App to Redraw the States and Change the Electoral Map

[muon2]

I reposted this map of an alternate 50 states a few months ago.

I posted a series of redrawn states back in 2013. Two of those posts were requoted in the 5 Midwests thread. The concept was to follow the Nine Nations of North America by J. Garreau (1981), preserve metro areas, and make each state no less than 50% nor more than 200% of the average population of 6.2 million. Data from dialects, agriculture, topography and religion all play into these borders.



Here are the states from that series. They're named for native peoples of the area. I've listed the principal city or cities and the 2010 population (in millions):

Ecotopia
Duwamish (Seattle) 4.7
Chinook (Portland) 3.6
Shasta (Sacramento) 3.6
Ohlone (San Francisco) 9.5

Empty Quarter
Paiute (Reno, Boise, Spokane) 4.8
Ute (Salt Lake City) 3.5
Navajo (Las Vegas) 3.4
Arapaho (Denver) 5.2

Breadbasket
Dakota (Omaha) 4.2
Ojibwe (Minneapolis) 5.6
Sauk (Madison, Des Moines) 5.1
Illini (St Louis) 5.8
Kansa (Kansas City) 4.3
Comanche (Oklahoma City) 5.3
Wichita (Dallas) 9.6

MexAmerica
Yokuts (Fresno) 4.1
Chumash (Los Angeles) 11.1
Cahuilla (San Diego) 10.5
O'odham (Phoenix) 5.7
Apache (El Paso) 3.1
Xarame (San Antonio) 4.3
Tonkawa (Houston) 5.9

New England
Abenaki (Manchester) 3.8
Wampanoag (Boston) 4.9
Pequot (Providence) 5.1

Foundry
Winnebago (Milwaukee) 4.0
Meskwaki (Chicago) 9.7
Potawatomi (Fort Wayne, Grand Rapids) 4.5
Ottawa (Detroit) 5.8
Erie (Cleveland) 4.3
Miami (Indianapolis, Columbus) 8.9
Mingo (Pittsburgh) 8.3
Iroquois (Buffalo) 5.1
Susquehannock (Washington, Baltimore) 10.9
Lenape (Philadelphia) 7.4
Raritan (Newark) 5.5
Munsee (New York) 8.4
Montauk (Brooklyn) 7.6

Dixie
Chitimacha (New Orleans) 3.7
Caddo (Shreveport) 3.3
Osage (Little Rock) 4.6
Tunica (Memphis) 4.4
Chickasaw (Atlanta) 9.4
Shawnee (Nashville, Louisville) 6.8
Cherokee (Knoxville) 8.8
Powhatan (Virginia Beach) 7.5
Catawba (Charlotte) 7.0
Muskogee (Montgomery, Augusta) 9.0
Seminole (Jacksonville) 9.8

Islands
Colusa (Miami) 7.1

Then at Antonio V's request I calculated the apportionment and 2012 result by hand.

I calculated an apportionment and applied the 2012 results as well back in 2013. 436 seats are apportioned to account for the inclusion of DC. Here are the EV's and 2012 winning party.

Ecotopia
Duwamish (Seattle) 9 D
Chinook (Portland) 7 D
Shasta (Sacramento) 7 D
Ohlone (San Francisco) 15 D

Empty Quarter
Paiute (Reno, Boise, Spokane) 9 R
Ute (Salt Lake City) 7 R
Navajo (Las Vegas) 7 D
Arapaho (Denver) 9 R

Breadbasket
Dakota (Omaha) 8 R
Ojibwe (Minneapolis) 10 D
Sauk (Madison, Des Moines) 9 D
Illini (St Louis) 10 D
Kansa (Kansas City) 8 R
Comanche (Oklahoma City) 8 R
Wichita (Dallas) 8 R

MexAmerica
Yokuts (Fresno) 8 R
Chumash (Los Angeles) 18 D
Cahuilla (San Diego) 17 D
O'odham (Phoenix) 10 R
Apache (El Paso) 7 D
Xarame (San Antonio) 8 D
Tonkawa (Houston) 10 R

New England
Abenaki (Manchester) 7 D
Wampanoag (Boston) 9 D
Pequot (Providence) 9 D

