senate-two-thirds-mandate.sh

# Voting-Age population of each state
# From https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/01/30/2017-01890/estimates-of-the-voting-age-population-for-2016
cat > vap.tsv <<EOF
3766477	Alabama
554567	Alaska
5299579	Arizona
2283195	Arkansas
30157154	California
4279173	Colorado
2823158	Connecticut
747791	Delaware
16465727	Florida
7798827	Georgia
1120541	Hawaii
1245967	Idaho
9875430	Illinois
5057601	Indiana
2403962	Iowa
2192338	Kansas
3426345	Kentucky
3567717	Louisiana
1076765	Maine
4667719	Maryland
5433677	Massachusetts
7737243	Michigan
4231619	Minnesota
2267438	Mississippi
4706137	Missouri
814909	Montana
1433791	Nebraska
2262631	Nevada
1074207	New Hampshire
6959717	New Jersey
1590352	New Mexico
15564730	New York
7848068	North Carolina
581641	North Dakota
9002201	Ohio
2961933	Oklahoma
3224738	Oregon
10109422	Pennsylvania
848045	Rhode Island
3863498	South Carolina
652167	South Dakota
5149399	Tennessee
20568009	Texas
2129444	Utah
506066	Vermont
6541685	Virginia
5658502	Washington
1456034	West Virginia
4491015	Wisconsin
446600	Wyoming
EOF
# Minimum number of voters to get 34 senators = (17 senators * 2 senators / state)
# This is enough to prevent a 2/3 majority, which requires 67 senators
## 18471225
cat vap.tsv |sort -rnk1|tail -n 17|awk '{s+=$1} END {print s}'
# Total voting-age population (in states that have senators)
## 248924951
cat vap.tsv |awk '{s+=$1} END {print s}'
# Percentage of votes that could be cast in favor of an opposition party without allowing a 2/3 majority
## 92.58000
bc <<< "scale=5; (1 - (18471225 / 248924951)) * 100"