AHC: A US state outside of the Americas.

[Tallest Skil]

Puerto Rico did not vote for statehood in 2012 although that is how many media outlets reported it.

No, they explicitly voted to become a state of the Union in the status change vote.

The wording of the referendum was very poor and flawed.

“Do you want to change Puerto Rico’s status? Yes/No”

“If yes, to what do you want to change the status? State/Independent/Other”

They picked state. Period.

By 54%, Puerto Rican voters did say they preferred a change of current status - but that means nothing

It means that a majority wants to change the status. Which means that they win and that the people who said ’No’ don’t win.

Furthermore, only 44% of voters selected this option. 28% selected another option, and 26% choose note to answer the question at all (probably because they disliked the "gaming" of the question to get a predetermined response).

Are you currently standing outside the White House, armed, demanding Barack Obama relinquish his illegal hold on the presidency?

Because more people voted for Romney PLUS didn’t vote at all than voted for Barack Obama. Therefore he is not president because clearly those people who didn’t vote “disliked the question” or “were taking a stand”.

This is your logic.

Your presumption of why a vote was left blank and the conclusion drawn therefrom is meaningless. They did not vote. They voided their right to be heard. They do not get their meaning heard.

Yet clearly that 26% of voters were saying something by choosing not to answer that question

Yes. They were saying, “WE GIVE UP OUR RIGHT TO VOTE”. Votes that are not made are not counted. That’s how everything has always worked. If you want to take a stand, you take a stand by VOTING. If you don’t want something to happen, you vote against it.

Pretty simple concept. They’re becoming a state.

 

[Blackfox5]

Otherwise, options outside of the Pacific are fairly limited. A different WW2 leading to Iceland being under US administration, influx of US military personnel, permanent basis, and eventual territorioal/statehood status?

Otherwise, we are limited to the logical westward expansion of the US to Hawaii (already a state), other Polynesian island groups, and on to Guam and the Phillipines.

I think these two are the only real options.

For Iceland to ever become part of the US, the US would likely need to get both Newfoundland and Greenland first. Say Newfoundland votes to keep responsible government in 1949. It signs a free trade pact with the US which keeps a large air and naval base there. At the same time, the US handles its offer better to Denmark to purchase Greenland which becomes a territory. Sometime in the 1950s or 1960s, Newfoundland votes to join the US. Then if the US keeps forces in Iceland for whatever reason, perhaps making it some kind of protectorate while Icelanders keep internal sovereignty, Iceland eventually joins a free trade agreement with the US in the 1980s or 1990s. Then at some point, Iceland votes to join the US. That last step is the biggest since there is no natural consituency IOTL for it. Presumably, economic dependance and long term US occupation (with lots of US-Icelandic marriages) changes things enough so a strong pro-statehood movement happens.

For the Pacific, the US already has many Pacific territories. What is needed would be sufficient population in one of them that would justify statehood. None of them really do however, so we're left with a situation where a part of the Philippines would become one or more states.

Kamchatka is another possibility as the Russians offered to sell it to the US. It would take a lot for it to ever be declared a state though.

 

[Tallest Skil]

Kamchatka is another possibility as the Russians offered to sell it to the US. It would take a lot for it to ever be declared a state though.

American immigration and the discovery of oil would be enough, wouldn’t it? Worked for Alaska.

 

[HeavyWeaponsGuy]

American immigration and the discovery of oil would be enough, wouldn’t it? Worked for Alaska.

Alaska's oil was discovered decades after the Alaska Purchase. The first big settler rush was caused by gold in Alaska.

Kamchatka, moreover, is of peripheral value to the US and fairly high value to Russia as a source of coastal access.

 

[Tallest Skil]

Alaska's oil was discovered decades after the Alaska Purchase. The first big settler rush was caused by gold in Alaska.

Well, yeah, but that didn’t grant it statehood.

Kamchatka, moreover, is of peripheral value to the US and fairly high value to Russia as a source of coastal access.

All the more reason to strengthen American interests.

 

[Super Cicero]

Kamchatka is another possibility as the Russians offered to sell it to the US.

When was this??

 

[Tallest Skil]

When was this??

The thread already explains that.

 

[CthulhuFhtagn]

I assume that Hawaii doesn't count.

How about Mindanao? If I remember correctly, it was always somewhat separate from the rest of the Philippines. Another option is Taiwan, if the US stopped caring about decolonization. Liberia has potential, if Britain was willing to accept the US having a colony in Africa.

Other than that, I don't really know. Maybe Sicily or Sakhalin (in a Nazi victory scenario).

Edit: Now that I think about it, you could get a US state pretty much anywhere in the world. All you have to do is get America in on the colonial game in the 19th century. Have the US colonize some island or part of Africa, and send immigrants for about 100 years until enough of them don't die of malaria to vote for statehood. If America becomes flat-out evil, you could even get some territory in Europe.

 

[David T]

When was this??

As I explained at https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showpost.php?p=8590726&postcount=25 Lenin offered to "lease" the peninsula for sixty years to Washington Vanderlip. This offer was only made because (1) the Soviets mistakenly believed Vanderlip was a "billionaire" (apparently they confused him with Frank Vanderlip, former president of the National City Bank) with close ties to president-elect Harding and (2) most important, Kamchatka was occupied by Japan! For more on this episode, see http://books.google.com/books?id=zRtM5GhUpU0C&pg=PA118

 

[David T]

In 1975, it was widely feared in the US that Portugal was going Communist. This would put the US bases in the Azores at risk. There was talk of the US encouraging an independence movement on the islands, but perhaps the new "independent" government, to make sure the separation from Red Portugal is permanent, asks the US to make the Azores the fifty-first state. A far-fetched idea, but at least there was talk of it: http://tinyurl.com/odhl5em (Remember that there had been heavy Azorean migration to the United States, and many Azoreans had relatives there, especially in Massachusetts and California.)

