Why Texas, Florida won’t get more House seats from census miscount

The U.S. Census Bureau this week said the decennial tabulation of every American resident had miscounted populations in 14 states by enough that a handful of seats in the House of Representatives should have gone to other states.

But even with evidence in hand that at least a few seats should have shifted between states — Texas and Florida, for example, may have deserved additional seats — there is nothing those states, the Census Bureau, the Commerce Department or Congress can do about it.

On Thursday, the Bureau released the results of its post-enumeration survey, an in-depth look at the accuracy of the decennial count that took place beginning in 2020.

The latest survey showed the decennial count missed, or undercounted, a statistically significant portion of the populations of six states: Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Florida, Texas and Illinois.

At the same time, the census over-counted populations in eight states: Delaware, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island and Utah.