# Evenwel v. Abbott **578 U.S. 54 (2016).** The Supreme Court held unanimously that a state may use total population, rather than eligible-voter population, as the baseline for drawing state legislative districts under [[One Person One Vote]]. The Court expressly declined to decide whether a state *must* use total population, leaving the harder question open. The case matters to apportionment because it is the closest the Court has come to articulating the representational theory behind counting everyone: the idea, quoted from earlier authority, that the basis of representation in the House is the whole community rather than the electorate. That reasoning is what any attempt to exclude residents from the federal apportionment base has to overcome. See [[How the Census Apportions Congress]] and [[Gerrymandering]].