Today I am reminded that over 500,000 people (almost 600,000 actually) in the District of Columbia are still without any federal representation in the United States. They are taxed but have no senator or congressman to represent them. Well, that's only 0.2% of the population, surely they don't really matter? Well actually if DC were a State of the Union it wouldn't be the smallest, try taking away the representation of the 493,000 people in Wyoming, or the 608,000 in Vermont, or the 642,000 in North Dakato, or 626,000 in Alaska.

The population of DC is also about the same size as the number of voters (540,000) who voted for Gore over Bush in the last Presidential election. Its also more than a 1,000 times the number of countedvotes (about 500) that swung the outcome of the election in Florida, or 500,000 times the number of people (one Justice) who swung the election in the Supreme Court.

Which all goes to show, sometimes even one vote counts even if America, the country that put Man on the moon, and proclaims it will put Man on Mars, has yet to solve the problem of allowing its citizens to vote when the are legally entitled to, and counting their votes when they actually do.

Isn't it about time the half million or so people in DC had some representation in this country?

Population figures from the U.S. Census Bureau

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