The press and liberal advocates are quick to come to the defense of equality in the right to vote - that is when they perceive it benefits the left. Otherwise, to them its not newsworthy.
Several years ago there were numerous news stories about the need in our country to have each citizen have an equal right to vote and have their vote count equally. Court decisions were made and laws were past. Complacency set in as the public came to believe that this was a fundamental right that was being universally enforced.
The reality is far different. One person’s vote may actually be the equivalent of two or more votes in another district.
Historically, our U.S. House of Representatives was not elected on the principal of “one man one vote.” Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution states: “Representative...shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included in this Union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound in service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons.”
This constitutional provision resulted in congressional districts being apportioned counting not only the men entitled to vote, but those not entitled to vote, women, aliens and children. Slaves were counted as 3/5ths. of a person. Thus, if a man lived in a district populated by large numbers of people not entitled to vote, he in essence could vote for them. Voters had greater representation if they lived in districts with disproportionately large numbers of non-citizens, slaves, women and children.
Section 1 of the XIV Amendment to the Constitution extended citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States. Section 2 provided, “Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of person in each state, excluding Indians not taxed.”
The XV Amendment prevented the abridgement of voting rights of citizens based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude. These changes in the constitution resulted in former slaves counted as a whole person in the census for determining legislative districts. Black people who were born in the United States were now entitled to vote.
The XIX Amendment extended voting rights to women and the XXVI Amendment lowered the voting age to eighteen.
Over the years several civil rights laws were passed to make voting easier and to prevent interference with voting rights.
However, no Constitutional correction was made to protect the relative value of a citizens right to vote. Today, a congressional district is determined by its sheer number of people. We not only count children, we include felons who are prohibited from voting and aliens, legal or otherwise.
If you live in a congressional district with a population where two thirds of the people are non-citizens your congressional vote is three times more powerful than if you live in a district without non-citizens. This is because the size of your district will be substantially reduced as a result of its number of people.
Understanding this type of count helps explain complaints that people were missed in a census. Every illegal person or bum found for a census may increase the voting power of the district. It also crates a motivation among some politicians to discourage laws that might restrict illegal immigration. We recognize that urban districts are more liberal and more likely to be under the control of Democrats. Like Roman politicians appealing to the mob force, Democrats are dependent on the influx of illegal aliens in urban districts to insure more Democrat control.
We need to change the law so that our votes will be of equal weight. It’s time that we consider a constitutional amendment that would have legislative districts drawn up based on the number of eligible voters. If we really support equality of voting rights, census takers should be required to distinguish between those entitled to vote and those without that right.
Perhaps we should consider taking the reform a step further. Legislative districts could be drawn up based on the number of registered voters rather than sheer numbers of people. This would make the count easier and would insure that each registered voter had equal voting power regardless of the district’s population.
L. Rob Werner
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