After joining AmeriCorps, getting a graduate degree in public policy, and working for several years at the U.S. Department of Energy, I’ve developed a fascination with politics. I read a lot about U.S. politics, which I’m very familiar with, on a regular basis even though I’ve actually been living in Israel for the past several years. I know quite well, for example, that not all votes in the USA are equal…
Here's a snippet that breaks down U.S. voting inequalities between the States
The nine battleground states where Romney and Barack Obama are spending a lot of time and money — Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Colorado, New Hampshire, Iowa, Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin — have 44.1 million people eligible to vote. That’s only 20.7 percent of the nation’s 212.6 million eligible voters. So nearly four of five eligible voters are pretty much being ignored by the two campaigns:
When you combine voter-to-elector comparisons and battleground state populations, there are clear winners and losers in the upcoming election.
More than half the nation’s eligible voters live in states that are losers in both categories. Their states are not closely contested and have above-average ratios of voters to electors. This is true for people in 14 states with 51 percent of the nation’s eligible voters: California, New York, Texas, Illinois, Michigan, Georgia, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Indiana, Tennessee, Missouri, Maryland, Louisiana and Kentucky. Their votes count the least.
The biggest winners in the system, those whose votes count the most, live in just four states: Colorado, New Hampshire, Iowa and Nevada. They have low voter-to-elector ratios and are in battleground states. Only 4 percent of the nation’s eligible voters — 1 in 25 — live in those states.
It’s all dictated by the U.S. Constitution, which set up the Electoral College. The number of electors each state gets depends on the size of its congressional delegation. Even the least populated states — like Wyoming — get a minimum of three, meaning more crowded states get less proportionally.
I can’t tell you how refreshing it was for me to vote in a Democracy, rather than a Constitutional Republic. Here in Israel, my vote counts as much as every other citizen’s vote.
Also, there’s another element for me – Continue reading →
I shared the following words at Pardes, wishing my friend Yevgenia and her family chizuk (encouragement, support) and Hashem’s rachamim (mercy).
I’ve been familiar with this word for a while, and thought it was simply a sophisticated way of saying ‘decider’.