United States congressional apportionment
Okay, so imagine you have a big family and you want to share the toys fairly. You have a bunch of toys, but not enough for everyone to have one of each toy. So, you decide to split the toys up based on how many people are in each part of the house.
Congressional apportionment is like that, but with states and seats in the House of Representatives. Every ten years, the United States has a census, where they count how many people live in each state.
Based on those numbers, they decide how many seats each state should get in the House of Representatives. The House of Representatives is like a big toy chest where each state gets a certain number of toys (or seats) to play with.
The more people a state has, the more seats they get to play with. But just like with toys, there are only a certain number of seats to go around. All 435 of them.
So, the government has to decide how to divide them up. This can get tricky because some states have a lot of people and some have only a few.
To make it fair, they use a formula called the "method of equal proportions" to figure out how many seats each state should get. It's like a math problem where you have to add up all the people in each state and then divide the seats accordingly.
Once they figure out how many seats each state gets, they redraw the lines for the districts. Each district is like a neighborhood where all the people in it get to vote for their representative in Congress.
So, that's how congressional apportionment works. It's like sharing toys with your family, but on a much larger scale.
Congressional apportionment is like that, but with states and seats in the House of Representatives. Every ten years, the United States has a census, where they count how many people live in each state.
Based on those numbers, they decide how many seats each state should get in the House of Representatives. The House of Representatives is like a big toy chest where each state gets a certain number of toys (or seats) to play with.
The more people a state has, the more seats they get to play with. But just like with toys, there are only a certain number of seats to go around. All 435 of them.
So, the government has to decide how to divide them up. This can get tricky because some states have a lot of people and some have only a few.
To make it fair, they use a formula called the "method of equal proportions" to figure out how many seats each state should get. It's like a math problem where you have to add up all the people in each state and then divide the seats accordingly.
Once they figure out how many seats each state gets, they redraw the lines for the districts. Each district is like a neighborhood where all the people in it get to vote for their representative in Congress.
So, that's how congressional apportionment works. It's like sharing toys with your family, but on a much larger scale.