Dan Lewis

I’m Finally Apportioned Correctly

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Electoral College lately. I’m not entirely sure why, but I hope to address a few points about it here over the next few weeks. To start, I realized something today:

For the first Presidential election ever, I’m apportioned correctly.

States receive a number of Electoral Votes equal to the number of Senators (2) and House members (varies) they have. The number of House members each state gets, in turn, is determined by the census, which is conducted every ten years. This is called an apportionment. It typically takes a year or so before the House seats are apportioned properly, so the 2000 Presidential Election actually used the apportionment derived from the 1990 census.

I’ve been eligible to vote for President since 1996, having turned 18 a few years earlier (but after 1992). I was in college and, if memory serves, I voted in Massachusetts. But the 1996 Electoral College apportionment was based off the 1990 census, and I was counted as living in Connecticut. In 2000, I was living in Pennsylvania (and because I missed the voter registration deadline, registered elsewhere; I ended up not voting rather than commit voter fraud). And as noted above, my existence was assigned to Connecticut, insofar as the EC apportionment was concerned. So far, 0-for-2.

The 2000 census counted me as living in Pennsylvania. I moved out of PA and back to Connecticut in 2001, where I lived until the end of 2002. By 2004, I had moved to New York (where I am today) and I’m pretty sure I voted here that year — either NY or CT. I definitely voted here in 2008 and again in 2012 (with difficulty). In 2004 and 2008, though, my census value had me apportioned in Pennsylvania.

The 2010 census put me at my current address.

Five Presidential Elections, and the Electoral College has me in the correct place only once.