A couple of very light pieces for you today. ..these should have run Monday, but you know how I am.

                First, the concept of "Battleground" states is, in essence, that there are a limited set of states which are the keys to victory in a Presidential contest.     Wouldn’t it be neat, I thought, if there were a set of "key" states which also happened to spell out "Battleground"?

                There is no state that starts with the letter "B", so we’re off to a bad start already, but I substituted "P" for "B". . .what are called plosives.    Then, since the Battleground states are something about which the Talking Heads like to prattle. ..well, how about the Prattleground states?

                There is no state that starts with an "E", either, but an "F" is just an "E" with a broken leg, so Florida will work.   There is only one state that starts with an "R", Rhode Island, so we’ll have to make a third substitution there.   OK, so it doesn’t spell "Prattleground" it actually spells "Prattlfgwound", but you get the point.   The Prattleground States are

            P ennsylvania

            R hode Island

            A rizona

            T exas

            T ennessee

            L ouisiana

            F lorida

            G eorgia

            W isconsin

            O hio

            U tah

            N ew Jersey

            D elaware

                As it happens, the candidate who has won the Prattleground States has won Presidency in every election since 1888—31 elections in a row.    The Prattleground States matched the overall vote in most of the elections before 1888, too, but let’s not get greedy.

                In 1888, for example, Benjamin Harrison (Republican) ran against Grover Cleveland (Alexander).    Pennsylvania had 30 electoral votes, which went for Harrison, and Rhode Island also went for Harrison, so Harrison is up 34-0 in the Prattleground Poll.    Arizona wasn’t a state in 1888, although Joseph Arpaio was already harassing the interlopers, but anyway, since they weren’t a state nobody cares what they thought.    Texas had only 13 electoral votes then, but they went for Cleveland (34-13), and Tennessee also went for the Democrat.   They had 12 electors, so that makes it 34-25.   

                The South voted Democrat in them days, so Louisiana (8 electors), Florida (4 electors) and Georgia (12 electors) all went for Cleveland, putting Cleveland ahead 49-34.    Harrison rallied in Wisconsin, however (11 electors), making it 49-45, and Ohio gave its 23 votes to Harrison, putting Harrison ahead 68-49.   Utah voters weren’t in a state, unless you consider "polygamy" a state, so they don’t count.    New Jersey, with 9 electors, went for Cleveland, making it 68-58, and Delaware went for Cleveland, but Delaware had only 3 electors, so Harrison won the Prattleground States by a thin 68-61 margin. 

                And he won the election.    Since 1888 it always works; I’ll do a couple more for illustration.   In 1916 the battle was between Woodrow Wilson and Charles Evans Hughes:

                Erwin Griswold said about Charles Evans Hughes that "He looked more like God than any man I ever knew."    Hughes was a tall, distinguished-looking man with a deep, resonant voice who spoke in Bob Costas-like polished sentences, seemingly thinking aloud in finished thoughts.   He had a fantastic career; he was on the Supreme Court, resigned from the High Court to run from the Presidency—because he was asked to—lost the race, was re-nominated for the Court, and returned to the Supreme Court as the Chief Justice.  

                Anyway, the 2000 race:

                It always works. . .since 1888 it has always worked.  Of course, since I am publishing this in 2012, it probably won’t work in 2012, due to Murphy’s Law or some variation thereof.    Each of these states individually usually goes "with" the nation, as I would suppose almost all states do.   Among the Prattleground States Ohio has the best record of accompanying the nation in these 31 elections, 28-3, followed by New Jersey and Delaware (25-6), Arizona (20-5), Wisconsin (24-7), Utah (22-7), Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Tennessee (23-8), Florida (22-9), Texas (20-11), Louisiana (19-12), and Georgia (16-15).

The 50 Districts Solution

                Suppose that the United States was divided into 50 Districts. . .

                Which, of course, it is, but set that aside.   I’m not talking about the 50 states right now, but about an alternative universe in which electoral practices could be re-configured so that they make sense.   Suppose that each of the 50 Districts was divided into 50 Regions, each Region into 50 Wards, and each Ward into 50 Precincts.   

                We don’t have to call them Districts, Regions, Wards and Precincts if you don’t want to; we could call them States, Counties, Municipalities and Locales, or we could call them Divisions, Battalions, Regiments and Companies, or we can call them whatever you want to call them.   Let’s use Districts, Regions, Wards and Precincts.

                The problem of low voter participation is, in a sense, very much like the problem of NBA players just going through the motions for significant portions of the season.   The real problem with the NBA is that the games are too long and the season is too long, which grinds all of the random chance out of the sport, which causes the best team to win too often.   Since the best team wins too often, one can look ahead in early November and figure out with about 85% accuracy which teams will make the playoffs, and which teams will be the last four standing.   Since we actually know who will win, more or less, what happens at any particular moment in the schedule doesn’t really make very much difference—and there is simply no way to hide this.    What happens in the third quarter of a Sacramento-Portland game doesn’t actually make any difference, and, because it doesn’t make any difference, the players don’t play with much energy.   You can exhort them about the importance of the game all you want to, but in the end, it doesn’t matter and everybody knows it.

                The problem of low voter participation is a similar one.    People don’t vote because they believe that their vote doesn’t matter, and they believe this because it’s true.   I voted this morning; I know damned well that the odds against my vote changing anything are a billion to one.   Everybody else knows this as well.   You can run all the public service advertisements talking about the importance of voting that you want to, and it doesn’t make any difference because it doesn’t fundamentally change the fact that the individual vote has close to zero impact on the race. 

                A great number of votes in a common pool crushes each vote and diminishes the importance of each vote in the same way that a great many baskets in an NBA season crushes and diminishes the importance of each basket.    Let us call this the NBA problem.

                This is one of two problems that my 50-district solution is meant to address, the other one being the inequality of the vote from state to state.    I’m in Kansas; my vote doesn’t matter because everybody knows that Kansas will vote for Romney regardless of what I do.   If I was in Colorado, now, or Ohio or Florida or Virginia, then the candidates would care much more about my vote because those states are up for grabs.   They are what are called "Battleground" states.   

                If you eliminate the Electoral College, that will simply make the NBA problem worse.   If you eliminated the Electoral College, I guarantee you that voter participation rates would go down further, because everybody would know that it was immensely improbable that their vote would change anything.  

                Let us assume for the sake of argument that it is a bad thing that some voters’ support is more eagerly sought than others, and let us assume for the sake of argument that it is a bad thing that people feel that their vote does not count.   Here’s how you can approach the problem.

                First, divide the nation into 50 Districts, each District into 50 Regions, each Region into 50 Wards, and each Ward into 50 Precincts.   There will be 50 Districts, 2,500 Regions, 125,000 Wards and 6.25 Million Precincts.    If you had 312.5 million people voting—about the population of the United States--then there would be 50 voters in each Precinct. 

                Of course, we have 312.5 million people, not 312.5 legal voters, but that’s a practical problem.   I’m not worried about practical problems, because there is zero chance that might proposal is going to be adopted next week anyway.   What counts here is the idea, not the details.   We’ll worry about the details when my proposal is actually adopted, in 2178.  

                Second, after we divide the Nation into 6.25 million precincts, we assign each voter to a Precinct based on geography, but not TOO closely based on geography.    I might be assigned to a Precinct with a man who lives in the next block, 1000 feet from me, while my neighbor who lives 40 feet away from me might be assigned to a different Precinct entirely.   Trying to follow the geography too closely there will just cause problems.  

                Third, we combine 50 precincts to form a Ward, totally ignoring geography.   My Precinct here in Kansas might be combined with Nate Silver’s Precinct in New York City, Steven King’s Precinct in Maine, Michael Lewis’ Precinct in California, Joe Posnanski’s Precinct in North Carolina and Rob Neyer’s Precinct in Oregon.   Each Precinct has one vote in the Ward—or, if it is a tie, one-half of a vote each way (and, in this structure, tens of thousands of Precincts would actually have tied votes.)     

                Then, of course, 50 Wards are added together randomly to make Regions, and 50 Regions to make Districts.

                Now, does your vote count?

                It might.   You’re in a Precinct with 50 voters, not all of whom will vote.   It is entirely reasonable to think that the outcome of your Precinct will be different if you don’t vote than if you do.    If the outcome of your Precinct changes, it is entirely reasonable to think that that might change the outcome for the Ward—and, since you don’t really KNOW who all will be in the Ward with you, you have no reason to believe anything other than that the Ward is a tossup.  

                The question I am trying to pose is, are we really doing anything here?    Is the "meaning" of an individual vote actually any different in this scenario than in the real world, or are we just trying to fool people into voting by offering them the opportunity to "tip" their Precinct, and possibly their Ward?  

                I actually don’t know the answer to that question, with any confidence.   I believe, however, that the answer is that we are in fact doing something real, that in this scenario the individual vote does in fact matter much more. 

                An argument can certainly be made to the contrary.   If you have 300,000,000 voters, the odds of any one vote deciding the election are enormous.    If you put a sharpened pencil on a slate surface, it is possible that the pencil will balance on its point—but the odds against it are millions to one.   A single vote is like the sharpened point of the pencil.   It is enormously unlikely that any one vote represents the balance point of the country—no matter how you count the votes.  

                That argument could be true, but I believe that it isn’t.   Think of it this way.   Given the closeness of American elections, is it likely that the vote of the Districts will be something very close to 25-25?    Of course it is.   Probably I should have used 49 regions so the damned thing doesn’t end up in a tie, but again, that’s a practical issue, and this is a thought exercise, not a practical proposal.

                It is likely that the Districts will be nearly evenly split, therefore it is likely that, had one District voted differently, the outcome of the election would have been different—not one District merely, but any of the 26 Districts which was on the winning side.   We could call these "critical districts", because the outcome of those votes is critical to the outcome of the election.    

                Within those 26 Districts, there will be SOME in which the Regions were almost evenly split.    Some of those 26 Districts will themselves have been decided by 26-24 votes among the Regions.   Therefore, there will be Regions which controlled the outcomes of their Districts, and there will be more critical regions than critical districts.  By the same logic, there will be more critical wards than critical regions, more critical precincts than critical wards, and more critical voters than critical precincts.   Each and every voter who votes the "right" way in a critical precinct is a critical voter; each and every precinct on the winning side of a critical ward is a critical precinct, etc.—therefore, the numbers of critical units increase as you work your way toward the individual voter.

                Thus—at least it seems to me—the likely reality of such a system is that there will in fact be a good many voters across the nation, probably thousands of voters and perhaps millions, who do in fact decide the election.   There could be hundreds of people in the United States, after such an election, who can quite honestly say that their vote decided the election, that had they voted the other way then the outcome of the national election would have been different than it was.   Not sure that is the right answer, but. . .it seems right to me.