Article One of the
United States Constitution provides for direct election of members of the
House of Representatives. The
Uniform Congressional District Act, enacted in 1967 and codified as , dictates that representatives must be elected from geographical districts and that these must be
single-member districts. Indeed it confirms when the
state has a single representative, that will be a representative at large.
U.S. House of Representatives States as at-large congressional districts •
Alaska •
Delaware •
North Dakota •
South Dakota •
Vermont •
Wyoming Former at-large congressional districts •
Alabama •
Arizona •
Arkansas •
California •
Colorado •
Connecticut •
Florida •
Georgia •
Hawaii •
Idaho •
Illinois •
Indiana •
Iowa •
Kansas •
Kentucky •
Louisiana •
Maine •
Maryland •
Massachusetts •
Michigan •
Minnesota •
Mississippi •
Missouri •
Montana •
Nebraska •
Nevada •
New Hampshire •
New Jersey •
New Mexico •
New York •
North Carolina •
Ohio •
Oklahoma •
Oregon •
Pennsylvania •
Rhode Island •
South Carolina •
Tennessee •
Texas •
Utah •
Virginia •
Washington •
West Virginia Non-voting at-large congressional districts •
American Samoa •
American Virgin Islands •
Cherokee Nation •
District of Columbia •
Guam •
Puerto Rico •
Northern Mariana Islands Former non-voting at-large congressional districts •
Alabama Territory •
Alaska Territory •
Arizona Territory •
Colorado Territory •
Dakota Territory •
Florida Territory •
Hawaii Territory •
Idaho Territory •
Illinois Territory •
Indiana Territory •
Iowa Territory •
Kansas Territory •
Mississippi Territory •
Missouri Territory •
Montana Territory •
Nevada Territory •
New Mexico Territory •
Northwest Territory •
Oklahoma Territory •
Oregon Territory •
Orleans Territory •
Philippines •
Southwest Territory •
Utah Territory •
Washington Territory •
Wisconsin Territory •
Wyoming Territory Simultaneous at-large and sub-state-size congressional districts This is a table of every such instance. It shows the situation applied to a small, varying group of states in three periods. The 33rd Congress began in 1853; it ended two years later. The 38th began in 1863; the 50th ended in 1889. The 53rd began in 1893; the 89th ended in January 1967, the final such period. This was due to the 1964 case of
Reynolds v. Sims: the
United States Supreme Court determined that the general basis of apportionment must be "
one person, one vote."
State elections As of 2021, ten U.S. states have at least one legislative chamber which uses multi-winner at-large districts: •
Arizona House of Representatives (for all representatives in all sessions) •
New Jersey General Assembly (for all representatives in all sessions) •
South Dakota House of Representatives (for all representatives in all sessions) •
Washington House of Representatives (for all representatives in all sessions) •
Maryland House of Delegates (allowed by law even when not used) •
Idaho House of Representatives (allowed by law even when not used) •
North Dakota House of Representatives (allowed by law even when not used) •
Vermont Senate and
Vermont House of Representatives (allowed by law even when not used) •
West Virginia Senate and
West Virginia House of Delegates (allowed by law even when not used; will switch to all-single-winner districts for both chambers in 2022) •
New Hampshire House of Representatives (allowed by law even when not used; uses floterial districts which can geographically overlap each other) In the 1980s, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, South Carolina, and Virginia all moved entirely from multi-winner districts in either chamber, followed by Alaska, Georgia, and Indiana in the 1990s. After the
2010 United States redistricting cycle, Nevada eliminated their two remaining multi-member senate districts and implemented single-winner districts in both houses. In 2018, West Virginia passed a law switching all remaining multi-winner
House of Delegates seats to single-winner districts following the
2020 United States Census.
Local elections Since passage of the
Voting Rights Act of 1965 and lessening of some historic barriers to voter registration and voting, legal challenges have been made based on at-large election schemes at the county or city level, including in school board elections, in numerous jurisdictions where minorities had been effectively excluded from representation on local councils or boards. An example is
Charleston County, South Carolina, which was sued in 2001 and reached a settlement in 2004. Its county commission changed to nine members elected from single-member districts; in 2015 they included six white Republicans and three African-American Democrats, where the black minority makes up more than one-third of the population. In another instance, in 2013
Fayette County, Georgia, which had an estimated 70% white majority and 20% black minority, was ordered by a federal district court to develop
single-member districts for election of members to its county council and its school board. Due to at-large voting, African Americans had been unable to elect any candidate of their choice to either of these boards for decades. Such local election systems have become subject to litigation since enabling more representative elections can create entry points for minorities and women into the political system and provide more representative government. In the late 1980s, several major cities in Tennessee reached settlement in court cases to adopt
single-member districts to enable minorities to elect candidates of their choice to city councils, who had previously been excluded by at-large voting favoring the majority population. By 2015, voters in two of these cities had elected women mayors who had gotten their start in being elected to the city council from single-member districts. The town of
Islip, New York was sued by four residents in 2018 for violating the Voting Rights Act by maintaining a discriminatory at-large council system. One-third of Islip's population is Hispanic, but only one person of color has ever been elected to a town seat. As part of the settlement reached in 2020, the at-large system will be abolished and replaced by four council districts by 2023. Some states have passed laws that further discourage the use of at-large districts. For example, the
California Voting Rights Act removes one of the criteria required for a successful federal Voting Rights Act challenge, which has thus resulted in hundreds of cities, school districts, and special districts moving to single member area-based elections. Some jurisdictions have kept at-large city councils and boards. The solution adopted by
Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1941 was to elect all council officials via
Ranked-choice proportional representation,
Single transferable voting.
Territorial elections Five territorial governments in the United States elect some or all of their members at large or in multi-member districts: • Four members of the
Council of the
District of Columbia are elected at large by the district. • Eleven members in both the
Senate and
House of Representatives of
Puerto Rico are elected commonwealth-wide by
single non-transferable vote. In addition, two members each are elected by plurality from the Senate's eight senatorial districts. • The 15 senators of the
Guam Legislature are elected at large through an open partisan primary and a subsequent island-wide election. • One senator in the
Legislature of the
United States Virgin Islands is elected at large by the territory, but must be a resident of the island of
Saint John. • The
Northern Mariana Islands elects
3 senators each from three senate districts, and multiple representatives from
five out of seven House districts. ==See also==