LOL - I love the way Rome's history just pops up in a contemporary issue and you find yourself making comparisons. Recently - to my VAST surprise - I realized I'm no longer for the electoral college system in the U.S. It was created by the Founders - looking back at, among other things, ancient Rome - to buffer the experiment in democracy, to make sure that one man did NOT equal - quite - one vote, as they had a dire worry about extending the vote to common people in any event . . . and after the French Revolution, I can't really blame them. But the whole issue was to make sure that the ruling classes retained SOME kind of power and control over those votes extended, that a big state like New York would retain more 'power' in voting than an underpopulated, rural state like, say, Georgia. And until the last couple of presidential elections, where literally a president could be elected in the electoral college while losing the popular vote, I don't think it was much of an issue . . . although in the future, I suspect it will be.

This being my point. Surely, the constant screams we hear in the late Republic about enfranchizing the Italian allies, or the Cisalpine Gauls, or whatever, was a very similar problem. If you extended new voters across the 35 tribes, you might actually give them a VOICE. If you forced them all into one or two of the smaller tribes, who voted later, you'd be sure that their votes didn't have nearly the clout. I always thought the Roman system - as opposed to the Greek - was carefully set up to provide JUST this kind of buffer, so 'common people' and the mob could vote, if citizens, but it was carefully set up that their votes would seldom count. Deja vue!!