Currently 4 million people contribute to the popular vote without having their vote counted in the electoral college. In other words, their votes don't count.

There is an aversion to the census in the Congress. Rather, there is an aversion to census counting in a mid-20th century manner. Statistical sampling has been shown to be a more accurate method of counting millions of people than the current door-to-door method, when trying to count as many people as humanly possible. The point to the census is laid out in the Constitution (Article 1, Section 2). In order to have a house of representatives, we need to know how many representatives each state gets. Since that determination is based on population, we need a census. Perhaps you are now thinking, "with all that's happening in the country right now, who gives a shit about the stupid census?" Simple, had an accurate census been done in 1990, there may have been a fundamental shift in whether or not this election mess would have occured. Looking at the map in the USA Today of how each county in the country voted; we see an infinitely telling message. For the most part, those states with heavily urban population voted democratic. The rural areas went republican. (Blah blah blah, Pete we know this.) An article in Salon today about the possibilty of heavily minority counties in Florida having their voting rights infringed upon got me wondering whether those votes, once counted would be given their proper electoral weight. (Claims are as yet unsubstantiated, Jesse Jackson on one of his crusades again, WHO CARES??)

The combination of those things got me thinking again about why someone would oppose a counting method that's proven to be more accurate? Look at the map again and ask yourself, if a more accurate census were rendered, would there be more blue counties, or red counties? If you have some time, read a census timeline put together by CivilRights.org. The main thrust is what happened to statistical sampling. Here are three quotes, "The net undercount rate of 1.6 percent (4 million people) in 1990 was 50 percent greater than in 1980." "In July [of 1997], Congress revisited the issue when the House Appropriations Committee passed the FY98 Commerce Department spending bill with a provision banning the use of sampling for counting the population in the Census. An amendment was offered by Rep. Mollohan (D-WV) to remove the sampling restriction, however, the amendment was defeated by a vote of 33-25, with every Republican voting against the amendment and every Democrat voting in favor." Finally, "In late January [of 1999], the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the federal Census Act of 1976 prevents the Census Bureau from using statistical sampling to determine the population for purposes of congressional apportionment." Why? I haven't read the opinion, but I'll give you one guess [I don't know the answer] as to how the voting broke down among the justices.

How does this apply to this year's election? The appotionment under the Constitution says that the number of representatives per state shall not exceed one per 30,000 citizens. With 4,000,000 people not counted (the difference between the undercount of whites and the undercount of ethnic minority groups (known as the `differential undercount') was the highest ever recorded since the Census Bureau began conducting post-Census evaluations in 1940, missing 4.4 percent of African Americans; 5 percent of Americans of Hispanic origin; 2.3 percent of Asians and Pacific Islanders; and, more than 12 percent of Native Americans living on reservations), there would be an extra 133 representatives, if the census were used for Congressional apportionment, accordingly adding 133 electoral votes to the current total . Once again, one can speculate with some certainty that those not counted are primarily in major cities. The question then is, had the census been done properly and used for congressional apportionment, would Gore or Bush have won a majority of the electoral college without Florida? Looking at the USA Today map, it is fairly obvious which party has the most to lose with such a restructuring.

A stict, "rule of law" reading of the Constitution means that those people are being taxed without being properly represented. Any remedial student of US History understands how we citizens used to repond to this.
- posted by levinson @ 12/04/2000 08:41:00 AM