During the American Civil War which the South prefers to call "The War Between the States" or more recently, "The War of Northern Agression," the North was blue and the South was grey. During the tabulation of the 2000 vote most of the "grey" states became red as the media called Shrub's wins the "red" states and Gore's the "blue" states.

In the latest Republican version of the Constitution we now have (or should have) "one square mile, one vote."

Of course, the whole idea is built on a fundamental error. Voting power is based on population not on land area which means that showing a U.S. map with the states colored red or blue does not represent anything close to the reality of number of votes. Republican wags showed that Junior won more counties than Al Gore which is just as stupid as number of states.

Using a red/blue U.S. map to show election results is typical of the Republican practice of misrepresenting facts when it is to their advantage. Using their scheme, Alaska has 62 times the "power" of Vermont when the fact is they both have 3 electoral votes. (In most election maps Alaska is shown under Texas but at only 1/4 its actual area.) The NY Times Electoral Vote Map gives a true picture of election results because each (electoral) vote has the same area.

The choice of the color red over blue enhances the error by making larger areas even more prominent. The USA Today County Map for 2000 shows that Junior "won" about 80% of the land area ignoring the fact that Gore had a half million more votes and was only 2 electoral votes shy of winning when the Supreme Court voided Florida's recount and effectively appointed Junior as president.

The red vs blue distortion was resurrected for the 2004 election with the same effect of misrepresenting the actual results. Shrub got 51% of the votes but 83% of the land area. The so-called red states look dominant and the distortion leads stupid people like Shrub to claim that they have more support than they actually got from voters.

Links to Red-Blue maps:

University of Michigan - Cartograms

Princeton University - Purple America

Purple America - Another Perspective

NY Times Area and Electoral Vote Maps (registration required)

USA Today - County Map & Square Miles Won

Yahoo - Area Map and Table of Results by State