The results of the 2024
elections continue to generate lots of important news stories, but one that has
not gotten any headlines thus far really ought to be glaring at us from above
the fold: the ridiculous disparities in
political power between urban and rural counties (parishes for those in
Louisiana).
The attention of most people has
understandably been focused primarily on the federal presidential race, so we
will begin our analysis of the power disparities there.
Donald Trump won both Texas
and Wisconsin – the first by a fairly wide margin of the popular vote and the
second by a very narrow margin. But if
we look more closely, Trump’s victory was a great deal larger than it appears
in both States (all data below comes from NBC News’s 2024
election pages).
In Texas, he won with 56.2%
to Kamala Harris’s 42.4% of the popular vote.
Yet Harris won only 12 counties to Trump’s 242 – an astounding
difference that is not reflected at all in the popular vote. Trump’s victory in the county totals comes to
95.3% to Harris’s 4.7%. Such differences
should be taken into account in State-wide elections (we will enlarge upon that
below).
In Wisconsin, Trump squeaked
by Harris in the popular vote, 49.6% vs 48.8%.
But he trounced her in the county vote, winning 59 to Harris’s 13,
making Trump’s county victory in this State 81.9% with Harris taking only
18.1%.
Similarly wide gaps show up
in the presidential contest in other States, too – Michigan, Minnesota,
Georgia, Oregon, etc.
And this chasm between
popular vote totals and county vote totals becomes even more absurd in other
State-level elections.
There were a number of ballot
initiatives in the States to be decided on November 5th. Those dealing with abortion received the most
attention. Because of that, we will
limit our analysis of them to the abortion ballot measures.
In Montana, the pro-abortion
initiative won with 57.3% of the popular vote to 42.7%, a solid majority. But the initiative actually failed to win
approval in a majority of counties: Only
24 voted in favor, with 32 voting against, making a roughly equal percentage of
counties against: 57.1%.
In Missouri things begin to
look even more ludicrous. A ‘right to
abortion’ amendment passed with 51.7% of the votes in favor to 48.3%
against. But get this folks – only 10
counties out of 114 voted in favor of this amendment to enshrine a right to rip
apart babies in the womb. Thus an
abysmally small 8.8% of counties decided the outcome on this terribly important
issue.
But Nebraska, if one can
believe it, is worse than Missouri. The
outcome is positive – a pro-life stance prevailed in both ballot measures
(glory to God!) – but the influence of just a few counties was almost enough to
change that. The right to abortion
initiative failed, 51.2% of the popular vote against and 48.8% for. But only 4 counties voted in favor of this
initiative vs 89 against, and this nearly brought a win; that is, only 4.3% of
counties nearly made abortion an uncontestable right in Nebraska. Likewise with the amendment to limit
abortions to within the first trimester:
It won, 55.3% to 44.7% (popular vote).
In this contest, only 2 counties voted against vs 91 for, which means
that an outlandishly tiny 2.1% of the counties put this measure within reach of
defeat.
South Dakota, Nevada, New
York, and Florida also had striking urban-rural splits on abortion measures.
The old federal provision
that counted each slave as 3/5 of a free voter evoked loud howls of protest and
outrage in the past. Yet some of the
rural counties that we looked at above haven’t even got that much voting power
when contrasted with their urban counterparts.
In the last ballot measure of Nebraska that was discussed, each of the 91
rural counties had only 0.14/5 of the voting power as each of the two urban
counties, a ratio that is much worse than that of the slaves. That is quite a heavy punishment to bear for
simply living in the peaceful fields and hollers of the countryside.
With all this mind, it is
imperative that two things be done to protect rural counties, the bulwarks of
conservative habits and beliefs, from being made totally subservient to their
urban counterparts. . . .
The rest may be read here:
Or here:
--
Holy
Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!
Anathema
to the Union!
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