Bird Election!

Everybody knows that Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey appointed national bird of the United States, but the more majestic bald eagle won out. Of course, if you've ever seen a bald eagle up close, you might wonder about the whole "majesty" thing.

Thankfully, the bald eagle is no longer endangered-- but now there are so many of them, people in western states with large bald eagle populations consider them pests. In Alaska, you're less likely to find a parking lot full of seagulls picking at discarded french fries, and more likely to find a dozen bald eagles hanging out in the cart corral at Wal-Mart sharing a couple goose carcasses. They have a weird, high-pitched squeaky call, less a "CAW!" than a "KEE-Ee-ee-eEE-ee-eee...," like a nervous teenager stuck in perpetual puberty. Their unique brow-shape gives them the appearance of ferocity and strength, unless you catch them at a weird angle, in which case they look to be deeply concerned about the colonoscopy results you just read to them. They mate by crashing into one another mid-flight and fucking frantically as they plummet to the ground. On closer inspection, the bald eagle seems less like the proud symbol of American democracy, and more like the really handsome guy at the party who seems cool until he takes a sip of his drink and accidentally spills it down his shirt.



"I totally meant to do that."

 

So let's elect a new national bird.

In the United States, anyone can run for president, but most people don't start out their political careers with a presidential bid. You're more likely to be elected president if you've proven yourself by winning a senate seat or a state governorship. So for our Bird Election, we'll narrow our focus from all species of birds in the United States to only those birds remarkable enough to be named state birds. I'm hoping that the research I put into learning all the state birds in the U.S. comes in handy at bar trivia some time. (What's the only state whose state bird is endangered? Hawaii, with the Nene! Which state's bird is named after a different state? Utah, with the California Gull!) I made a giant map summarizing the information.

 

Behold the graphical quality of a 90's-era CD-ROM encyclopedia!

 

As you can see, several states share a common state bird. The cardinal holds the greatest number of state bird appointments, at seven states; the Western meadowlark comes in second with six. But of course, not all states have the same size voting populations. The cardinal's states are significantly more populous than the Western meadowlark's; the California quail alone could beat the voting power of all the meadowlark's states combined. If we award each bird the electoral college votes of its state or states, we wind up with a tie: the cardinal nets 90 electoral votes, as does the mockingbird. The mockingbird may only have won four states, but two of those are the populous Texas and Florida.

 

The cardinal has the support of the east coast, but can he allay middle America's fears over his ties to the Vatican?

 

But who likes the electoral college, anyway? Which one of these birds would win if we put it to a popular vote? Wolfram Alpha provides a wealth of useful information on the populations and voting habits of all 50 states. For example, even though Texas has a very large population of voting age (roughly 17,700,000), they have one of the lowest voting rates in the country (about 48.8% in the last election). So fewer than half of all eligible Texans can be expected to vote in our bird election. Wisconsin, on the other hand, has the highest voting rate in the country (70.8%), so maybe the common loon has a fighting chance.

 

The mockingbird claims to represent family values, but does anyone really believe this is just a "wide stance?"

 

By taking the approximate voting-age populations of each state and multiplying by each state's voting rate, we get the number of warm bodies each state can expect to turn up for this bird election. Assuming that everybody who casts a vote votes for their home state's bird, we can break the tie between the cardinal and the mockingbird: the mockingbird wins 21,790,232 votes and the cardinal wins 24,703,404. The cardinal wins!

 

Not that everyone would vote for their own state bird. I mean, I live in one of the cardinal's many states, but I'll throw away my vote on a write-in for the turkey vulture. It's the only bird of prey polite enough to wait for its food to die of natural causes, and its main defense against predators is projectile vomiting. Now that's a platform I can get behind!

 

Vulture-Nene 2016!