Why California Democrats Should Move to Wyoming to Defeat the Electoral College
We all know the system is unfair, but only one political party leverages the advantage
This article was originally published on Medium in 2020! That’s why I refer to some old elections. If the Democrats had listened to me, this might have been put in place already.
Everybody knows that the United States electoral college dilutes the value of votes in urban areas and elevates the value of votes in rural areas. Recently there has been a push to remove the electoral college, but that will be time consuming and it won’t completely solve the problem anyway.
An equivalent problem is the fact that every state, regardless of population, has the same number of senators. As can be seen by the recent lack of action on impeachment, Democrats always seem to be a few senators short of the required number to get anything done.
It seems to me that the Democratic party needs to stop hand-wringing about the Senate and electoral college and at least launch a viable strategy. In an age where remote working opportunities have become more viable, Wyoming represents a real opportunity for the Democratic party to secure 2 more Senate seats.
The population of Wyoming
At under 580,000 people, Wyoming is the least populous state. In contrast, California has a population of just under 40 million. Although Wyoming only has 3 electoral votes to California’s 55, they both have 2 senators. The result is that a senator from California represents the wishes of 20 million people, while a senator from Wyoming represents 290,000, yet both of those senator’s votes counts the same.
It’s patently unfair.
There is a very strong political machinery that has been put in place to prevent any change to this unjust system. In fact, any money spent in an attempt to undo the electoral college is essentially wasted because the problem of the Senate remains.
But why fight the problem? Instead, why not launch a strategy to make it work in the favor of Democrats?
Wyoming elections
The last election for the Senate in Wyoming took place in 2018 when Republican nominee John Barrasso defeated Democratic nominee Gary Trauner. The final tally was 136,210 votes for Barrasso to 61,227 for Trauner.
Although this breaks down to a 67% win for Barrasso, it’s important to recognize that the total number of votes was actually quite low. The difference was just a little under 75,000 votes.
Therefore, all Democrats have to do in order to secure 3 more electoral college votes and 2 seats in the Senate is get around 100,000 registered Democrats to move to Wyoming.
It’s easier than it sounds
It turns out that Wyoming is one of those states that does everything it can to encourage people to take up residency there.
Like Florida, Wyoming is kind of a tax shelter state. In an era of remote work, this distinction can be hugely beneficial.
Requirements for Residency
Keep in mind that if the Old West still exists in the United States, it’s located in Wyoming. Democrats who live in large cities would probably be stunned by the lack of paperwork and bureaucracy that exists there.
Real estate agencies for places like Jackson Hole even use Wyoming’s lax residency requirements as part of their advertising.
To avoid legal difficulties, it is always good practice to spend more time in your state of residency than any other state, but that amounts to only 183 days.
For starters, move the Democratic headquarters to Wyoming
Running a political party takes a lot of people, but there’s no reason for all of those people to live in Washington DC. Perhaps it’s time to re-imagine the structuring of the whole organization.
There is a lot of money in politics. How difficult can it really be to get 100,000 people to move to a tax shelter state like Wyoming? Additionally, most people who live in places like New York or Washington DC will be stunned at how inexpensive life can be in Wyoming. If you spend 183 days a year in Wyoming, you could probably spend the other 182 days in five star hotels and still come out ahead.
Get big money donors involved
Let’s face it, politics in the US is run by a handful of billionaires who pull the strings on all the politicians. Billionaires start up industries that employ hundreds of thousands of people all the time. How hard would it be to sit down with one of those guys and have him look into moving some major business to Wyoming?
If you start using words like “tax shelter” billionaires’ ears perk up. The behavior is similar to how your dog reacts when you start opening a can of dog food. Believe me, if there is a large scale, organized effort to move 100,000 democratic voters to Wyoming, it will be easy to get billionaires to buy-in.
Politicians move for elections, why shouldn’t voters?
Mitt Romney is currently serving as a senator from Utah. He saw an opening in the Senate, moved to Utah, and won the seat. Hillary Clinton did the same thing when she won a Senate seat representing New York despite the fact that she had never lived there until she ran for office.
There is nothing illegal about moving to Wyoming to make your vote count for more, it’s just complex to move 100,000 people so that the effort might actually succeed. The only trick is doing your research to ensure you are in compliance with local regulations so you don’t get into any legal trouble. But all indications are that Wyoming isn’t likely to give you any problems.
Single addresses are commonly used for tax shelters
Another reason to pitch this idea to billionaires is that they are very good at using the loopholes in the law for their own gain anyway. It could be possible to establish residency for 100,000 democratic voters in Wyoming without them actually having to live there.
The precedent would come from the fact that many corporations establish tax shelters in places like the Cayman islands without a physical presence. One address is known to be home to 19,000 corporations.
Billionaires will not allow the government to shut down the tax loopholes that allow them to establish residency without any physical presence in an area. Wyoming’s lax residency laws are basically begging for this.
How much different is Wyoming from Texas really?
In the 2020 Texas primaries, there were almost 2.1 million total votes for democratic candidates. There were almost 4 million votes cast in Texas for Hillary Clinton. It’s unlikely that Democrats are ever going to win Texas.
It’s not like the Democratic party has no means of reaching democratic voters. Why not send out an exploratory email and see how many people might be interested in the concept of moving to Wyoming?
Hillary Clinton got almost 66 million total votes, almost 3 million more than her opponent. 100,000 people represents 0.15% of all the democrats who voted in the last election. Rather than have those votes go straight to the trash, why don’t we set a plan in motion to maximize their value?
Operation Wyoming could change everything
Corporations move businesses to new frontiers for tax reasons all the time. Why not break new ground for a political advantage? It’s a large project, but the Democratic party has the funds, connections, and manpower to pull this off.
Rather than complain about how unfair the United States political system is, why don’t we work within the rules and turn the disadvantage to our benefit? If you’re a democratic voter and you’re tired of having your vote count for nothing, establish residency in Wyoming. 3 electoral votes doesn’t mean much, but 2 Senators is a big prize.
Think big to win big
If a political party claims to be organized enough to run a country of 330 million people, they should have no problem figuring out how to move 100,000 individuals to Wyoming.
It goes without saying that other incentives could be created to get registered democrats to move from red states to swing states. Why aren’t we talking about this?
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I like the out of box thinking .. I agree, DNC get this started as one of your programs ..
Wyoming is known as "the Equality State" because it was the first to grant women the right to vote (and also to have a female governor). That still means something even if the state is now hard right territory...