Foundry
Winnebago (Milwaukee) 8 D
Meskwaki (Chicago) 16 D
Potawatomi (Fort Wayne, Grand Rapids) 8 D
Ottawa (Detroit) 10 D
Erie (Cleveland) 8 D
Miami (Indianapolis, Columbus) 15 R
Mingo (Pittsburgh) 14 D
Iroquois (Buffalo) 9 D
Susquehannock (Washington, Baltimore) 17 D
Lenape (Philadelphia) 12 D
Raritan (Newark) 10 D
Munsee (New York) 14 D
Montauk (Brooklyn) 13 D

Dixie
Chitimacha (New Orleans) 7 R
Caddo (Shreveport) 7 R
Osage (Little Rock) 9 R
Tunica (Memphis) 8 R
Chickasaw (Atlanta) 15 R
Shawnee (Nashville, Louisville) 12 R
Cherokee (Knoxville) 14 R
Powhatan (Virginia Beach) 13 R
Catawba (Charlotte) 12 R
Muskogee (Montgomery, Augusta) 15 R
Seminole (Jacksonville) 16 R

Islands
Colusa (Miami) 12 D

Total: Obama 300, Romney 236.

The tool on the OP link makes it somewhat easier to calculate the 2016 results, though I can't zoom on my touch screen due to a problem with Chrome and the latest Win 10 release. It keeps me from clicking on the small independent cities and areas like San Francisco and DC. nb. The zoom does work with Edge.

The 2016 map has Navajo, Illini, Winnebago, Potawatomi, Mingo, and Iroquois flip to Trump while Powhatan flips to Clinton. Trump wins 279 to 257.

[muon2]

A zoom feature would be nice, as well as the ability to add states.

I am able to zoom on my touchscreen with Edge, but not Chrome. Even then I can't get to the smallest independent cities in VA, and for some reason I can't get to Arlington county either.

[muon2]

A zoom feature would be nice, as well as the ability to add states.

I am able to zoom on my touchscreen with Edge, but not Chrome. Even then I can't get to the smallest independent cities in VA, and for some reason I can't get to Arlington county either.

Do you mean zooming the whole page similar to CTRL+(+)?  Or is there an actual zoom feature on the map itself?

In this case I used the ability of the touch screen to zoom with my fingers. Chrome has a conflict with the current update to Win 10, so it only works for me in Edge.

[muon2]

I know that the site put up a disclaimer about 2016 data not being up to date, but the 2012 data is definitely not right. For example I noticed that this app had Riverside CA going to Romney 290,227 over Obama 287,754 with Johnson+other at 11,740. The Atlas has Obama 329,063 over Romney 318,127 with other at 15,926. That's a substantial difference.

I looked at a few other counties and the app had lower vote counts than Atlas. I suspect the vote totals on the app come from a media source that quit updating late on election night or shortly thereafter. That would leave out all the late absentee and provisional ballots that are included in the official Atlas count.

[muon2]

For the extreme cases there should be a rule that no "state" has less population than WY and there must be at least 50 states, though DC can be absorbed assuming the 23rd amendment was repealed.

[muon2]

By the way guys, the app updated. You can now destroy states entirely, reducing the EV total. You can also zoom in and out by scrolling. No making new states yet, though.

I noticed that last night when I used the app to create a corrected version of the US population distribution in units of Canadas.

[muon2]

The zoom feature is a big help, but it doesn't zoom enough to show all the independent cities in VA. If the map is fully zoomed, the cursor can hover over them, even if the cities don't actually show up. When the cursor is showing the city, it can be highlighted to move.

[muon2]

Republican gerrymander.

Long live the Commonwealth of Nantucket!

[muon2]

Here's my variant on largest cities for states. I started with the 51 largest cities by 2015 ranking. Each county is assigned to the closest of these large cities based on the travel time from the largest city in the county. Even with all the large cities assigned to separate states in this scenario, Trump still wins the EC and 29 states.

[muon2]

I guess the state east of Phoenix is Mesa? But Mesa isn't even in the state! Seems like it should be by county rather than city.

There are three cities that are out of their states due to a larger city in their county. But I didn't measure distances by county here, I measured them from a city within a county to a large city. In the case of Mesa there are three AZ counties whose largest city is closer to Mesa than to either Phoenix or Tucson so Pinal, Gila and Navajo form a state. Similarly Orange CA is the Long Beach state and Denton TX is the Arlington state. Since it's based on travel time, there are times of day that no county would match to Arlington, so I went with a time when at least one county did.

[muon2]

Looking at Timmy's map and Fig's comment, I thought of a challenge. There are a number of criteria, and it may not be possible to meet all of them, but here goes.

