New York and California - this one is for you!

Election after election, we hear about how our votes don't count.  The heavily populated areas (New York City, for example) far outweight the votes from the rest of the state.  For example, take a look at New York, below.  A pretty big part of the state votes Republican, while less area (but more people) lean Democrat.

 

You can clearly see the Democratic leaning areas are mainly centered around the high population areas.   Because of this, and the states "winner-take-all" way they allocate the electoral votes, the majority of counties in New York get far outvoted This ma was from the 2016 election

 

For those that are unaware, there are currently two states that do not use this method. Nebraska and Maine divide them up differently.  While the federal government allocates the electoral votes to the states based on the number of congresspeople the state has representing it.  It is up to the states to determine how to allocate them.

While many are advocating for divinding New York into three seperate states, or autonomous regions, it may be an easier puss for now to get a bill started to more fairly divide up the electoral votes.  Long Island and Upstate counties are tired of the NYC votes outweighing us. 

Yes, I totally get that the current political environment is unlikely to work with us to make this change. The arty in power would be losing some of that power when it comes to presidential elections.  But, they work for us. We put them in office, and if they don't have our interest in mind, we are the ones that can take them out of office.  

So, where do we start?  The first step, talk about it.  Get the word out.  Reach out to your NY State Senators and Assemblyperson.  Links are below to make it easy.  All their contact informatoin is there.  Email them, call them, write to them.   Take five minutes and write them quick and let's start making our votes count!

 

Find your New York State Senator

Find your New York State Assemblyperson

 

Whenever this comes up a lot of people say that it doesn't matter, we will never be properly represented .  If we continue with that attitude, correct. However, if we speak up, and act, we can make a change. It won't be fast. It won't be easy. But if recent years have taught us anything is that nothing is truly impossible and if we stick together, we CAN change things.