Is Your State
Under or Over Represented
in the House of Representatives?

Every ten years, our country takes the Census.  Why?  Because our founding fathers created a government that gave equal representation to all States (two representatives per State) in the Senate and to population density with more people per State vs fewer people per State in the House.  The Census is needed so that the number of people in a State can be counted in order to decide how many Representatives that State should have.  This arrangement can be read in the Constitution of the United States of America.  (How long has it beeen since you've read the Constitution?)

During the Census taking, however, two factors cause the Census to be inaccurate.  The first factor you hear about.  In fact, it almost caused our government to violate the Constitution of the United States by estimating the 2000 Census based upon samplings!  This factor is the numbers of peoples who are missed (e.g. they don't have a home) or who avoid the Census out of fear (e.g. illegal aliens).

The second factor, however, has never, to my knowledge, been brought to light:

According to the Constitutions of the States of Idaho and Oregon (and probably most, if not all of the other States in the Union), people who are based without (outside) their State while serving in the Armed Forces are still considered residents (i.e. they don't lose their Voter's Rights ... hence they don't lose their Citizenship) of that State.  In other words, they can vote in the elections of their home state even if they live in another State.  At the same time, they cannot vote within the State they are living unless they have, by intent, changed their residence.

However, when the Census is taken, they are numbered as though they were residents where they are currently living.  Therefore, States with military bases and, especially, military personnel living in off-base housing or similarly assigned personnel pick up representatives from the States where those people are still lawful residents!  No where within the Census is there asked the question, "Are you a lawful resident of a different State?"

When asked, a local representative of the Census responded to this by stating that it's more likely that the individual/family would be counted twice ... once at home, by their parents/family ... once where they are living now.  This still doesn't solve the problem ... the wrong State still gets more representation than they should!!!