1. New states must be contiguous, meaning individual counties are contiguous; AK is contiguous to any county bordering Canada; HI is contiguous to any county bordering the Pacific Ocean.
2. New states must include at least one county from the old state.
3. No old state may have counties in more than three states (two plus the county(s) in 2).
4. No state may have less population than WY in 2010 (564 K).
5. Hillary Clinton wins all the electors.

[muon2]

Your link isn't showing up as an image.

[muon2]

https://tinyurl.com/Superstatesdata

CA plus HI is about 1/9 of the total number of electors. If you made nine contiguous superstates of about that same size, how would they vote?

[muon2]

https://tinyurl.com/Superstatesdata

CA plus HI is about 1/9 of the total number of electors. If you made nine contiguous superstates of about that same size, how would they vote?

I made no attempt to even out population.

I guess I could try in a bit, but I would probably end up splitting a few existing states if I did.  Also, I had 11 states on my map.

I was just curious as to how close one could get without splitting states. I picked 1/9 because the population of the US divides into 9 Canadas, following counties like this:



However, I'm assuming the superstates get to keep their their full number of EV, including all those due to Senators from the combined states.

[muon2]

I wonder what the above's results would've been. Obviously, blue, brown, orange, and green Canada voted for Clinton, and red, yellow, grey, and orange Canada voted for Trump, but I'm unsure about white Canada. Of these, only grey and white Canada flip in a non-landslide election.

white Canada went for Hillary by about 12K votes. It's the only swing Canada on the map. The next closest was grey Canada which went for Trump by 750K.

[muon2]

CA plus HI is about 1/9 of the total number of electors. If you made nine contiguous superstates of about that same size, how would they vote?

55: CA
73: WA+OR+NV+ID+UT+AZ+MT+WY+CO+NM+HI (removed HI from CA to secure sub-10% deviation from quota) (+AK?)
56: TX+OK+NE+KS
62: ND+SD+MN+IA+MO+WI+IL
64: AR+LA+MS+TN+IN+KY+WV+AL
54: FL+GA+SC
58: NC+VA+MD+DE+NJ (+DC?)
54: OH+MI+PA
62: NY+CT+RI+MA+VT+NH+ME
This is one way it could have been done ofc.
Clinton won 5 of these, and Trump won 4. The upper Midwest one with IL was quite close.

I've added the EVs and DC.
It looks like HI should stay with CA giving it 59 and 64 for the other western superstate.

Edited to add AK

[muon2]

My idea for superstates was that they would be casting their electors as a bloc, much like the NPVIC proposes, but only within each regional superstate. They keep their full electors by state, so the app would have to be adjusted to put back the electors from the senators. Here's what I get, following TimTurner's lead, though I'll leave it to anyone else who wants to fill in the app.

59: HI+CA
59: AK+WA+OR+NV+ID+UT+MT+WY+CO+ND+SD
61: AZ+NM+TX+OK
57: KS+NE+MN+IA+MO+IL
60: WI+MI+IN+OH+WV
58: AR+LA+MS+AL+FL
58: KY+TN+GA+SC+NC
63: PA+NJ+DE+MD+DC+VA
62: NY+CT+RI+MA+VT+NH+ME

[muon2]

My idea for superstates was that they would be casting their electors as a bloc, much like the NPVIC proposes, but only within each regional superstate. They keep their full electors by state, so the app would have to be adjusted to put back the electors from the senators. Here's what I get, following TimTurner's lead, though I'll leave it to anyone else who wants to fill in the app.

59: HI+CA
59: AK+WA+OR+NV+ID+UT+MT+WY+CO+ND+SD
61: AZ+NM+TX+OK
57: KS+NE+MN+IA+MO+IL
60: WI+MI+IN+OH+WV
58: AR+LA+MS+AL+FL
58: KY+TN+GA+SC+NC
63: PA+NJ+DE+MD+DC+VA
62: NY+CT+RI+MA+VT+NH+ME

It looks like the Pubs would have 5 of the nine regions on lockdown, you partisan hack you.

I could swap MN for IN which would improve the range by 1 at the cost of 1 in erosity. But I don't know about lockdown. Obama won the red Great Lakes superstate both times including IN, and Trump would win the one with the MN swap.

The blue Northwest region is no walk in the park for the Pubs either. Romney only won it by 1.6% with less than 50% of the total vote and Trump won by half that margin. Fair and balanced superstates is what I say.

