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from the non-voting-person-OR-non-person-voter dept.
The LA Times and just about every news outlet has a story about a Supreme Court case which could change how election districts are drawn up.
At issue before the court was the basic question of who gets counted when election districts are drawn: Is it all people, including children, prisoners and immigrants who are not eligible to vote? Or is it only adult citizens who are eligible voters?
The case centers around districts with heavy concentrations of people not eligible to vote (generally illegal aliens). These are counted by the census, and that district gets legislative representation based on their presence, even when there are fewer actual voters in those districts. The plaintiffs claim this give more weight to voters in such district, over an equal number of voters in other districts.
The challengers cited the example of two Texas state Senate districts, both of which have about 800,000 residents. One rural district in east Texas, where plaintiff Sue Evenwel resides, had about 574,000 citizens who are eligible to vote; the other district in the Rio Grande valley had only 372,000 people who are eligible to vote. The lawsuit in Evenwel vs. Abbott argues this is unconstitutional.
Do Soylentils see the allocation of election districts as a process to distribute legislative seats equally over the number of voters, or equally over the number of people (regardless of whether those people can vote or not)? (Or is this where we launch off on the usual discussions of a total redesign of the US Voting system to some totally different mathematical model?)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2015, @03:02PM
Taxes are not citizenship. I've paid minor amounts of taxes to several countries this year, but that doesn't make me a citizen of these countries, it doesn't give me an interest in their well-being, and it certainly didn't accord me any of the benefits or other responsibilities of citizenship. Citizenship is about more than paying taxes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2015, @09:41PM
Yes, Taxes are not citizenship. But citizenship doesn't have to be a requirement. If you are in the US you are covered by US laws and taxes, and should therefore be represented.
Living in the US, paying taxes, being a citizen. If you can tick two of those you should be allowed to vote.