The impact of 25 people on Congressional voting
This is the story of how Minnesota was just 25 people away from losing a representative.
Representation is a contentious subject. The U.S. Congress tries to balance the representation of each state across it’s two chambers: the Senate, where each state gets equal representation, and the House of Representatives, where each state gets a voice proportional to its population.
But that’s where things get harder. Based on the last census there are 331.9MM people in the U.S., of which 11.823% reside in California. Unfortunately, 11.823% of the 435 total seats in the House assigns 51.43 representatives to California. What should do with the extra 0.43 of a person?
No matter which algorithm is used to resolve this, clearly some states will end up underrepresented, and some overrepresented. This story continues a previous analysis on apportionment in the U.S. House of Representatives, and you can catch up on which states are stuck in a representation trap here:
