i don't know what bob's experience has been but i've done a lot of the programs and quite often with somebody i didn't serve with so it is any first time to meet them as well. it is an amazing experience because it is obviously a friendly thing but we do find that we agree on more issues than we would disagree about. for us it is wonderful because we have been out of congress now for a number of years. nobody really cares what we think anymore. so it is good for our ego to be asked what we think about these issues so i encourage you to go back and encourage your political science department to come to the u.s. association of former members and invite members, former members back to your college campus, on the congress to campus program. >> anything to add, bob? >> i really like ron sarasin. [laughter] . .?=????????;?ñ???ñ?jóñwzó?

>> it may sound a bit dry to you, but those of us who love reapportionment and redistricting, this is the raw meat on which we feed. this is a tremendously exciting time because of the results from the senses are in. we know which states are going to be losing seats, which are going to be gaining seats. even those states that will retain the same number of seats as in the 2000 census, populations shift within states. because of supreme court decisions, congressional districts have to be almost exactly the same size, which right now is about 700,000 people. moreover, of course, the state legislative districts are also being redistricted it. ,his is a huge operation

and serve as consultants are called in to state legislatures to help them draw the lines. it is a very, very challenging process because, for example, of the need to accommodate, under the voting rights act, the so- called minority influenced district. that are mandated by the voting rights act. so if it is a fascinating process, and kim is probably the best person to talk about it, explain it to you come and take your questions. it is my great pleasure to introduce to you kimball brace. >> welcome to washington, d.c., for all of you. how many of you are from northern states? wow, no wonder we got cold weather down here.

sorry to all of you from the southern states. this is washington, and the new thing that is going around in d.c. politics and the change in the weather. we will see how that one goes. i'm here to talk to you about what we have seen in the last couple of months as well as where we might be going in the next several months. i am here to talk about the 2010 election, the impact, and the shape of things to come. first of all, who is election data services? election data services is, since 1986, we have been on a lot of people's walls. we produce the election poster that comes out immediately after election

day. since 1979, we have been involved in more than half the nation, in their redistricting. we draw a district boundaries. we help states and local governments create the kind of districts, work with districts, build databases for them, provide software for them, help them through that whole redistricting process. but we also, since 1980, were the ones that kept track of what kind of voting equipment is used in every single county in the country. and so, from 1980 to 2010, we have been tracking every election, what is changing in terms of voting equipment. so election administration is another side of our avenue as it relates to politics and how to conduct elections. so, if it concerns elections and deals with data, then we are

probably involved with it somewhere along the lines in that regard. as far as the 2010 elections, exciting times. before the election, we saw the democrats holding sway in most of the state governments, particularly in the state legislatures. so democrats were holding 27 states, republicans were holding 14 states, and eight states were split in terms of one party held one chamber, the other party held the other chamber. when we got in the results from 2010, it was dramatically different. i always come in dealing with our poster, i have an ongoing discussion with my printer of, does he need to order more red ink or more blue ink? obviously this election was the red ink time, as we were seeing

in the results. overall, state legislatures were very much changed from the standpoint of this does not have a cursor -- of this does not have a cursor -- upper northeast and upper northwest where were you saw the dramatic changes in the control of state legislatures. so that after election day, republicans held control of 25 states. democrats were 16 and only six were split. dramatically different make of the country because of the election results. if you looked at the change over time, the lighter blue is republican seats, the darker blue is democratic seats. you can see the democrats have held sway in many, many more in elections, really since 1900. but, indeed, by the time we get

to 2010, a dramatic switch on that regard. one of the other things that has to be taken into account from a redistricting side is who controls the governorship. governors are the ones that, after the legislature passes a bill, governors in many instances have the right to veto that bill. so republicans were doing very well on the governorships also, taking over seats in all those harsher red states. so that now you have 29 states where governors are in control, with democrats only in control of 20 states. so, when you look at the combined of them and we looked at redistricting, we always look at the legs of a stool as it relates to control of the pen

and who has the rights to draw the thing. from the standpoint of all of that, it all comes down to the census. for many of you, you may have use of it from the facebook standpoint, but that is not where the senses when. two different aspects of what we are going to be seeing -- what is called reapportionment, the other is called redistricting. there is a difference between those two terms. from the standpoint of reapportionment, what reapportionment is is the allocation of seats to an area. think of it from a congressional district standpoint, the number of congressional districts to states. but in a number of states, they use to allocate legislative districts to counties.

