> Even better! > A post I wrote last October: > > The problem with the electoral college is not in the electoral > college, but in the way populations are represented in Congress. I > would think that this lack of representation on an everyday basis > would be of much greater concern. > > Just to make sure my message is clear: *The Problem Is A Lack Of Fair > Representation* > > Using Wyoming as a benchmark, where you have 1 congressperson per > (roughly) 500,000 people, 2 Senators (as always) and 3 Electoral > votes. > > Compare to California where you have 1 Congressperson per 639,088 > people, 2 Senators, and 55 Electoral votes. > That doesn't sound all that bad offhand, but if California had > representation equal to Wyomings you would get 67 Congresspersons and > 69 Electoral votes. That is a net gain of 12 Congresspersons and 14 > Electoral votes. > > This lack of representation effects at least 48 states that I can > identify. Of those states, 25 are short one representative, and 10 are > shorted by 2. Only Iowa and DC are represented in the same proportion > as Wyoming and the rest are shorted between 3 and 14 representatives. > > Law limits Congress to 435 Representatives, but if representation were > proportional there would be 549, an increase of 114 representatives. > I do not see why this number should be unwieldy or why it would cause > difficulty. > > xponent > Census Data Maru > rob
The difficulty is, when you have done the above and look at the new data, you'll find another state which is better represented than any other. I think the current system is so designed that it minimizes the difference between the actual number of Representatives (in Wyoming 1) and the deserved number (in Wyoming about 0.8), so your proposed change would probably make the situation much less desireable by your standards. I find the difference between the voters for district winners and the voters for other candidates more of a problem. The first group has 435 Representatives, the other has none. The real problem is that the most voters will either always be in the first group, or always be in the second group; relatively few change between the groups. Many in the losing group have already given up voting because of that. -- Frank Schmidt Onward, radical moderates www.egscomics.com +++ Sparen beginnt mit GMX DSL: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/dsl _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
