[akerl_]

It’s not really debatable that money has an influence in US politics and elections. It’s also pretty clear that for presidential elections, votes are not equal for people living in different states. But to say “We don’t have ‘one person, one vote’” in this context is pretty blatantly false.

The primary reason that dollars have such an impact on elections is because dollars get spent on advertising and on canvassing and on outreach, and the impact of those things is that it gets your candidate more votes from more people who otherwise wouldn’t have bothered to vote. The way that dollars buy elections is via people voting.

There’s plenty of rational debate to be had about gerrymandering and campaign finance and a whole host of topics, but to throw our hands in the air and say that votes don’t matter is nonsense.