Is it illogical to vote? Here's the problem that I have.
All votes are not considered equal. Yes, you read that right.
The problem lies with that fact that presidents are not chosen by simply tabulating all the votes and awarding the election to the person that receives the most votes. Instead, they are chosen by adding up the number of state delegates that his party wins. This is where the problem lies.
In order for your vote to be considered equal to the next person's vote, you'd have to live in a state that has a voting population demographically equal to the country's as a whole. Ie. If 50% of the country votes Republican, 40% votes Democrat and 10% votes Independent, then your own district needs to vote the same way, otherwise you're not being treated equally.
The problem is amplified during local elections, where the sample size of voters is smaller, and the local demographics are more likely to be different than the national demographics..
Here's the problem: Let's say you are a Republican and live in an overwhelmingly Democratic state such as New York. Let's say, for argument's sake, that Republicans are 20% of voters and Democrats are 80%. Your vote has a low chance of affecting the choice of President, because it has to overcome a larger block of resistance in your state than would be considered fair (a fair block of resistance would mean the size of the Democratic vote in NY would equal the size of the Democratic vote in the nation) .
The vote would be drowned out by the Democratic votes that are disproportionately concentrated in NY state. It will never be fairly counted towards the presidential vote because the presidential vote isn't a popular vote-it results from the addition of delegates from each statewide vote. So, you can have a president that receives 55% of the popular vote yet receives the vote in 80% of the states.
Is that fair? Of course not. This idea has been pointed out by others.
What I HAVEN'T seen pointed out, however, is the reality that in effect, this means that individual voters in districts unrepresentative of the nation are in effect treated UNequally.
Kind of like someone who's told "sure, you can go vote, but your vote will only be counted as 2/5 of the next person's vote".
There's been so much said and done about ending discrimination related to race and gender, yet somehow society does nothing about ending discrimination related to voting. Society doesn't just do nothing; they don't even talk about it; they don't seem to even realize it.
All votes are not considered equal. Yes, you read that right.
The problem lies with that fact that presidents are not chosen by simply tabulating all the votes and awarding the election to the person that receives the most votes. Instead, they are chosen by adding up the number of state delegates that his party wins. This is where the problem lies.
In order for your vote to be considered equal to the next person's vote, you'd have to live in a state that has a voting population demographically equal to the country's as a whole. Ie. If 50% of the country votes Republican, 40% votes Democrat and 10% votes Independent, then your own district needs to vote the same way, otherwise you're not being treated equally.
The problem is amplified during local elections, where the sample size of voters is smaller, and the local demographics are more likely to be different than the national demographics..
Here's the problem: Let's say you are a Republican and live in an overwhelmingly Democratic state such as New York. Let's say, for argument's sake, that Republicans are 20% of voters and Democrats are 80%. Your vote has a low chance of affecting the choice of President, because it has to overcome a larger block of resistance in your state than would be considered fair (a fair block of resistance would mean the size of the Democratic vote in NY would equal the size of the Democratic vote in the nation) .
The vote would be drowned out by the Democratic votes that are disproportionately concentrated in NY state. It will never be fairly counted towards the presidential vote because the presidential vote isn't a popular vote-it results from the addition of delegates from each statewide vote. So, you can have a president that receives 55% of the popular vote yet receives the vote in 80% of the states.
Is that fair? Of course not. This idea has been pointed out by others.
What I HAVEN'T seen pointed out, however, is the reality that in effect, this means that individual voters in districts unrepresentative of the nation are in effect treated UNequally.
Kind of like someone who's told "sure, you can go vote, but your vote will only be counted as 2/5 of the next person's vote".
There's been so much said and done about ending discrimination related to race and gender, yet somehow society does nothing about ending discrimination related to voting. Society doesn't just do nothing; they don't even talk about it; they don't seem to even realize it.
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