so you might see some states where they talk about the reapportionment process, like in florida, and they really are talking about redistricting. so it kind of depends. redistricting, on the other side, is the crafting of the district configurations within that area. you gave that area x number of seats, and indeed now you are going to draw those seats. that's the redistricting process. that takes place at congressional district level, but also at legislative district level, as well as county level, city council, wards, all sorts of levels. anytime you have legislature, upper, lower levels, smaller levels of geography, anytime that legislature is governed by single-member districts, they

have to be redrawn after each census. so as a result, we see redistricting taking place usually once a decade. but if you are tom delay, of course, you tried to get it in twice this last decade in texas. what we end up seeing is that over time and has been a lot of change in this country. indeed, the senses was set up by our founding fathers -- the census was set up by our founding fathers to deal with the hhouse of representatives and how people are reflected in our legislature. they divided the state's at that point in time due to that methodology there. the average size of a district in 1789 was 39,000 people. that is what the average size

-- by 1790, we started expanding and adding more states, and we went up to 34,000. 1800 went to 34,000 again. but with each census, we ended up adding states. by the civil war time, we had phil been an awful lot of the states, and in deed you still see-we had filled in an awful lot of the states, and indeed you still see the higher number of districts in the upper northeast and upper midwest. that was the pattern that we were seeing in this country as we started to grow. by civil war times, we were up at 122,000 persons in a district. by the turn of the century, we have filled in more of this country and given more seats out, and we were up at 193,000 per district. we were up at that point in time of 391,000, 391 representatives

in congress at the turn of the century. in 1910, we expanded again to 435, and that is where we stayed. after 1910, they capped the number of members. at that point, we were 210,000 people in each district. 1920, there was no reapportionment because congress suddenly saw that for the first time the urban areas of this country had more people in the census and the rural area of this country. at that point the rural representatives were in control, so they just did not do reapportionment in 1920. 1930, we ended up getting back in track, but we kept things at 435. that came into being in 1910

with that cap of 435. so that meant that the seat sizes continued to grow as our population grew. it grew up at two injured 80,000 in 1930. 1940, 301,000. then in 1950, and actually in 1959, we added alaska and hawaii, it went up temporarily to 437. but we were up to 344,000 people. you notice how now the states are starting -- the growth in the states are starting to move south and to the west. this is a pattern that we have now been seeing on an ongoing basis as it results -- as it relates to reapportionment and redistricting. so by 1970 we were up at 469,000 members, persons in a sea. 1980, notice how california is

at 45 congressional seats, had grown dramatically in each decade. 1990, up to 52. in 2000, they went to 53. we were up in 2000 up to 646,000 persons in a district. so what we were seeing in this country really since world war ii is the movement of population from upper midwest and from the industrial belt of this country to the south and to the west. you can see how many seats california in -- california gained 42 seats since world war ii. while new york lost 15, pennsylvania lost 18. so, dramatic change in this country was taking place because of that. indeed, when you look at how things were looking for 2010, we're seeing a continuation of

that. indeed, by the time we came up with final numbers from the census, it was indeed that movement. but the movement was governed by because under the reapportionment formula, you have a set number of seats. so the key was, where was seat number 435, and who was getting seat number 436 if we added it? some numbers were very close. there are other factors that affect reapportionment. military overseas are now added in to the population numbers by the department of defense. two warsow involved hoin this time, unlike last decade when we were not. that had an ongoing impact. indeed, from the military standpoint, that added almost two minutes thousand people. there is no adjustment to

census -- that added almost 200,000 people. there is no adjustment to census. the court -- for redistricting purposes, that is an open question. for reapportionment, it is not. part of what is governed is how well did they take the census. here we have county by county the response rate. it is a mail-in, they'll-backed operation. back we see is -- male-bacil- operation. i don't know what it is -- something about the scandinavian slugging to be involved in the process, -- loving to be involved in the process, and they participate in the census, they participated voting. part of also what is governed

this time around is how well people were staying in place. in the past 40 years since world war roe would to, the census bureau kept track of how many people have moved with each election. generally it is averaged about 17, 18%. but in the most recent time -- and if i were to update this with the 2009 study they just came out with, it is now down at 11%. the housing foreclosure and the whole controversy with the economy basically stopped things right in track where there was no movement of population. that will have an ongoing impact as we do with redistricting. dates to keep in mind -- we have already seen the census bureau released the final numbers of how many seats were going to each state.

