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Equality
of one vote against another is a new idea in politics - barely over a half
century in the United States. This second of the
Presidential-Appointments.org Internet site is about that equality.
The doctrine took legal
standing under the legal common name of "One Man, One
Vote". A series of court cases in eastern Missouri, in the
St Louis area initially, reduced the idea to law when the apportionment of
the United States Congressional Districts was challenged. The end
result was that those Districts were redrawn on the basis of population
with some law related to how the districts were shaped. Shortly
after, a similar set of cases were filed about the apportionment of the
Missouri State Legislature and Senate, with a similar result.
The story, strategy and
the drama around these cases is charming, historic, movie quality stuff,
but has little to do with the results which established the core law that
each vote should be essentially equal to all other similar jurisdictions -
"one man, one vote". Over the decades, the phrase has
slowly been moving to the more politically correct "One Person, One
Vote".
In spite of the rather
common sense concept that each vote in an election ought to essentially
equal to every vote, there have been, and are today, dozens and dozens of
cases pending to try to enforce that idea. Politicians do not have a
distinguished record of following the established law on apportionment,
and have a particularly awful habit and doing everything possible to
violate both the letter and the spirit of the concept of "One Person,
One Vote."
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