23rd Amendment

Bust out your magnifying glass. We're taking an up-close look at 23rd Amendment of the US Constitution.

Passed by Congress: 16 June 1960
Ratified: 29 March 1961

Section 1. The District constituting the seat of Government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as 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. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Washington, DC, is not a state. The Electoral College, as designed in 1787, grants votes only to states. Therefore, until 1961, people who lived in the District of Columbia weren't able to vote for president. The Twenty-third Amendment gave DC residents a number of presidential electors (3) equal to those of the least populous state.

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