Representative Government - Third Superpower

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Representative Government

Authored by Michael Pate on June 22nd, 2003 at 3:03 PM

As a specific example, let’s take a look at Wyoming and California. In national elections each individual in the state of Wyoming has FOUR times the voting power of individuals in California. Why? You guessed it. The Electoral College. In Wyoming, each electoral vote is represented by only 164,594 people. In California, you’ll have to scoop together a massive 627,253 members of the populace to give their preferred candidate a single electoral vote. In what society could that possibly be fair? The bottom line is that the principle rationale behind the Electoral College’s creation is no longer valid. The technological and communications infrastructure in this country is multiple paradigms apart from those of two-plus centuries ago. So, although the founding fathers may have had valid reasons for instituting this pseudo-democratic method of choosing our nation’s leader, If they were alive today, they would certainly call for its abolishment. - Thomas Ball

Just for the record, the original solution was abolished.

The Senate was originally designed to represent the states, and, in fact, senators were originally selected by state legislatures. Only since passage of the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1913 have they been directly elected by their state�s constituents. Every state has two senators elected for six-year terms, with one-third of the Senate seats up for reelection every two years. In effect, then, senators are chosen by plurality vote of the electorate, with a state serving as a single-member district. - John Aldrich

Links in this entry:

Congressional Elections
Wyoming: Electoral Powerhouse

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