North Carolina narrowly missed out on snagging an additional congressional seat because of the way the U.S. Census counts military personnel, according to a review by the Associated Press.
The Census doesn’t count troops who are deployed overseas in the state where they live and work. Instead, they are counted in their “home state,” often the state they grew up in.
From the AP:
North Carolina officials estimate more than 40,000 troops were deployed from the state’s military bases around the time of the Census one year ago, but only 12,200 of the nation’s overseas military personnel listed North Carolina as their home state, according to Department of Defense data provided to AP.
The difference appears to have cost the state a U.S. House seat, which are allotted based on population statistics.
North Carolina currently has 13 Representatives, seven Democrats and six Republicans.
The Census policy of counting deployed troops in their home state instead of the state where they are based has come under fire before. After the 1990 Census, which caused Massachusetts to lose a congressional seat, the state mounted a legal challenge of the policy. It was ultimately rejected by the Supreme Court.
Read the AP‘s full story here.
