Electoral Votes, 2012-2020

[Andrew]

I wrote a spreadsheet to calculate Congressional apportionment.  Then I entered the Census Bureau's 2010 projections.  Here's what I came up with for electoral votes, 2012-2020:

AL   9
AK   3
AZ   9
AR   6
CA   62
CO   9
CT   7
DC   3
DE   3
FL   27
GA   14
HI   4
ID   4
IL   20
IN   11
IA   6
KS   6
KY   8
LA   9
ME   4
MD   10
MA   11
MI   17
MN   9
MS   6
MO   10
MT   4
NE   5
NV   5
NH   4
NJ   15
NM   5
NY   29
NC   14
ND   3
OH   19
OK   7
OR   8
PA   20
RI   4
SC   8
SD   3
TN   11
TX   35
UT   6
VT   3
VA   13
WA   12
WV   5
WI   10
WY   3

[minionofmidas]

I'm pretty sure you messed up.

AZ   9

Arizona to lose one? No way.

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A gain of seven. No way.

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Another unlikely loss.

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Don't really believe in this one either, although unlike the ones above it's possible.

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Yet another one.

Probably just goofed up the California numbers.

[Andrew]

I'm pretty sure you messed up.

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A gain of seven. No way. . . Probably just goofed up the California numbers.

I don't think so; the Census Bureau projects the U.S. population to grow by 9.5% from 2000 to 2010, while projecting California's population to grow by 15.3%.

Overall, in 2010, the estimates I've given would mean a ratio of about 710,000 people for each representative.  For California, that ratio would be about 666,000 to 1.

[Bogart]

Here are the most recent projections from the following site.

http://www.polidata.org/census/est003dl.htm

Is this the formula you used? This is how the seats are apportioned currently.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Equal Proportions Method

P - represents a state's total population

n - represents the number of seats a state would have if it gained a seat (because all states automatically received one seat the next seat gained is "seat two," and the next "seat three," and the next "seat four," and so on.)

The multiplier equals (1 divided by (the square root of n(n-1)) [which is called the reciprocal of the geometric mean]. Computing these values is quite easy using a PC and a good spreadsheet package.

Thus the formula for calculating the multiplier for the second
seat is:

          (1 divided by the square root of 2(2-1))
                               or
                   1/1.414213562 or 0.70710678

the multiplier for the third seat is:

          (1 divided by the square root of 3(3-1))
                               or
                   1/2.449489743 or 0.40824829

the multiplier for the fourth seat is:

          (1 divided by the square root of 4(4-1))
                               or
                  1/3.464101615 or 0.288675134

          Continue until an appropriate number of multipliers
          have been calculated.

Once the "multipliers" have been calculated, the next step is to multiply this figure by the population total for each of the 50 states (the District of Columbia is not included in these calculations). The resulting numbers are the priority values. Make sure you compute enough multipliers to cover the largest amount of seats in the House of Representatives that any one state stands to gain. Multipliers and priority values must be calculated for the largest number of seats assigned to a state. For example, if the largest number of seats assigned to a state is 50, multipliers and priority values must be calculated for the 50th seat. If you are using a PC, compute multipliers for seats 2 through 60. This will assure you have enough multipliers for apportionment.

Once you've calculated priority values for each state for the total anticipated seats, the next step is to rank and number the resulting priority values starting with seat 51 until all 435 seats have been assigned (remember, each state automatically received one seat). Next, tally the number of seats for each state to arrive at the total number of seats in the House of Representatives apportioned to each state.

Keep in mind, my map lists EV's so you have to subtract 2 from each state to get the House delegation size.

[Andrew]

That's the formula I used.  The population projections I used were the Census Bureau's.

[Bogart]

It depends on which Census projections you use. As was pointed out to me, many of them are projections from the 1990 Census which vastly overstate the growth in California. The projections from the link above are more current. The Census is going to release projections based upon the 2000 Census next year. These should be a lot more accurate.

[Andrew]

I saw on their site that there would be new projections coming.  I actually did this in the first place in response to someone (not here) who asked if I knew what the 2012 electoral map might look like--and he asked specifically for "official" census information.

Then I thought it would be interesting to post here.

The good thing about having a spreadsheet is that I can put anything I want into it now.

[jimrtex]

I wrote a spreadsheet to calculate Congressional apportionment.  Then I entered the Census Bureau's 2010 projections.

The current Census Bureau projections were made in 1995, based on the 1990 census, and interstate migration patterns going back into the 1970s (they have two series - the other bases interstate migration patterns on estimates of job growth).  The census projection for 2000 made in 1995, missed the actual population for California by over a million.

[Silent Hunter]

How would 2004 look on these EVs?

I make it:
Dem 244
Rep 294