America's most partisan voters hold the most voting power
npr.org
npr.org
Something about this framing seems to undersell the efforts and influence of the other 95% of voters.
If a soccer match were tied 6-6 and a last minute winner made it 6-7, the final goal scorer may be celebrated as the hero, but in truth the victory was won on the back of six other goals too.
It's like one of those kid steering wheels that lets the little tike pretend he's driving.
The "candidates" are preselected by powers unseen behind the curtain in smoke filled rooms, and the "choices" you are presented with are not actual choices at all.
Also the majority of Americans do vote.
But items like vote roll purges, not having voting day be a holiday, anti-mail in ballot efforts, general lack of civic education over the years and in the msm have had a much larger effect than simple “indifference “.
If you want to make a soccer analogy, it's like you get to pick the players on both teams. Surprise, the outcome is pretty much known in advance.
I've always liked this. In the USA, the voter doesn't pick their politician. It's the other way around, the politician picks their voters
1. Which reforms are contradictory?
2. I’m not convinced of term/age limits, but I believe I've heard all these reforms proposed at least by the US left - which of the reforms have you not heard proposed by the left?Expanding Congress probably isn't a great idea though. To get enough power as person in Congress to do anything takes a decade or more, your idea just makes it worse. As for getting rid of the EC, think of it as districts you can't Gerrymander. It also ensures those that grow our food get a voice. And since most of the people in cities can't keep a house plant alive yet somehow want to decide how a farm works, that's a good idea not to empower the lunacy of the mob.
Term limits are good. Age limits I would support but its almost certainly unconstitutional.
It is simply an accident of history that Wyoming, a state with less people than San Francisco (not even the Bay Area’s biggest city) has just as many senators as the entire state of California.
That is understanding the matter far too much. Without the compromise of the bicameral legislature, the country never would have existed. That is not simply an accident of history; that is a foundational part of the social contract which forms this nation.
* Better representation - Originally 35K constituents/congressperson. Now 770K!
* More congresspeople (and therefore districts) also goes a long way to fix gerrymandering by itself.
* Counterbalances the recent shift toward supreme/imperial President.
* Would largely fix the distortions of the electoral college.
* Smaller campaigns and therefore less prone to monetary influence.
> Age limits I would support but its almost certainly unconstitutional.
We already have age limits: 18 to vote. 35 to be President.
We absolutely do not need that. Reform perhaps, but not elimination. The country is full of many different people with differing needs, and a president should have an incentive to balance those needs. The country would be a much worse place if the top N cities got to impose their will on the rest of the country which is nothing like them.
Better for the bottom N states by population to impose their will on the rest of the country which is nothing like them?
I agree that the system is broken, but this is not a very fair statistic. 5 states have only a single seat in the House of Representatives. A further 7 states have just two seats. In total, there are 23 states with 5 seats or fewer. These states are all small and rural, which doesn't exactly make for a diverse population and means the seats tend to be safe R. For the states with a single major city (like Omaha for Nebraska) that city typically has its own district, and will hence be safe D in a sea of safe R. It's only in the more populous, more diverse areas where you start to get a lot of people living together who disagree with each other. This is what creates competitive races.
In the US, it's basically about turnout and/or "suppression." There's a wall of "red no matter who" that's kind of the default, and whether or not blue wins is up to getting enough young people excited -- and perhaps, more importantly, ensuring that blue voters and votes aren't "cheated."
> Fewer congressional contests are expected to be competitive this fall, compared with past election cycles, and experts say the extraordinary mid-decade redistricting efforts initiated by President Trump are largely to blame.
> Fewer competitive seats means the overwhelming majority — more than 90% — of congressional races will pretty much be decided during primary elections, which see far fewer voters participate than general elections.
> "Right now, we only rate 18 out of 435 races as toss ups, which means that less than 5% of Americans will truly be deciding who's in control of the House," David Wasserman, senior elections analyst for the Cook Political Report, told NPR.
Also, FEC still lacks a quorum of commissioners and so they can't prosecute any new campaign finance violations (for example those of the current press secretary)