Apportionment fun

[Bogart]

This is what I come up with using Census projections and the current method of apportionment. That being as follows:

1. Each state automatically gets one seat.
2. Calculate mulipliers for each "next seat" by dividing 1 by the square root of the next seat times that seat minus 1, or 1/sr of n(n-1).
3. Take multipliers by each states projected population to obtain priority values for gaining each additional seat.
4. Rank them in decending order.

It has been pointed out to me that some Census projections are weighted too heavily towards California growth and this may be true. However, based upon these projections, this is how I calculated it turning out for 2010.

[Bogart]

Cleaned up the map slightly

Looking over this, it looks pretty much like my prediction, except CA should be 56 reps instead of 58.  (Ah, I think one comes from Ohio and the other comes from Minnesota.  And another Ohio seat is going to Florida - you must have very different numbers than I have.)

Anyone have some more recent state population projecitons for 2010?  I can feed those numbers into my program (I really ought to create a Web interface for this...)  I think it's going to be a close battle between TX and FL for the 435th seat.

This is where I got my numbers. I'd love to get some more recent projections.

http://www.census.gov/population/www/projections/stproj.html

[Bogart]

Here's another fun little use for this:  I discovered how much you would have to expand Congress for every state to have at least 2 Congressmen.  We would need 806, and they would distribute like this (with the 2 Senatorial EVs added):

California: 99
Texas: 62
New York: 56
Florida: 48
Illinois: 38
Pennsylvania: 37
Ohio: 34
Michigan: 30
New Jersey: 26
North Carolina: 25
Georgia: 25
Virginia: 22
Massachusetts: 20
Washington: 19
Indiana: 19
Missouri: 18
Tennessee: 18
Maryland: 17
Arizona: 17
Wisconsin: 17
Minnesota: 16
Louisiana: 15
Alabama: 15
Colorado: 14
Kentucky: 14
South Carolina: 14
Oregon: 12
Connecticut: 12
Oklahoma: 12
Mississippi: 10
Kansas: 10
Arkansas: 10
Iowa: 10
Nevada: 8
Utah: 8
Nebraska: 7
West Virginia: 7
New Mexico: 7
Hawaii: 6
Maine: 6
New Hampshire: 6
Idaho: 6
Montana: 5
Rhode Island: 5
North Dakota: 4
Delaware: 4
Vermont: 4
South Dakota: 4
Alaska: 4
Wyoming: 4

Wyoming, of course, gets the final seat.