You voted. Now what?

The US has nigh on 240 million citizens entitled to vote, but there are only 435 seats in the House of Representatives - one for each 550,000 voters.

The Senate has 100 places, so one for every 1.2 million voters; and in any case Senators were not up for public election before 1913.

What’s the chance that your individual voice will be heard? Less than the last little Who that had to help attract the attention of Horton.

The odds are a little improved by the fact that only some two-thirds of the electorate bothered to participate this year, even when both sides spoke as if democracy itself was at stake. But still, even the largest sports stadium in the world could not come close to accommodating the average number of politically engaged constituents.

Besides, a democracy is only as good as its electors. Reportedly, the average IQ in the US is 98, so half the population is at that level or below. If every average-to-superior IQ voter cast their ballot, that still leaves a third of the remainder that also chose to have a say. What would get them off their sofas and down to the polling station?

You’d have to work out how to enter and manipulate their fantasy world. Focus groups, psephological computation, campaign strategists, targeted ads and speechwriting, media buying…

That’s why getting votes is big business. It’s said, for example, that Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Presidential candidacy cost a billion dollars, for an office that pays a maximum of $1.8 million in salary and expenses in total, over four years - over $555 laid out for every $1 back.

You can work out why.

Can such a system produce a government that is both wise and good?