[Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) by James Gillespie Blaine]@TWC D-Link bookTwenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) CHAPTER IX 11/52
For example, California has a population of 358,110 and Vermont a population of 314,369, and each has three representatives on this floor to-day.
But California has 207,000 voters and Vermont had only 87,000.
Assuming voters as the basis of apportionment and allowing to Vermont three representatives, California would be entitled to eight.
The great State of Ohio, with nearly seven times the population of California, would have but little more than two and a half times the number of representatives; and New York, with quite eleven times the population of California, would have, in the proposed method of apportionment, less than five times as many members of this House." Mr.Blaine adduced some other examples less extreme than those quoted, but the generalization was no doubt too broad and presented in some respects an erroneous conclusion.
The only mode of getting at the number of voters was by the ballots cast at the general elections, and the relative ratio was varied by so many considerations that it did not correctly represent the actual number of voters in each State.
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