How should states measure population when drawing voter districts?

[Reynard32]

Originally Posted by Dopo

Population should be measured as "centers of population" It's ridiculous that San Antonio, a city of 2 million people is split into about 8 congressional districts.

With a national population of some 315 million, each Congressional district should include something like 725,000 people.

[Creekcat]

Originally Posted by Reynard32

Why should anyone be excluded? Even slaves were counted as three-fifths of a person back in the day. This seems downright progressive in comparison to what you have proposed. The crime of illegals is that they do not have a little piece of paper. It is a status crime, similar to driving without a license. Illegals otherwise live and work in our communities like anyone else. Since the citizenship requirement applies only to federal elections, many towns and cities have moved toward allowing illegals to vote in municipal elections. This is a far more sensible direction to go in that what you have advocated here. Immigrants are not leaving. In fact many more will be coming. We need to stop behaving like little children over it.

The 3/5 Compromise was used, so that the southern states could gain congressional seats and thus more power. Not a good idea then and not a good one now.

[Reynard32]

Originally Posted by Creekcat

The 3/5 Compromise was used, so that the southern states could gain congressional seats and thus more power. Not a good idea then and not a good one now.

Yes, there were many compromises made in order to get the Constitution ratified. But that was not the point. The question is over why anyone should be excluded from being counted in defining representational districts. The Constitution itself uses numbers of persons. Laws in virtually every state use numbers of persons. Why would it be a good idea to start using numbers of voters instead? Is the fact that it would work to enhance the political power of Republicans a good enough reason?