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Why Trump is not wrong about Illegal Aliens 'voting'

Posted on: November 28, 2016 at 09:33:30 CT
Spanky KU
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The right to vote is intended to be a singular privilege of citizenship. But the 1787 Constitutional Convention rejected allowing the people to directly elect their President. The delegates chose instead our Electoral College system, under which 538 electoral votes distributed amongst the states determine the presidential victor. The Electoral College awards one elector for each U.S. Senator, thus 100 of the total, and D.C. gets three electors pursuant to the 23rd Amendment. Those electoral numbers are unaffected by the size of the noncitizen population. The same cannot be said for the remaining 435, more than 80 percent of the total, which represent the members elected to the House.

The distribution of these 435 seats is not static: they are reapportioned every ten years to reflect the population changes found in the census. That reallocation math is based on the relative “whole number of persons in each state,” as the formulation in the 14th Amendment has it. When this language was inserted into the U.S. Constitution, the concept of an “illegal immigrant,” as the term is defined today, had no meaning. Thus the census counts illegal immigrants and other noncitizens equally with citizens. Since the census is used to determine the number of House seats apportioned to each state, those states with large populations of illegal immigrants and other noncitizens gain extra seats in the House at the expense of states with fewer such “whole number of persons.”

This math gives strongly Democratic states an unfair edge in the Electoral College. Using citizen-only population statistics, American University scholar Leonard Steinhorn projects California would lose five House seats and therefore five electoral votes. New York and Washington would lose one seat, and thus one electoral vote apiece. These three states, which have voted overwhelming for Democrats over the latest six presidential elections, would lose seven electoral votes altogether. The GOP’s path to victory, by contrast, depends on states that would lose a mere three electoral votes in total. Republican stronghold Texas would lose two House seats and therefore two electoral votes. Florida, which Republicans must win to reclaim the presidency, loses one seat and thus one electoral vote.

But that leaves the electoral math only half done. The 10 House seats taken away from these states would then need to be reallocated to states with relatively small numbers of noncitizens. The following ten states, the bulk of which lean Republican, would likely gain one House seat and thus one additional electoral vote: Iowa, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/illegal-immigrants-could-elect-hillary-clinton-213216
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Why Trump is not wrong about Illegal Aliens 'voting' - Spanky KU - 11/28 09:33:30
     Have you seen any actual cases of illegals voting? - JG A - 11/28 10:35:26
          How would you know? Most states refuse to check IDs. - DHighlander KC - 11/28 10:37:27
               So none that we know of then - JG A - 11/28 10:43:46
     So are you claiming that illegals are 3/5ths of a person? - DHighlander KC - 11/28 10:29:21
     Weird. Right...privilege - pickle MU - 11/28 09:39:15
          As always,wrong again. No one has the right to drive. - DHighlander KC - 11/28 10:31:35
               Driving is a right - pickle MU - 11/28 11:43:32
               You're conflating the Bill of "Rights" with language from - ummmm MU - 11/28 10:41:32
                    Because there is no 'right to drive' in the bill of rights - DHighlander KC - 11/28 10:55:20
                         Property rights are not imaginary - pickle MU - 11/28 11:45:03
                         Where is the right to vote in the Bill of Rights? - ummmm MU - 11/28 11:02:21
     RE: Why Trump is not wrong about Illegal Aliens 'voting' - ummmm MU - 11/28 09:37:50
          Voting is a privlige that has been redefined into a right - Spanky KU - 11/28 09:38:51
               Voting is a LIMITED right. Everyone who meets the - DHighlander KC - 11/28 10:35:51
                    The right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and - ummmm MU - 11/28 10:40:44
                         when you choose to not learn what a right is, you are - 90Tiger MU - 11/28 11:09:40
               "misdefined" is how I would say it (nm) - ummmm MU - 11/28 09:41:51
                    See the Voting Rights Act of 1965 - Spanky KU - 11/28 09:43:48
                         Lol (nm) - pickle MU - 11/28 09:46:19




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