 

[Alamo]

Otherwise, we are limited to the logical westward expansion of the US to Hawaii (already a state), other Polynesian island groups, and on to Guam and the Phillipines.

Well, in the War of 1812, the island of Nuku Hiva in Polynesia had a naval base established by the captain of the USS Essex. If the ensuing campaign had been handled better, you could see most of the eastern parts of Polynesia becoming an American protectorate, possibly becoming a territory in the late 1800s when Imperial fever was in the air, and eventually making a transition to statehood by the late 20th century.

Now, the thing is, Polynesia, and in particular, Nuku Hiva had far larger populations back in the early 19th century. However, smallpox and slave-raids from South America decimated the region. Nuku Hiva's population was somewhere between fifty and one-hundred thousand. It stands around three-thousand today. However, smallpox inoculation was known by doctors of the time, and an American naval squadron stationed in the region could help put an end to the slave-raids.

 

[Gurroruo]

Liberia would be easy

 

[Hominid]

Also about the racism thing, Hawaii is primarily non-white.

 

[Alternate History Geek]

The Philippines, obviously (3 or 4 states right there).
Maybe Sabah and\or Formosa, if either gets annexed to the Spanish East Indies before being taken by the US in the SAW.
Maybe Iceland, if the US can also get ahold of Greenland and Newfoundland.
Liberia.
Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, if the US expands more aggressively in the Pacific.
Kamchatka\Beringia, either as a follow-on to the Alaska Purchase or purchased from the Soviets in the 1920s.
Maybe Senegal and\or the Gold Coast, if the Quasi-War goes hotter than OTL and war is declared.
The Canadian Pacific Coast, if the US gets more of the Oregon Country than OTL.
Australia and\or New Zealand, traded to the US in exchange for Oregon north of the Columbia, which then gets enough American settlers to force Britain to sell it to the US anyway?

 

[Evan]

If we are getting a bit ASBish, I propose Grand Fenwick (cf. book and film). After the US surrender in the brief war, Grand Fenwick demands statehood as part of the Peace Treaty.

Someone fighting a war against the United States to demand statehood... I like that!

“Do you want to change Puerto Rico’s status? Yes/No”

“If yes, to what do you want to change the status? State/Independent/Other”

Yes. They were saying, “WE GIVE UP OUR RIGHT TO VOTE”. Votes that are not made are not counted. That’s how everything has always worked. If you want to take a stand, you take a stand by VOTING. If you don’t want something to happen, you vote against it.

Pretty simple concept. They’re becoming a state.

No, the ballot was unclear. As I understand it, the people who "didn't vote" actually did vote - on the first question, where they voted no. Believing they'd expressed their opinion sufficiently, they left the second question blank. The ballot design was unclear.

 

[Plumber]

Borneo is so cliche...

How about Hawaii?

 

[Doctor Evulz]

Your presumption of why a vote was left blank and the conclusion drawn therefrom is meaningless. They did not vote. They voided their right to be heard. They do not get their meaning heard.

Yes. They were saying, “WE GIVE UP OUR RIGHT TO VOTE”. Votes that are not made are not counted. That’s how everything has always worked. If you want to take a stand, you take a stand by VOTING. If you don’t want something to happen, you vote against it.

Too bad the people who voted yes to the first question had no option. If they favored the current system, they had no choice they could make. It's like asking the USA if it would rather be a monarchy, communist state, or dictatorship. People supporting the status quo can't vote for what they support, so they don't vote. This is also the reason the Popular Democratic Party explicitly advised people to leave it blank.

I'm sorry for derailing the thread. Back to the OP, there are plenty of options, the Philippines, Borneo. Maybe the USA could get something from Japan after World War II? I know I would like to see the Pacific territories finally turned into a state/states.

 

[David T]

I think we can rule out the Philippines, which so many people talk about in this thread. Even in 1900, it had eight million people--more than one-tenth the population of the United States. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_in_1900 One simply could not admit it without changing the dynamics of Congress and the Electoral College drastically. This is even apart from racial considerations (which helped to prevent even Hawaii--much smaller and more "manageable" within the existing political system--from getting statehood for six decades).

 

[zoomar]

Are you currently standing outside the White House, armed, demanding Barack Obama relinquish his illegal hold on the presidency?

Not to further hijack this thread, but this statement in relation to the PR issue is a complete non-sequitor. As you surely know, popular vote counts have nothing to do with electing a US president under the US Constitution. Obama receieved an absolute majority of Electorial College votes.

A popularity contest or plebescite to determine if a territory (or commonwealth in PR's situation) wants to be a state is basically meaningless. The US Congress can refuse statehood to whoever they want, regardless of popular support in the territory. Also, if Congress is going to consider the results of a plebescite, it really needs to reflect the true majority sentiment of the people. In the situation of the recent PR vote, this did not apply. 54% voted for a change and of that 54% fewer half of them preferred statehood. Anyway you slice it this is both a minority of those who voted and the population at large. PR has not officially petitioned for Stateood and with these votes, I doubt congress would grant it even it did. Finally, unlike Hawaii (whose own meaningless plebescite was also questionably worded), there is no strong sentiment by either the territorial government or the mainland US to add PR as a state. PR will never be a state.

 

[Iori]

Some conglomeration of inhabited island in the Paicifc aside from Hawai'i is the most realistic.