This might seem a bit belated, as the conversation has moved past rueful examinations of what went wrong on November 2nd, but there was one aspect of the election results that I haven't seen addressed, so I figured I'd run some numbers by you.
American institutions such as the Senate and the electoral college are based on the idea that the US is a federation of distinct states. That North Dakota and South Dakota are such very different societies that they need separate representation in the upper house of the federal legislature, but California is a unified whole from Alturas to San Francisco to Coto de Caza. This is of course ridiculous. Most state boundaries are arbitrary. France's borders are where they are because that's where the French people live; Wyoming's borders are where they are because some cartographer in DC liked rectangles.
The states of Indiana and Ohio are separated by a vertical line. Looking at county-by-county maps of the election results, it's hard to see where the line is — western Ohio is as Republican as eastern Indiana. What that means is this: draw that line where it is, and you get 31 electoral votes for Bush. Draw it just a few miles east, however, and you get 12 electoral votes for Bush in a slightly wider Indiana and 19 electoral votes for Kerry in a slightly narrower Ohio. This would give Kerry the election.
In fact, by redrawing state lines, you can generate any outcome you want, from a 521-17 Kerry landslide to a 538-0 Bush shutout. And the lines you draw would be no more arbitrary than the lines that currently exist.
It is highly unlikely that state lines will ever be redrawn, at least in my lifetime. But there's another way to game the system that is entirely practicable.
During the 2004 campaign, I often encountered Kerry backers saying, "My vote doesn't count — I live in Massachusetts" or "My vote doesn't count — I live in Texas." Some toyed with the idea of moving to swing states, at least in jest. And students were strongly encouraged to register in swing states if they had a choice: if you're from Florida but are going to school in New York, they were told, register in Florida. Kerry won California by a million votes. If 15% of those unnecessary Kerry voters had moved to Ohio over the summer, Kerry would be president. But here's the thing. We don't even have to swing any states from one column to another for our guy to win.
Electoral votes are reassigned every ten years on the basis of population. States get an electoral vote for each member of Congress they have, and DC gets three. So let's take those two Kerry voters mentioned earlier. The first one's actual vote doesn't count for much — Kerry winning Massachusetts was a foregone conclusion. But she helped him simply by living in Massachusetts at the time of the census and swelling its electoral vote count. The second one's actual vote also doesn't count for much — Bush was sure to win Texas. But this guy actually hurt his candidate, simply by living in Texas and swelling the electoral vote count for Bush. The moral of the story is simple. If you're a liberal living in a state that is going to stay red for the foreseeable future, vote with your feet. Move someplace where you'll help the cause.
You don't even have to go to a swing state. Going to a blue state is fine. Here is what would have happened had all of the Kerry households in Bush states moved to Kerry states before the last census. Not one state changes hands, and I'll err on the side of keeping votes in the red states. Still, look at Bush's new electoral vote count:
Alabama 7
Alaska 3
Arizona 7
Arkansas 5
Colorado 6
Florida 16
Georgia 10
Idaho 4
Indiana 8
Iowa 5
Kansas 5
Kentucky 6
Louisiana 7
Mississippi 5
Missouri 7
Montana 3
Nebraska 5
Nevada 4
New Mexico 4
North Carolina 10
North Dakota 3
Ohio 12
Oklahoma 6
South Carolina 6
South Dakota 3
Tennessee 7
Texas 22
Utah 5
Virginia 9
West Virginia 4
Wyoming 3
TOTAL 207
Kerry wins, 331-207, without a vote changing hands or a line being redrawn. And we only need to get to 270.
Plus you help make the blue states bluer, which can't hurt. My home state is currently governed by Arnold Schwarzenegger. My current state of residence is governed by Mitt Romney. We need all the help we can get.
More musings in this vein can be found here.