The electoral vote shift
The aggregate electoral-college vote of states that voted for Gore in 2000 is seven votes fewer now than then because of the Congressional reapportionment resulting from the 2000 census. A state has the same number of electoral votes as it has members of the Congress. The number of US representatives is fixed at 438, so the census changes the relative balance of representatives among the states every 10 years.

Electoral votes were reapportioned in line with population growth. Some states got stronger, some weaker. The gains were almost entirely in the Red States, won by the GOP in 2000. Losses were mostly in the Blue States that went for Gore.

New York, for example, has gone from 33 electoral votes to 31 since the last election. Connecticut has dropped from eight to seven. Pennsylvania, another Blue State, is down to 21 from 23. In all, Blue States have lost seven electoral votes.

What the Democrats lost, the Republicans have gained. Texas, Florida and Arizona each got two additional electoral votes. Altogether, Red States are up by seven. [link]

This fact has got to weigh heavily on the minds - and plans - of Democratic campaign strategists, and almost certainly accounts for Howard Dean's abortive attempt to reach out to Confederate-flag southerners.

Update: There are 438, not 435, members of the US House for computing electoral votes. American Samoa, Guam and US Virgin Islands each have a single delegate to the House. John Jenkins emailed to set the facts straight:

The additional three electoral positions come out of the 23d Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which stipulates that the District of Columbia is entitled to appoint, "[a] number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State; but in no event more than the least populous state."

Since the smallest states have one representative and two senators, that means that the District of Columbia is entitled to appoint three electors. Add those electors to the 535 from the states and you get the total number of 538 electors that the college has today.

And that seems final and authoritative to me. Thanks, John.

by Donald Sensing, 11/12/2003 04:02:06 PM. Permalink |