it tracks exactly what we were showing on the map before. starting in february, through the end of march, the census bureau will be releasing the population numbers down at the census block level. this is numbers that will be used by the states and by the legislatures and by the council's to actually draw those districts. these numbers have bought or the population, voting age population, and they have it -- these numbers have majority population, voting age population, and a lot of the characteristics that will create the district over the next two years. we will see in may of 2011 a new file that is coming out booking a prisoner population. indeed, the prisoner population will have an impact on the redistricting side this time. we will see in late spring a new

tabulation coming from the census bureau on citizenship. you will be hearing this more and more. immigration policy in this country, and the impact on citizenship and whether or not citizen voting age population is the key to be using on redistricting. there are about three circuits of the upper level of the court's process in this country that have said in fact it is citizenship voting age and needs to be used for drawing districts. not in all states, so it remains to be seen. but we will get that data in late spring. and then, from basically the summer of 2011 through the summer of 2012, you will have the actual line-drawing process taking place. the state of new jersey in the state of virginia have to do it it early because they have state

legislative elections in 2011. but most other states, basically they have to do it it in time for the filing deadline for when candidates file for office. indeed, if you move district boundaries around and you move a member or somebody else out of the district, that impact whether or not they can run. indeed, in chicago, in 2000, there was a discussion on whether or not an up-and-coming state senator should be put into a congressional district or taken out of the congressional district. he was moved out of the congressional district. his name was barack obama. so everybody is impacted by redistricting on that side. indeed, if you take a look at the overall impact of november's election, it is rather dramatic in terms of whose hand is now on

the mouse as it relates to redistricting. republicans will be drawing in republican controlled state's 210 congressional districts. while democrats only will be drawing 104 congressional districts in states that they control. remaining split states have 121 congressional districts. again, you see the tilting more towards the republican side this time around, that has not been there before. indeed, as you get into the redistricting process -- and hopefully you get to an end of the redistricting process and we find that the remainder is of what happens in redistricting. we also find people like myself that get more gray hair because of redistricting on that side. so that is the reapportionment process.

as it relates to that. i also brought along, since we had a little bit of time -- we do have time, right? i brought along another presentation that we do. we do election administration, and dealing with election administrators around the country as it relates to conducting elections. there is some interesting information i thought would be valuable to present to you, information that would be useful. there are some things that are important when you are dealing with how elections are conducted. indeed, one of the key factors that comes into play is that diversity is the underpinning of elections. elections are not uniform in this country.

indeed, we have 50 states. each state has its own set of election laws. those election laws are different in each state. so instead of having a nationwide process by which we run elections, it is not. it is governed by the 50 states in each of their state election laws. but we have the process of conducting the election taking place at the county-by-county level. it is the implementation of those laws that may differ down at the county level. indeed, that was part of what we were finding in florida in 2000 in the bush vs. gore controversy and how the elections are managed by each county. indeed, that makes a difference in how they are being implemented. so when we are dealing with

elections, you have to be dealing with counties, not 50 states, but 3000 counties in this country. but it is not as simple as that because in new england, there are 1600 jurisdictions, townships, and cities. they are the ones that conduct the election. it is not county clerks in new england, but town clerks and city clerks. so if it is another 1600 that have to deal with that. but then there is also three other states -- michigan, wisconsin, and minnesota -- where they also conduct elections at the township-by- town chip level. so when you're dealing and you add those and, -- and you add those in, there are another 5000 jurisdictions in this country that conduct elections. so when you get all of it together, you have 10,000 entities in this nation that are

the ones that conduct the election. i venture to say, they do it differently in just about every little one. so the key is to understand that if you are looking at elections and understanding how elections and the elections process ultimately decides who represents us, indeed. the other thing you have to take into account is that size is something important to remember. so let me ask you a question. what is the mean size of jurisdictions in the nation in terms of the number of registered voters? anybody venture to guess? anybody? fallout a number. -- call out a number. >> 600,000. >> 600,000 in an average

jurisdiction? no, way too high. >> 300,000. >> know. you're getting in the right direction. >> 15,000. >> well, actually, 1492. christopher columbus' year, right? that is the average number of voters registered in those numbers of jurisdictions. elections are run in small areas. that is one of the keys here. it is done at the very local level. there is over 1/3 of the nation's counties that have less than 10,000 registered voters and then. over 1/3. half of the nation's counties have less than 16,000 registered voters. half of the country.

there is only 343 jurisdictions that have more than 100,000 registered voters. a very small number. a large number of people but a small number of jurisdictions. there is only 14 and have more than 1 million registered voters. so you see this great dichotomy. the smallest jurisdiction in this country is the largest is los angeles. 3.9 million registered voters. kind of a big difference, isn't it? a lot of big difference. it would take 930 of the smallest counties in this country to equal los angeles. 930 counties. that is an awful lot for just one jurisdiction. what is interesting, in looking at the election administration, is looking at the difference in

terms of the number of jurisdictions and the size, the number of registered voters. if you look at it from a schematic, you see the difference was less than 1000 persons in a jurisdiction, there is almost 5000 jurisdictions in the country, with less than 1000. but it all on it -- but it only amounts to 8/10 of a percent of the nation paused registered voters. one of the keys is that a lot of -- of the nation's registered voters. one of the keys is that a lot of the district have a small number of voters. you can summarize it this way. 340 jurisdictions over 100,000 registered voters, but that is 60% of the nation. 60% of the nation paused registered voters are in 340 jurisdictions in this country.

a big difference. that big difference is what presidential candidates looked at. indeed, if you were to look at the poster that we did two years ago in 2008, you see that difference. indeed, when we pull that up at election night as we got the first set of data in, we were in shock. i asked my napper -- my mapper -- i have too much red on this map. obama won. but all the red. mccain carried almost 2000 counties in this country while obama only carry 875. a big, big difference. indeed, the obama campaign focused on those urban areas, on where the people were.

but, indeed, that is not what you see when you look at a map necessarily. so from a data perspective as we look at things -- particularly when i am looking at it from a redistricting standpoint, i am cognizant of an ongoing stepping school when i am looking at and evaluating the impact within a jurisdiction. we look of course at a total population. but not everybody in the total population can vote. you have to be of voting age. that cuts down the number of persons, ok? not everybody of voting age can vote because you have to be a citizen in this country to vote. that cuts down how many people are there. indeed, not everybody of citizenship can vote because you have to be registered in this country. you have to be registered in order to participate in

elections, and that cuts down on an awful lot. registration is not good enough. you have to show up at the polls. that cuts down the number of people involved in the elections process. indeed, in presidential years, you vote for president, the highest office on the ballot usually, but not everybody that turns out votes for the highest office. that cuts down the number of people participating. indeed, when you look at other statewide offices, a further decrease in number for people participating. at a congressional level, it drops dramatically. at state legislative level, it drops even more dramatically. so when you look at the pyramid in terms of how participation rates, you see how much difference there is and how far down it goes.

if you study the numbers and you look at those numbers in each of those columns, you will discover that the demographics of the electorate changed at each of these. indeed, the population may say that 34% is hispanic, but because of citizenship, by the time you get down to registrati that, the hispanic pe goes down to maybe in the teens because of the dramatic shift that takes place. so when you are looking at it from a redistricting standpoint and drawing where the boundaries are, this is one of the key factors to take into account. because it changes at each level, and that is part of the data that we compile as we go about doing redistricting. it is also different, depending on what kind of voting equipment

is used in each county. indeed, in 1980, i always say that i was crazy enough to try to keep track of this. we have continued to be crazy, and we have kept track of it since 1980 with every county in the country. you take a look at punch cards in red. they were used in a lot of jurisdictions in 1980. but the most jurisdictions was, in fact, paper ballots, old traditional paper ballots. in the midwest, ok? lever machines in light blue. by 2000, when we had our famous 2000 election for president, there was a dramatic change because a lot of those particularly rural jurisdictions

that have been using paper ballots 10, 20 years before, had switched to a different kind of paper called optical scan. it was a paper ballot use and read by a computer, so it made it easy for the road jurisdictions to count those ballots. but that changed -- for those rural jurisdictions to count those ballots. but that changed dramatically. in 2000 ucd dichotomy i was talking about before -- -- into the house and you see the dichotomy i was talking about before -- in 2000 you can see the dichotomy i was talking about before. punch cards were used mainly in the suburban jurisdictions of this country. the paper ballots, 11% of the but they only had 1% of the voters because it was

mostly the rural areas. you see the difference that takes place. even when you study voting equipment, for example. in 1980 -- in 2000, we had the famous butterfly ballot. indeed, i was al gore's expert with this in florida. talking about the butterfly ballot. and the problems with punch cards. so i was the one that kept you awake on that saturday morning in court cases for three hours. but when you look at different voting equipment, you see differences as it relates to votes by people. indeed, when you look at 2000 across the country, you saw a greater number of un recorded votes taking place in punch card jurisdictions. this is the table that convinced congress to change the law and

enact the help of american vote back in 2002 and do away with punch cards because of the large number of unrecorded votes. you look at it over time, and in fact unrecorded votes have always been there. in presidential elections, we see about 1.5% to 2%. in non-presidential elections, it is 3.5% or 4% that do not vote for higher office. so you see the steppingstone we saw before. it has come down by 2008. it went down dramatically, partly because of kava. it seems to indicate it is going to back up again. we will see what happens on that side. but there has been change in voting equipment across the country since 2000. from 2000 to 2002, upwards of

11% of the county's changed what kind of voting equipment. we came into being in 2002, so from 2002 to 2004, more jurisdictions ended up changing. another 9% of the counties in this country changed voting equipment between those two years. finally, between 2004 and 2006, we saw it much more dramatic changes people finally got the money that congress promised and they made changes to their voting equipment. so overall, dramatic changes across the country. that impact data that we have, it is packed all of the elections that we have. that impacts data that we have come it impacts all of the elections that we have.

we end up trying to keep track of it. by 2008, we see that most of the country was going optical scan. indeed, if you look at the percent of counties, the optical scan in green just grew dramatically. in the last 25 years since we have been collecting vat. indeed, lever machines have gone down and paper ballots have gone down. when you look at the percent of registered voters, again looking at that dichotomy, you see optical has gone up, but in deed, the electronic systems hit a peak in 2006 and have gone down since then. as more concerned on electronic equipment put into place. so those are the different

things that we study that we have fun looking at and trying to figure out. but all that is going to impact what we are going to see over the next two years, be it voted equipment, being size of jurisdictions, as well as be it the voting patterns. that governs what ultimately takes place in the next two years on redistricting. that is why i have gray hair. because of all of that. so i am happy to take questions. >> if you would like to ask a question, please line up at the microphone. microphone.o to the >> sorry about that.

>> feel free to line up at the microphone. >> i have a question. while the 2010 census results helped to predict the -- will be 2010 census results help to predict the 2012 presidential election? >> the electoral college changes. it shifts with the changing reapportionment. it shifts about seven or eight elect our college -- electoral college votes. obama would have received a less -- six less electoral votes. it would not have caused him to lose, clearly, but it would have

caused it to be closer. if you were to run the 2000 election, bush carried that on the electoral college side. he would gain more votes with the new reapportionment process. but imagine that if in florida we had found 537 more votes for gore and gore had been elected. then, under this new reapportionment, it would have changed that outcome. yes? >> hi. my name is kathleen duffy. i go to the university of san diego. i was wondering, how do you become a member on the committee that does the redistricting in each state? >> it varies in each state. if you are in california, you have a new experience going on out there.

the voters in 2008 decided that instead of legislators, you would have a commission to draw the district. there is 14 members of that commission. they have now been selected on that side. but a starter bob with 60,000 people apply for those 14 positions. >> citizens? >> straight citizens. under california law, they could not be incumbents. they could not be politically active on that side. so they put some restrictions in on that regard. but that is only in california. each state is different. there are six states that have commissions that draw congressional district. but about 14 states have commissions that cross state legislative districts. in many instances, those

commissions, you have to look at who appoints the commissioners. in a lot of instances, it is the members themselves, the speaker and the main minority member. so in that instance, it's still politics having their hand on this sway in that regard. >> thank you. >> yes? >> my name is jessica from wesley college. you said there are 10,000 jurisdictions. why do they do that if it is such a small number? so don't they just make it there are more people, a standard number of people rather than 100 vs 3 million. >> well, that would give me more jobs to do because i would have to change that after each census. it is basically because of history. indeed, counties came into being as states were formed. you look at county boundaries and township boundaries in the upper midwest -- they were

created out of a historical pattern, and they have not changed. many jurisdictions do not want then to change. you go up into new england, those town boundaries have been there since 1780, and they do not change the boundaries at all. but it would give me more work, that's for sure, as if i needed it. >> thank you. >> other questions? >> hi. whitney from suffolk university. i was wondering if you have a particular preference on the most reliable form of voting, whether it be the letter or paper? -- the lever or paper? >> a good question. each piece of equipment is unique and has its pluses and minuses. the key is, i advise county and

state governments, you have to understand what those pluses are, but more importantly what the minuses are. and be able to think whether or not you can manage those minuses. indeed, we have seen that with the electronic equipment, the concern with not having a physical ballett -- -- a physical ballett -- electronics have benefits. as this country, we are governed more by the model livable ballots, that becomes easier to do with electronic. if you have to print five different versions of that ballot, you're printing costs go up the was due. again, it is the pluses and minuses. basically, the electronics, you

are investing front end, but in the long run the feeling is that you will save money. because with optical scan, you are not investing front end, but you are continuing that high investment of printing it each election. as not everybody votes, you are throwing away an awful lot of your budget on that side. so it is really a question of how do you want to manage the process. as well as, what is your jurisdiction used to? you have to take into account what people have used before. anytime there is a change, and it has happened numerous times this decade -- the first election gets run under a new voting equipment, and that is the best time you have a flub up. and we have had that this decade. to the key is from a management standpoint, being able to manage

those kinds of things. >> thank you. >> my name is daley, and i am also from suffolk university. it seems a bit troubling that there is such diversity in the administration. given that you think certain acts are such a positive step and do you think there should be more federal oversight? >> that is a very good question. it was surprising following the 2000 election that the degree to which people did not understand that there was that diversity. that was the one big lesson we all learned after 2000, is that it is different out there. it takes into account what is the local circumstances. by doing it down at those local levels, they can understand it is easier for the rural farmers to come into some place to vote on a paper ballot than it is --

or to send out paper ballots now, more so than it is to come into a polling place. they are out farming or whatever the case may be. so it is delocalize knowledge that comes into play. i'm one of those not so is that localized knowledge that comes into play. thatne of those who like localized knowledge. so still leaving some latitude to come into play. >> i wanted to know how much of a degree as the fact that it was so much based on each state play into voter turnout, and do you think it would be better if there was uniform law for the entire country. >> i'm sorry, what?

>> would it be better if there was a uniform voting law in the country to increase voter turnout? >> that is one of the debates that we have. it is a debate that we have up here in congress. what is interesting, when you go and listen to those debates and go up into the galleries, as you will have that opportunity, you will discover there are 145 experts on the elections process. they got elected. they know how it is run. but they do not know how -- but they do not realize that their colleague sitting next to them runs in a different process. that is what was really interesting to watch as they were debating in 2001, 2002. that they suddenly started seeing that how i do it back in my jurisdiction is not how you do it in your jurisdiction. so they started struggling with that kind of progress -- process

and whether or not to impose something on a uniform national level. they did to a certain degree. they did away with the punch cards so that when by the wayside. but they left the states and the local jurisdictions with the capability of coming up with a solution of what do you play punch cards with. the other thing that they ended up doing, the more dramatic thing, is required that each state have a statewide voter registration file. because up to that point in time you had to go to every single county to find out who was registered and get a list of registered voters to do a mailing with, for example. that caused enormous cost, and so congress dictated that states create a conglomerate, statewide

voter registration file and system by collecting all of those counties together in the one uniform format. it helped from a campaign state. -- if not from the campaign standpoint, and it helped get rid of -- it helped from a campaign standpoint. they were canceling border registrations in the old jurisdiction, and that is what that helps do this time. so there are benefits on that side from doing something on a uniform basis. it varies. i think there are some things that congress could do and has done in terms of creating something that is a better usage. for example, that voter registration system. but i still think that local

governments are better -- basically, better know their jurisdiction in what is going to work in their jurisdiction. >> one more question. >> my name is kim from wesley college. for the presidential elections, without census and demographics, how do you feel that would impact the results? >> the census and the demographics? >> without knowing the constituents in the electoral college. >> yes, it will impact. we have seen already in terms of the electoral college. but what you find also is that as you draw a district and you make changes to districts, that itself is going to impact. so the important information is understanding how that change is going to take place. that is part of what you do when you do redistricting and you

have the data bases that we put together, you have registration numbers, turnout numbers. you have votes cast for all these candidates. as you are doing redistricting, you are constantly readding those votes to the new districting information so that you can see what kind of performance that district might have. it does not mean that you are going to look towards, can i create more republican seats or can i create more democratic seats. but you are able to see the impact, and that is one of the keys. >> thank you, kimball. >> thank you very much, by all means. >> before you leave, tony had a question about, although the average number of people in each congressional district is about 700,000, clearly there are

districts which are smaller. can you tell us what they are and what the smallest congressional district is in terms of population? >> actually, the smallest one this time around will be in the state of rhode island. that state, the two congressional districts that they were allocated will only have about 512,000 people in them. the biggest one will be the state of montana. they have over 980,000 people. so you see almost two-one change. it is rather dramatic. that is why there has been a court case that ultimately went to the supreme court two months ago to try to change and un that cap of 4500 -- that cap of seats. if you uncap that, you start bringing down the deviations between the states.

>> and this is a token of our appreciation for your performance. >> thank you. >> by the way, i was reminded that this is not your maiden performance, it was 20 years ago. so welcome back after a long absence. >> thank you, thank you, by all means. [applause] tony, as i said, there are your maps for your lunch breaks. >> we will distribute that through the small groups so you can take a look at those in your small group meeting. i did not realize rhode island had the smallest congressional district, but as a child growing up, we used to have two congressional district in montana. some of my earliest memories were in the 1980 census when we lost one of those seats, and seeing all the commotion that that caused in our state, and the commotion that has been focused on the united states census in the state of montana ever since because we have 56

counties and we are the fourth largest state in the country, and we have one representative covering all of those counties. he is a guy who sleeps in his office, one of those congressmen who sleeps in his office on a pullout couch. he goes back to montana almost every single weekend with the goal of hitting every single county every single year. i would imagine it is a lot easier for those two representatives from rhode island to cover that state. they could probably cover every single county every month. >> there are 39 cities and townships. >> by the way, those states which only have one member of the house of representatives are designated as being members at large, and they are identified, for example, in the congressional directory in parentheses, "a-l."

one student told me was really interesting -- why are all of these members in congress, some members of congress and the states, all have the same name? i said what you mean? he said they are all called al. >> thank you for coming in. yes, yes. [applause] okay. on behalf of the washington center for internships and academic seminars, inside washington 2011 academic seminar, and you for your participation this morning and enjoy capitol hill. go ahead and head off to your small group meeting with your faculty. faculty, if you want to come and get these from a --

-- from me. >> for these children and all of america's children, the house will come to order. >> with the start of the new congress is wednesday, but back at the opening of past sessions online at d.c.'s ban video library -- at the c-span video library. more than 160,000 hours, all searchable in free. it is washington your way. "washington journal) is next with your phone calls. the 112th congress begins when the house reconvenes at noon. "washington journal" focuses on opening0 of the new converts. a little after 8:bought0 a.m. a little after 8:bought0 a.m.