Twenty-Third Amendment

PROPOSED ON JUNE 16, 1960 and ratified on March 29, 1961, the Twenty-Third Amendment gave the District of Columbia the right to appoint electors of the president and vice president to the Electoral College. The number of electors was limited to the same number of electors as the least populous state.

This provided the District of Columbia with three electoral votes, the same as the state of Wyoming. Until 1961, the residents of the District of Columbia had no say in who became president and vice president of the United States. Although the seat of the federal government, with a population greater than 13 of the 50 states at that time, the residents of the District of Columbia had neither the right to go to the polls to vote in presidential elections, nor the ability to designate electors to the Electoral College. Nevertheless, they were required to fulfill all expectations of citizens of the United States, such as payment of taxes.

The amendment provided that the District of Columbia would be allowed to choose the same number of electors as a state with its population would be allowed to elect. The number of electors a state is allotted equals the number of Senators, plus the number of House Representatives who represent a state in Congress. However, the amendment also limited the number of electors the District of Columbia was allowed to obtain to an amount equaling the number of electors in the least populous state. This state, Wyoming, has three electors; therefore, the District of Columbia was given three presidential electoral votes. Three electoral votes is the least number of electors any state, regardless of its population, may be allotted because every state has at [Page 804]least one member of the House of Representatives and two Senators. Congress submitted the amendment to the states and it took only nine months for the required three-fourths of the states to ratify the amendment, which took place on March 29, 1961. Of the states that considered the amendment, a total of 40 ratified it, with only one state refusing to do so.

Based on Census data 1964–2000, this amendment prevented the District of Columbia from obtaining its true number of electoral votes based on its population. Based on its population during this time, the District of Columbia should have had four electors in presidential elections. However, 1980–2004, the District of Columbia has been designated the correct number of electoral votes for its population.

Every amendment prior to the Twenty-Third Amendment included a requirement that ratification by three-fourths of the states was required within seven years of submission of the amendment. Beginning with the Twenty-Third Amendment, instead of placing this requirement within the body of the amendment, Congress put it in the submissions of the amendments to the states for ratification. While a strict time limit is still placed on the states, it is no longer part of the amendment.

In 1978, an amendment was proposed which, if ratified, would have repealed the Twenty-Second Amendment. The District of Columbia would have been provided the same number of members of Congress, as well as the same number of electoral votes as if it were a state. It would also have been given the power to participate in the ratification of constitutional amendments. However, the amendment was not ratified. Also, the movement to designate the District of Columbia a state has not been well received, despite numerous attempts over the years to ratify such an amendment.

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