Baja Arizona, Little Egypt, and the State of Jefferson

Every US presidential election, people call for ending the Electoral College, but there’s a big obstacle… it’s written into the Constitution! To shift to a purely popular vote, you’ve got to amend it, and that’s really difficult. But what if there was a better way?

Hear me out – let’s make more 15 states! Take all the cities that feel that they are being underrepresented and give them statehood! Suddenly they get their own senators and two more electoral votes. For the rural voters, you get rid of all the big city dominance of state politics and still have your seats in the Senate. Politically, Republicans and Democrats get roughly equal representation and preserves single-party dominance in their existing states. In the House of Representatives, it would work out about the same.

Here’s the current map – so my plan means cutting out 14 urban areas (and Puerto Rico, because they voted to and deserve to be admitted) and having them create their own states and creating a more equitable and electoral balance that’s closer to the popular vote.

New State – # of Representatives (Current # Reps in State)

• Boston – 5 (9)
• New York City 17 (27)
• Philadelphia 7 (19)
• Northern Virginia (add to DC) 2 (11)
• Atlanta 6 (14)
• Miami 5 (27)
• Chicago 8 (18)
• Detroit 5 (14)
• Dallas 7 (36)
• Houston 7 (36)
• Phoenix / Tucson (South Arizona) 6 (9)
• Los Angeles 25 (53)
• San Francisco 8 (53)
• Seattle 4 (10)

So that puts the new Electoral Count at 565. These 15 new states will be overwhelming Democrat, leaving the original states overwhelmingly Republican. As a bonus, that would allow someone from rural Illinois (such as I used to be) to feel that Springfield represents my interests instead of Chicago. Chicago can feel like they’re not having to drag the rest of rural Illinois with them. However, most importantly, the electoral numbers will be closer to the popular vote.

Now I thought about cutting up Ohio, North Carolina, Oregon, and Tennessee, but the numbers just didn’t add up. Believe it or not, this has been tried in California multiple times, starting with the State of Jefferson back in 1941 to the most recent “Cal 3” initiative back in 2017. Apparently, there’s a whole Wikipedia page dedicated to this.

Where did I get the math wrong? What new states would you include? Let me know in the comments below!