Do 7 of the 50 States basically run the U.S.?

Are these 7 U.S. States -- the 7 with the largest populations, and thus the largest number of electoral votes -- the most important in any U.S. Presidential Election? (Population numbers from 2000 U.S. Census)

1 California (55 electoral votes)
33,871,648 people

2 Texas (34 electoral votes)
20,851,820 people

3 New York (31 electoral votes)
18,976,457 people

4 Florida (27 electoral votes)
15,982,378 people

5 Illinois (21 electoral votes)
12,419,293 people

6 Pennsylvania (21 electoral votes)
12,281,054 people

7 Ohio (20 electoral votes)
11,353,140 people

(The other 43 States [and D.C.] each have less than 10,000,000 people, and less than 20 electoral votes.)

These 7 States alone contain 209 of the 538 electoral votes -- that's 39% of all available electoral votes! One would think that, if a Presidential Candidate won all 7 of these States, it would take a miracle for the other Presidential Candidate to win almost of all of the other 43 States needed to still win the election.

(Check out www.presidentelect.org... for more details. This is a cool website which shows the Electoral College map for every U.S. Presidential Election -- from George Washington in 1789 to George W. Bush in 2000!)

Also, that means that 39% of the U.S. Congress is controlled by a mere 7 States. Even for bills in Congress that require a 2/3 majority in both Houses to pass, that means that 6 out of every 10 votes needed to pass a bill under those conditions would be there if those 7 States banded together.

To those who live in the other 43 U.S. States, do you feel like your voice is still heard? How does rural Kansas and rural Montana keep from getting drowned out by New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston?

This suggestion over looks the Senate, and the fact that there are 14 "swing states" that can make or break any candidate (candidatus means to be made white, in case anyone ever wondered at that entymology )

This is the reason we had a bicameral legislature, the small states knew that the larger states would command the House. A Senate was thus formed where the small states were equal with the larger states.

In the Senate of course 7 states have 14 Senators, which is 43 short of a 2/3rds vote.

It all looks like a pretty daft system from a foreigners perspective, particularly the presidential elections. This shouldn't have anything to do with state boundaries, since it's a federal position. Why not just one man one vote? Why should a person's vote count less if they live in california? Strange.

YES!

And when they don't get their way (as evidenced in the 2000 election) they kick a poopie pants dance fit and act like little disenfranchised brats.

Well, tough crap! Every once in a while the rest of us who are the REAL disenfranchised majority!!! get collective enough to put the Brat Pack in their place.

And they need to get WAAAAAAY over it