I’ve seen several people claim that their state’s vote for the US presidential election doesn’t matter because their district is gerrymandered, which does not matter for most states.
Most states use the state’s popular vote to determine who the entire state’s electoral college votes go to. No matter how gerrymandered your district is*, every individual vote matters for assigning the electoral vote. [ETA: Nearly] Every single district in a state could go red but the state goes blue for president because of the popular vote.
*Maine and Nebraska are the notable differences who allot individual electors based on the popular vote within their congressional districts and the overall popular vote. It’s possible there are other exceptions and I’m sure commenters will happily point them out.
Edit: added strikethrough to my last statement because now I have confirmed it.
Of the 50 states, all but two award all of their presidential electors to the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote in the state (Maine and Nebraska each award two of their electors to the candidate who wins a plurality of the statewide vote; the remaining electors are allocated to the winners of the plurality vote in the states’ congressional districts). (source)
It creates maps like this that make people stay home because they believe their vote doesn’t count.
For me, it’s helpful to remember what the underlying reality is.
Skewed for population and colored on a red-blue scale to reflect vote mix.
When those votes are counted, the resulting electoral votes align to those votes, which results in maps like what you showed. When strategists tune their messages to target demographics they can divide (e.g., rural vs. urban), they’re playing a game of inches and shades on this map of purple goo, and that’s still the reality behind the ultimate electoral vote, even if it doesn’t feel like it.
Keep voting, everyone!
edits: So much autocorrect.
Hey, that’s a neat image. I’ve seen other ways of visualizing the popular vote on a map but this one looks wonky as hell and I like it.
Data can be beautiful. I just found a similar but maybe clearer example from 2016 with a nice write-up about it.
Teaser from that article:
I think the common term for these is “cartogram”.
The red looks like a disease
It really fucking does, doesn’t it?
My brain instinctively rejects that image. Not cause it isn’t accurate; it’s showing what it’s supposed to.
But really, that the shape of it is hostile and threatening and it looks vaguely biological and some creepy shit gets sent up and down my spine about it.
That’s precisely what prompted this post: conversations with friends in Texas who said their presidential vote didn’t count because of gerrymandering.
I agree districts are fucked, but that doesn’t affect the electoral college outcome. Texas is leaning more blue every year and getting everyone who feels like their vote doesn’t matter out and voting anyway is the first step to changing it. (One example source)
The state has 30 million people. Of those, 8M are in the Dallas area, 7.5M are in the Houston area, and about 5M between San Antonio and Austin. That means over 20 million of the state residents live in one of the 4 largest metro areas which are all majority blue.
Yet only 11M voted in 2020. National average turnout in the 2020 election was 66% but Texas was less than 40%, and it’s because of the exact sentiment you called out.
I’m from Texas (but don’t live there now) and I know how disheartening the voting season always felt. I want to fight the perception I’ve heard now from multiple people in Texas that their vote for president doesn’t mean anything, because it absolutely could if everyone gets out to vote.
That’s what hurts so much! The people on the street and the images on tv are so wildly different. In most cases - there’s a bar in Harper that’s probably best to just avoid.
We stopped by with plans to wear a mask in, grab some beers, and then sit outside to drink them. Approached, saw this, decided to skip it.
Maps like that are generated to deceive one from the start… They want people to believe all the soil will vote red
yeah it’s almost like land can’t vote just people
I mean to be fair, Texas is a scary thought. It would make me stay home, too. 😜
I live in a blue zone and most reds i interact with are fairly normalish. They’re lake people or church people or those guys that always have a joke or funny story.
It’s not normal to hate.