One Person One Vote

The Supreme Court agreed this week to hear a case on who should be counted in determining election districts, which are created based on the "one person, one vote" principle. If the court sides with the plaintiffs in the case, two Texas voters, it could shift political power away from cities towards more rural areas, which would benefit Republicans.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1964 that voting districts must contain very close to the same number of people, but it didn't say whether everyone counts or only eligible voters. Since then, most state and local governments have drawn their districts based on total population, and federal appeals courts have uniformly ruled that doing so is okay. Over the past nearly 25 years, the Supreme Court had at least three similar challenges, giving them an opportunity to settle the issue, but always turned them down, leaving many election law experts surprised that they agreed to hear this one.

The two plaintiffs, who are represented by the Project on Fair Representation, which successfully challenged the Voting Right Act before the high court, argue that their voting power has been diluted because everyone is counted in establishing districts, not just eligible voters.

Counting all people increases the voting power of places with large numbers of residents who can't vote, including both legal and illegal immigrants, children and prisoners. Those places tend to be urban and to vote Democratic. Tell me your thoughts. What do you think of this case that argues that only eligible voters should be counted in establishing election districts, not total population?