More Ukraine Results

I found the election results straight from the horse's mouth.

Results for Viktor Yanukovich

Results for Viktor Yushchenko

Basically, what these results mean is that for example, if you click on the Yanukovich result, you see that he got 96% of the vote in the Donetsk region. 96% of the vote. John Kerry only got 90% of the vote in DC. I was totally wrong about the Ukraine being totally divided. If these results aren't the end-product of election shenanigans, then there should definitely be talk of secession and civil war. I don't know if there's any sites I could pull historical US election data from, but I doubt if the US ever had any region/state that had 96% of the votes go to one candidate over another. And no, Reconstruction doesn't count since Democrats were all but banned from running down there. And no, uncontested seats in gerrymandered districts don't count either. I'm talking about national elections in the US. I'm really beginning to think there will be some kind of bloodshed if the country is really that divided.

One thing that this does do is that it puts US elections in perspective. Talking heads liked to say that the election showed how divided the country was, but in reality, it's not like New York went to Kerry for 90% of the vote while Texas went to Bush for 94%, like what happened in Ukraine. If that happens... then there are some serious issues that would need to be resolved. But that's the beauty of federalism. You need to propose national candidates on national parties in order to win. If we were to switch to say... abandoning the Electoral College and elect the President on a straight popular vote count, then candidates would focus their energies on regions or population blocks, which would be much more divisive than trying to run a national campaign and then focusing on "swing states".