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ONE PERSON,
ONE VOTE
The Battle for Equality of the Individual at the
Election Polls
Class structures among
humans occurred somewhere before history recorded the nature of our
society. Since that time the effort - the fight - the struggle -
has been to make society essentially equal for every person. Much
of that struggle is relatively recent, and much of it has not happened
yet. This section of the Presidential-Appointments.org site is
about equality in voting, in the polling place, in the individual's
attempt to achieve influence in government equal to all others through
the secret vote.
Updated
Sunday, May 27, 2007 02:44 PM
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Apportionment
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Apportionment
Defined
History-
One Person, One Vote
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Blog
Comment - One Person One Vote
Your discussion
about the "One Person, One Vote" did not get installed into
the complex United States legislative system until after World War II.
None of the various legislative bodies were able to bring this
distribution of power into law. Through an initial series of lawsuits in
the US state of Missouri,the population in the federal Representative
districts in that state were ordered to be redrawn to hold approximately
the same population. Shortly after, the state legislative districts and
the state Senatorial districts were "reapportioned" under the
same general rules in that state.
Within a few years, particularly at the time of the US Census in 1960,
the principle was generally applied across the United States. It was a
brutal, mean, huge fight, but eventually was generally accepted. Now
countries across the world understand the principle and modernist
political forces try to apply the idea to their elective situations.
All of the problems outlined in the original blog have been problems
everywhere. Obviously, the areas with the best representation don't want
to give it up. In the US we spend at least two years after each 10 year
census fighting it out again. This issue is important in the current
immigration fight because if they become legal under any format at all,
they will dramatically tilt the nature of legislative representation all
across the United States.
There are few areas in government where elected politicians act worse
than in representation issues. I have personally fought it out for five
of the decennial census years, and we are headed into it again in 2010.
Overall, it has been a miserable, mean and expensive fight. It has been
worth every bit of it.
The representation fight always finds its leadership among the people,
not along the politicians. But there is a huge amount of experience out
here to help you and tell you what we know about it.
We are expanding Presidential-Appointments.org to include information
about representation issues because they directly impact the sorts of
people end up being available for public service.
Your comments are important and the fight is a good one, directly
against those forces of unfairness, even tyranny which democracies are
constantly facing.
John Isaacson, Director@Presidential-Appointments.org
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