What is the 23rd Amendment?

The 23rd Amendment reads: 'The District constituting the seat of Government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may direct: A number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State, but in no event more than the least populous State; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of President and Vice President, to be electors appointed by a State; and they shall meet in the District and perform such duties as provided by the twelfth article of amendment.' Section 2 gives Congress the power to enforce the amendment by appropriate legislation. Congress proposed the 23rd Amendment on June 16, 1960, and it was ratified on March 29, 1961, when 38 of the then-50 states had ratified.

Before the 23rd Amendment, residents of Washington D.C. had no say in presidential elections. The Constitution vests authority over the District in Congress (Article I, Section 8), but Congress had never extended the presidential franchise to D.C. residents. From 1800, when the federal government moved to Washington, through 1960, D.C. residents paid federal taxes and served in the military but could not vote for president. The amendment was a product of the democratic reform climate of the late 1950s and early 1960s; Congress proposed it with large bipartisan majorities in 1960, and it was ratified in less than one year.

The 23rd Amendment fixes D.C.'s electoral votes at 3 in practice. The amendment says D.C. gets electors equal to what it would receive if it were a state -- one vote per member of the House of Representatives it would have, plus two for its senators -- but no more than the least populous state. D.C.'s population entitles it to the equivalent of 1 House seat, so its calculated total is 1 (representative equivalent) + 2 (senator equivalents) = 3. Wyoming, the least populous state, also has 1 representative and 2 senators for a total of 3. The amendment's cap equals D.C.'s calculated total, so D.C. casts 3 electoral votes. Adding D.C.'s 3 votes brought the Electoral College total from 535 to 538 and raised the winning majority threshold from 268 to 270.

The 23rd Amendment has direct relevance to the 2028 presidential election. D.C.'s 3 electoral votes are part of the 538-vote Electoral College total; a candidate needs 270 to win. D.C. has voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in every election since 1964 -- the first presidential election in which D.C. residents could participate following ratification. D.C. is not a swing state or a competitive battleground, but its 3 votes are counted in every Electoral College map and are part of the arithmetic any candidate must assemble toward 270.