Revised electoral votes

[John Nagle]

According to an estimate in National Journal recently, the states that Bush
won stand to gain a total of six electoral votes as a result of the 2000
census, while the states that Gore won stand to lose five votes.  (Those
totals exclude Florida, which will gain one elector vote, but we still
haven't figured out who should get that state's first 25 votes).  So
suppose that Bush had lost the electoral vote by just four votes or so.
Would he have any claim under the Court's reapportionment jurisprudence?
Could Congress update the electoral votes (if necessary, by conducting more
frequent censuses) prior to every presidential election year with this in
mind?  And as a matter of popular perceptions, how would Bush's claim under
that scenario compare to Gore's claims with respect to the majority of the
popular vote right now?


John Copeland Nagle
Associate Professor
Notre Dame Law School
Notre Dame, IN 46556
(219) 631-9407
(219) 631-4197 (fax)