Generic Balkanised USA map and Electoral college questions

Luath

Luath

Balkanised USA..png


Michigan is grey due to being annexed by Canada so as Alaska, Hawaii is part of the broader British Empire.

Hello all, this cliched to hell map is part of a little scenario that I've been working on, mentally, for some time. You can probably guess were I got the idea for this from, as if the big green blob to the left of the screen wasn't enough of a give away. But enough about Kaiserreich. My question to you is how would the electoral collage work in this scenario.

For example if take the, totally original, Republic of New England, the seven states give us 76 total electoral votes and I am using current vote totals, 39 to win;

Connecticut: 7
Maine: 4
Massachusetts: 11
New Jersey: 14
New Hampshire: 4
New York: 29
Rhode Island: 4
Vermont: 3

Needless to say New York would dominate everywhere else in New England due to weight of population anyway, but its worth noting that if you win in New York you have effectively won the election, at that point you only need either Massachusetts or New Jersey to seal the deal and both are so culturally close to New York that it wouldn't require much work to win both. So in my ignorance I come to you to ask how could this be improved?

What are your thoughts?
 
Gryphon

Gryphon

If you're wedded to the idea of the electoral college, the obvious solution is to simply increase the inequality of population vs representation- increase the number of senators per state and/or decrease the number of representatives so small states are more overrepresented relative to large ones. If, say, each state has six senators instead of two, the numbers are

11
8
15
18
8
33
8
7

with 108 total and 55 to win- now you require at least two states in addition to New York to achieve victory- not impossible, of course, but more difficult.

Alternatively or additionally, you could impose additional victory conditions, e.g. requiring a victor have 2/3 of the electoral college, or the majority of states, or the majority in the popular vote, etc in addition to or instead of an electoral college victory, without which the election is hung and must go to the *House.

It might also be worth considering, for some of the new nations, that they might be dominated by one party on the *presidential level for long stretches, so that the details of the electoral college are relatively marginal and irrelevant for all but a handful of transitional elections.
 
Luath

Luath

Gryphon said:
If you're wedded to the idea of the electoral college, the obvious solution is to simply increase the inequality of population vs representation- increase the number of senators per state and/or decrease the number of representatives so small states are more overrepresented relative to large ones. If, say, each state has six senators instead of two, the numbers are

11
8
15
18
8
33
8
7

with 108 total and 55 to win- now you require at least two states in addition to New York to achieve victory- not impossible, of course, but more difficult.

Alternatively or additionally, you could impose additional victory conditions, e.g. requiring a victor have 2/3 of the electoral college, or the majority of states, or the majority in the popular vote, etc in addition to or instead of an electoral college victory, without which the election is hung and must go to the *House.

It might also be worth considering, for some of the new nations, that they might be dominated by one party on the *presidential level for long stretches, so that the details of the electoral college are relatively marginal and irrelevant for all but a handful of transitional elections.
Click to expand...


All good points, do you have an exact calculation for how many electoral votes should be added per Senator?
 
Gryphon

Gryphon

Luath said:
All good points, do you have an exact calculation for how many electoral votes should be added per Senator?
Click to expand...
One per.

The electoral vote per state is defined as the number of that state's senators plus the number of that state's representatives.
 

Analytical Engine

You could make New York have multiple EV districts, a variation of the Maine/Nebraska system.

Alternatively, you could go down the Decades of Darkness route, and split New York into several states (three in that TL).
 
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