The census deals out power — and the count has been rigged

A proposed Census Bureau rule would limit the 2030 apportionment count to citizens and green-card holders. Florida counts straight and could still pay for it — a price worth paying only if every state is held to the same standard.

• Proposed rule: citizens and green-card holders count for apportionment; other noncitizens don't.
• Florida's 2020 undercount was 3.48% — fourth-worst in the nation.
• Watchdog warning: Florida could lose one of the three House seats it is projected to gain.
• Public comments on the rule close November 2, 2026.

The Census Bureau has proposed a rule that would change who counts when Congress's 435 seats are divided among the states. Under the proposal, published in the Federal Register on September 10, the apportionment base for the 2030 census would be limited to U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents — excluding people here illegally, along with most temporary visa holders, TPS recipients, and asylum seekers. The rule would also strip the race and ethnicity questions from the questionnaire.

This matters because apportionment has never required citizenship. Seats — and with them Electoral College votes — are dealt by total population, which means states with the largest illegal populations collect extra representation in Congress, paid for by every state that doesn't. Counting people who cannot legally vote, in order to gain House seats, is the cheat baked into the current system.

Florida runs its own house to a higher standard. The state audits its voter rolls — an independent records analysis found 5,612 noncitizens removed since 2020, 1,827 of whom had cast ballots — and its attorney general prosecutes illegal voting. The proposed rule would hold the whole country to one standard. The honest cost, flagged by the Project On Government Oversight: Florida was already undercounted by 3.48% in 2020, fourth-worst in the nation, and the rule could cost the state one of the three seats it is projected to gain — seats and formula money ($100.3 billion in Medicaid and Medicare alone flowed to Florida in FY23) that follow the count. That price is worth paying only if the standard is truly uniform: no state rewarded for padding its count, no state punished for counting straight.

The comment period on the rule was extended and now closes November 2, 2026 — after that, a final rule and, almost certainly, lawsuits.