The Capitol Building houses the Senate and the House of Representatives.
One of the basic premises of the U.S. republic is one man, one vote. However, because of the unique rules created by the Constitution, a vote in one state may have a larger impact than a vote in another state.
The Senate
The Senate is the most extreme example of votes having different values. The Constitution gives each state two senators. In 2009, the latest year for which numbers are available, California had the greatest population with 36,900,000 people, while Wyoming had the lowest with 544,000.
The House of Representatives
When the Constitution was written, The House of Representatives was supposed to provide equal representation for each voter, by allocating the number of delegates from each state based on population. Originally, each Representative was supposed to represent no more than 30,000 voters, but as our nation grew, this became unworkable. In 2009, the total population of the U.S. was 307 million, which would result in at least 10,200 members of the House of Representatives. In 1911, the size of the House of Representatives was fixed at 435 members.
Because each state has at least one representative, Cynthia Lummis from Wyoming represents 544,000 citizens while Dennis Rehberg from Montana represents nearly one million voters. Montana has the greatest population of states with a single representative in the House. The number of voters represented by a single delegate will vary with each state.
Presidential Elections
Because the president is elected by the College of Electors instead of a direct popular vote, presidential elections combine the clumsiness of both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Each state is given a number of votes for president equal to the total of their delegates to both houses of Congress. Seven states have three electoral votes while California has 55 electoral votes. In most states, all of the electoral votes go to a single candidate. To a candidate in the presidential election, California is worth more than 17 times the votes that Delaware is.
Impacts of the Census
Because the Constitution calls for a census, or count, of the population every 10 years, the value of each citizen's vote is reallocated every decade. If a state loses some population, each member of the House will represent fewer citizens, but if a state loses enough citizens, they may lose one or more members, which lowers their impact in the election of the president.
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