In your dinner example, giving each family one vote wouldn't make things any better. Instead of the majority of people deciding what to eat every night, the maj

In your dinner example, giving each family one vote wouldn't make things any better. Instead of the majority of people deciding what to eat every night, the majority of families would decide every night. If 25% of the families liked Thai food, but 75% liked Italian food, they would all eat Italian food every night. The only thing that would solve your example would be to let either one person or one family choose what to eat each night, on a rotating basis. Of course, you could just let each family choose its own meal, while using a majority vote (either of people or families) to decide things that affect all the families. This is federalism. But I submit that families choosing what to eat is different from government making laws. Many things have to be decided by a central authority, and there has to be a way of apportioning representation in that central authority. Giving certain citizens 3x as much power because they live on one side of a line vs. another violates the principle of "one person, one vote".