If you live in Rhode Island’s your vote in the House is worth nearly twice (1.90% more) that of someone who lives in Montana.
The number of Congressman a state is supposed to be proportional to its populations. But it does not exactly turn out that way in practice. There are two factors that confound making the House of Representatives truly representative of the states’ populations. First, every state is guaranteed one representative, so the first 50 slots are allocated based on this rule. Second, the remaining 385 have to be allocated as whole seats. It is impossible to divide up the states’ populations into groups of the same size. The allotment formula that is used results in districts that vary in size from Montana’s at large district (they have only one) that is actually the most populous district at 998,554 to Rhode Island 2nd district that has 534, 365 people. The largest district is almost twice the size of the smallest district. Because Montana is not quite big enough to warrant two districts, it ends up be underrepresented in the House (they do every well in the Senate). At the other end of the spectrum, Rhode Island is very lucky in that is has just enough people to justify two Congressman. With their very small districts, Rhode Island is over represented in the House (as well as the Senate) .
To measure the variation in voting power I use the median voting district as the point of reference. The median is the mid-point among all the observations (as many below as above). I assign a value of 1 to it and then measure the deviation from it. The median House district is Florida’s 23rd district.
A value of 1 means a district’s voting power is the same as the median district. A value over 1 such as 1.20 means that district’s voting power is 20 percent above the median. Similarly, a value below 1 such as .90 reveals that district’s voting power is only 90 percent of the median. Click on the table to see how the voting power varies by Congressional district.
Voting Power by House Districts
I have hghlighted in yellow states that have districts that vary by more than 5 percent from the median, Basically, high population states are near the median voting power level while the low populations states are either winner or losers, depending on whether they just quality for another seat or just miss getting another seat. When you combine this inequality in voting power with the inequalities in the Senate, certain low population state are winners in both chambers, and are highly over represented in both houses of Congress. It is good to live in Rhode Island.