Do you know what came to my mind while reading this stirring article? It was not what you might think. What came to my mind was that county by county voting map on page 19 of the November 9, 2000 USA Today newspaper.
If you don’t recall the map, it was a map of the United States with boundary lines for each county of each state. The background was white, the counties that voted for Bush were red, and the counties that voted for Gore were blue.
Of the 3,111 counties that make up the United States, 2,434 of them were red and 677 were blue. The population of the 2,434 red counties is approximately 143,000,000; the population of the 677 blue counties is approximately 127,000,000. The total amount of the United States surface area of the red counties is 2,437,039 square miles; the total amount of the United States surface area of the blue counties is 580,134 square miles.
Only 143 of that total of 3,111 counties is required to win the popular vote because there are 143 counties that represent one-half of the total population of the United States. The remaining 2,968 counties represent the other half of the total population of the United States.
That is why it occurred to me; wouldn’t it be a shame if the voters in North Platte, Nebraska and all the other small communities across this land could not be heard above the voters in the 143 counties who would decide for the entire nation.
David