Another tidbit: If I swap MN for IN, then Obama loses the IL superstate in 2012. I guess that's the more impressive Pub gerrymander. BTW Trump wins the IL superstate with or without the swap. Either way that's a swing superstate, too.

[muon2]

My idea for superstates was that they would be casting their electors as a bloc, much like the NPVIC proposes, but only within each regional superstate. They keep their full electors by state, so the app would have to be adjusted to put back the electors from the senators. Here's what I get, following TimTurner's lead, though I'll leave it to anyone else who wants to fill in the app.

59: HI+CA
59: AK+WA+OR+NV+ID+UT+MT+WY+CO+ND+SD
61: AZ+NM+TX+OK
57: KS+NE+MN+IA+MO+IL
60: WI+MI+IN+OH+WV
58: AR+LA+MS+AL+FL
58: KY+TN+GA+SC+NC
63: PA+NJ+DE+MD+DC+VA
62: NY+CT+RI+MA+VT+NH+ME

It looks like the Pubs would have 5 of the nine regions on lockdown, you partisan hack you.

I could swap MN for IN which would improve the range by 1 at the cost of 1 in erosity. But I don't know about lockdown. Obama won the red Great Lakes superstate both times including IN, and Trump would win the one with the MN swap.

The blue Northwest region is no walk in the park for the Pubs either. Romney only won it by 1.6% with less than 50% of the total vote and Trump won by half that margin. Fair and balanced superstates is what I say.

Another tidbit: If I swap MN for IN, then Obama loses the IL superstate in 2012. I guess that's the more impressive Pub gerrymander. BTW Trump wins the IL superstate with or without the swap. Either way that's a swing superstate, too.

What is the Trump margin in the NW region if you add the McMullin votes to his total (which voters would ordinarily vote Pub)?

Without going through the chore of creating the district again, it looks like there would be about 280K McMullin votes in the 3 states in that region where he was on the ballot (CO,ID,UT). That is a little over 2% of the vote IIRC, so Trump+McMullin would have about a 3% margin over HRC. That doesn't account for any WWC vote that wouldn't normally be Pub, so the margin with a generic Pub is presumably less.

[muon2]

The numbers in this app are not up to date in either election.

Notable error for 2012:

If you put Imperial, San Diego, Riverside, Orange, and San Bernardino Counties, California into their own separate state:

Under kevinhayeswilson numbers, Romney wins by 563 votes.

Under wikipedia numbers, Obama wins by 86385 votes.

Riverside County itself is marked as a Romney win in the app, but actually voted for Obama.

I believe that wilson used a media source for its county data. They typically report the initial unofficial returns, but I find that they rarely update with the final officia numbers. That's why we are here at Atlas. Dave Leip provides the official counts after all absentee and provisional ballots are in. Compare two of the counties you mention:

San Bernadino ( Atlas ): D 305,109; R 262,358; L 5883; Other 9580; TOTAL 582,390
San Bernadino (wilson): D 274,203; R 245,458; L 5408; Other 6613; TOTAL 531,682

Riverside ( Atlas ): D 329,063; R 318,127; L 6223; Other 9703; TOTAL 663,116
Riverside (wilson): D 287,754; R 290,227; L 5439; Other 6301; TOTAL 589,721

In both counties there was about a 10% increase in the total vote once made official. However, the additional votes are skewed D, so that gives the effect you see. After all the app is just a tool to see what if and has a disclaimer that the county numbers can change.

[muon2]

why do I do this?

I don't know, but if you'd like challenges to come up with certain maps, I'd be happy to oblige.

[muon2]

Am I the only one that has a problem using a site that uses incomplete election data? For example, the site has Hillary winning CA by about 3.4m when she actually won by closer to 4.3m. That's just one state. Has anyone here tried to contact the individual who created that map?

The website initially updated counties, but since the copyright is still listed as 2016, I'm not sure the owner has done anything since the end of that year.

Looking deeper on his GitHub page I see that he hasn't touched any file since Jan 5, 2017, and the last pull of county data was in Dec 2016. Looking at his data source, townhall.com, I see that like most media outlets they quit updating their data before the official results are declared. I stick with the Atlas and recalculate based on the numbers here if I want to be very accurate.

[muon2]

https://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/president
This is a pretty good source for election data. There's a reason I have it bookmarked.

As you say, it's pretty good. Yet it misses 4 votes for Clinton and 4 for Trump in CA compared to Atlas. Dave Leip does a very thorough job of maintaining and updating his data and correcting errors when noted.