paul’s words

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One Person, One Vote?

“How much your vote counts should never depend on where you live.” So wrote Katrina vanden Heuvel, in “Just Democracy”, The Nation, July 21, 2008. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080721/kvh

But consider:
Each of these seven smallest-population states of the United States has three votes in the Electoral College:

State	Population*
Alaska	626,932
Delaware	783,600
Montana	902,195
North Dakota	642,200
South Dakota	754,844
Vermont	608,827
Wyoming	493,782
Total Population of seven states	4,812,330	Total Votes: 21

Each of the following five states has a larger population than that total, but each has barely half as many Electoral College votes:

State	Population	Votes
Indiana	6,080,485	11
Missouri	5,595,211	11
Tennessee	5,689,283	11
Washington	5,894,121	11
Wisconsin	5,363,675	10

Citizens of the larger-population states have a lesser voice in the Electoral College; where you live does affect how your vote counts.

And Utahns ought to have a sense of outrage, too: The three smallest-population states (Alaska, Vermont, Wyoming) have a total population of 1,729,541, with a total of nine Electoral College votes - compared to Utah’s 2,233,169 population with only five Electoral College votes. Utah sued (and lost) to get a fourth seat in the House of Representatives, which would have given Utah a total of six Electoral College votes, still not comparable to the nine votes of those three small states.

It is time to challenge and to abolish the Electoral College.

One Person, One Vote!

W. Paul Wharton

*The population numbers are from the US Bureau of the Census, as reported in the 2007 New York Times Almanac.