us Devalues Votes for Citizens by Including Noncitizens //
A recent Census Bureau report has revealed that the bureau made serious errors in the most recent census. The bureau overcounted the population of eight states, and undercounted the population from six.
Accordingly, citizens from undercounted states like Florida did not get all the congressional representation to the extent they are entitled. However, citizens from states such as Minnesota or Rhode Island, which were overcounted, are overrepresented in Congress.
Everyone who completed a census form in 2020 will know that we met the Article I, Section2 requirement of the U.S. constitution which requires an “actual enumeration of the U.S. citizen population” every 10 years. The 24th census was conducted in our history in 2020.
Although the population data can be used for many purposes, including the distribution of federal money under programs that provide money to states based on their share of U.S. populations, its constitutional purpose is to apportion representation to the House of Representatives. This also impacts presidential elections as apportionment is what determines how many votes a state holds in the Electoral College. Section 1 of Article II states that each state has two U.S. senators and one representative.
If a state has 10% of its total population, it is entitled 10% of the House representatives. However, this is not always true due to Section 2 of Article I which states that “each state shall possess at least one representative.”
This can obviously affect the apportionment to other states.
The House has been growing and adding more states to the Union over the years, which has led to more members. In 1929, however, Congress passed the Permanent Apportionment Act, which limits the Size of the House to 435. After the 2020 census numbers had been determined, the 435 members were divided between the states based upon the total population of the country (a little more than 331 millions people).
The reapportionment provided six additional seats to the states and reduced seven state’s seats. New York and California lost one congressional seat each, while Texas gained two. However, the Census Bureau made serious mistakes and deprived eight states of adequate representation in Congress.
Another problem with apportionment, is that it is based upon population totals that include illegal aliens. The sheer volume of legal and illegal aliens in a country can distort congressional representation.
How serious is this distortion? The Congressional Research Service released a report in 2015 on how apportionment would change if the 2013 estimated citizen population was used. This excluded illegal aliens. The report states that seven of the 11 states would have lost their congressional seats if they had used citizen population. California would have lost four seats while Louisiana and Missouri would each have gained a new seat.
Inclusion of the alien population in apportionment in an unfair and unjust manner alters the House’s political representation and devalues citizens’ votes.
Some argue that Section 2’s language that apportionment is determined by the “numbers of persons in each state,” means that aliens must be considered in the calculation of apportionment. In this context, however, the term persons has been historically understood to mean an individual who has both a physical presence and some element of allegiance towards a particular place.
The Supreme Court never ruled on whether apportionment should include aliens under our Constitution.
Original publication by The Washington Times
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The Daily Signal first published the post Including noncitizens to Census Devalues Votes for Citizens, Unjustly Alters House Representation.
