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Constitution Day and Citizenship Day - September 17

Government Publications and Other Resources

Article 1 Section 2

Article I, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution mandates that an apportionment of representatives among the states must be carried out every 10 years. Therefore, apportionment is the original legal purpose of the decennial census, as intended by our Nation's Founders. Apportionment is the process of dividing the 435 memberships, or seats, in the U.S. House of Representatives among the 50 states, based on the state population counts that result from each decennial census.  The apportionment results will be the first data published from the 2020 Census, and those results will determine the amount of political representation each state will have in Congress for the next 10 years.

Source: census.gov

What is the Census?

The Amazing Apportionment Machine - Animated Video