The argument is that our country should be governed with political power equally allocated on a ‘one person, one vote’ basis.  This standard was articulated by the Supreme Court in the 1960s when it ruled that state legislative districts had to have equal numbers.   At that time, in many states rural districts had greater representation than urban districts due to people moving from the country-side into the cities and suburbs.  Today, the situation is reversed, with urban areas having greater representation due to their disproportionately larger non-citizen populations overall compared to rural areas.

In the 1960s these Supreme Court cases were very controversial, and there was a major drive for an Article V convention to amend the Constitution to reverse those decisions.  However, the principle of “one person, one vote” laid down in those cases is now broadly accepted.  Then Democrats were strong advocates of such equal representation, both on principle and because it would benefit them politically.  The principle of “one person, one vote” remains the same.  Now the question is what do Democrats do when the principle of equal representation may conflict with their political interests in many (but not all) cases.

Moreover, the problems of our election system do not end with the winner-takes-all corruption of the Electoral College system.  In order to implement the three-fifths compromise, where slaves counted as three-fifths of a person for purposes of allocating seats in the House and Electoral College votes, the Constitution bases those allocations on the gross population, not the citizen population.  This has resulted in a significant skewing of political power in favor of areas with large non-citizen immigrant populations.

My new short book Fifty States, Not Six – a bipartisan approach to reforming the Electoral College and assuring that every citizen’s vote counts proposes a constitutional amendment which attempts to comprehensively address all of these issues.  The Popular Electoral Vote Amendment reforms rather than scraps the Electoral College system, preserving its unifying function while assuring that every citizen’s vote counts by eliminating winner-takes-all.  It also equalizes the votes of all citizens in congressional as well as presidential elections by apportioning based on the citizen population.

This short but comprehensive look at our election system offers fascinating historical insights from the founding to the 2016 election, as well as looking forward to reforming that system so that every citizen’s vote counts.  It also shows how this proposal is in the partisan political interests of both Democrats and Republicans.  The book is now available in print for only $5.99 from Amazon and for download for only $2.99 on Kindle or Nook.