If electoral votes are based on the number of people each state has in Congress, then how come Washington, DC has 3 electors?
As you noted, we get the numbers for the Electoral College from Congress. 100 Senators + 435 Representatives = 535. But there are 538 electoral votes! The District of Columbia does not have full official representation in Congress. The 435 official members of the House and the 100 Senators all represent the various 50 states. The other 3 votes come from the The 23rd Amendment to the Constitution which states that DC is allowed to appoint electors to the Electoral College. The number they are allowed is equal to the “number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State”, but no more than “than the least populous State”. Since several states only have 3 votes, DC can have no more than 3 votes even if their population would normally warrant more. BTW – The District of Columbia does have one non-voting member in the House, but this person is not a full-fledged Representative, and is in fact not even called a Representative – they are
Related Questions
- Why does the District of Columbia, which is not a state and has no voting representatives in Congress, get three electoral votes?
- If electoral votes are based on the number of people each state has in Congress, then how come Washington, DC has 3 electors?
- Are a states electoral votes based on population?
