Environmental Science

Image
Here's how the popular textbooks we use define Environmental Science. Miller and Spoolman's definition used in 2018-2020 is succinct: Environmental science is a study of connections in nature. It is an interdisciplinary study of (1) how the earth (nature) works and has survived and thrived, (2) how humans interact with the environment, and (3) how we can live more sustainably. It strives to answer several questions: What environmental problems do we face? How serious are they? How do they interact? What are their causes? How has nature solved such problems? How can we solve such problems? To answer such questions, environmental science integrates information and ideas from fields such as biology, chemistry, geology, geography, economics, political science, and ethics. Miller, G.T. & Spoolman, S.E. 2020. Living in the environment, Boston, Cengage Learning. An even more succinct definition present in the 2007 edition of the textbook has been removed. Environmental science is
Read more