One Person, One Vote: Principle versus Reality! in Congressional Reapportionments!!!!!!!!

Abstract: Ever since the Supreme Court instituted the one person, one vote principle in congressional elections based on its decision in Wesberry v. Sanders (1964), intrastate deviations from equal district populations have become smaller and smaller after each decennial reapportionment. Relying on equal total population as the standard to meet the Court’s one person, one vote principle, though, raises serious constitutional questions stemming from, most basically, not every person has the right to vote. As such, the application of the equal population rule creates a considerable level of malapportionment across districts, both within and between states. This study systematically analyzes the differences between district total populations vs. district voting age populations (VAPs), documenting just how far off the use of the district total population is from the one person, one vote principle. Further, we consider how congressional reapportionments would change if instead of total state population, the measure for redistributing seats was based on the VAP and the voting eligible population (VEP). The analyses are performed for each reapportionment year beginning in 1972. Line drawers can do a much better job at meeting the Court’s one person, one vote principle by relying on better measures of voter equality and that by failing to do this, we are much further away than we need to be in trying to meet the one person, one vote standard