When voters chose members of state legislatures on Nov. 7, 2000, it’s a safe bet that none of them thought that a dozen years later their vote might affect the resolution of the major national political issue of the day.

Yet the election of those legislatures has had a direct effect on the struggle between the House of Representatives and President Obama over the so-called fiscal cliff ”“ the threatened result of a failure to come to grips with the federal debt.

In a great majority of states, the legislatures elected in 2000 determined the shape of congressional districts that would remain in effect from 2002 until next month.

Republicans now control the House, thanks to a great extent of the design of their districts. The increased influence of the GOP in the House is not simply a matter of a shift in voter preference. It also reflects the effects of the redistricting done in state legislatures after the 2000 elections.

Recently elected, strongly conservative GOP members exercise considerable influence if not outright control in the House. The fiscal cliff battle has been essentially a struggle between them and Obama.

In 2000, after enjoying federal budget surpluses, voters could have no idea of how much and how quickly things would change.

They could not envisage two wars, major tax cuts, the unfunded Medicare prescription benefit, or the efforts to fight one of the nation’s worse recessions. All of these costly measures drove the national debt to alarming levels.

Republicans and Democrats have agreed that strong action must be taken to halt the increase in debt and to begin to reduce it. But the ways favored by each side differed radically, producing a multi-year deadlock.

Each state controls the design of its congressional districts with the requirement that the population of each be almost exactly the same. In some parts of the country, states are required to avoid districting that serves to disenfranchise minorities.

In practice, Republican-controlled state legislatures have drawn the lines so as to pack as many Democrats in as few districts as possible, leaving the rest of them for the GOP.

This practice has been a great success. Statistical studies have found that Republicans do about 2 percent better than their standing in national polls thanks to their control of redistricting.

Though the difference cannot entirely be attributed to district maps, this year the GOP received about 48 percent of the popular vote in all House races, but ended up with almost 54 percent of the seats.

According to the New York Times, Wisconsin supported Obama, elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate, and gave more votes to Democratic House candidates. But five of the state’s eight seats in Congress went to Republicans.

In Pennsylvania, the Times found an even more remarkable situation. The state voted for Obama, re-elected a Democratic senator, and gave more House votes to Democrats, but the GOP ended up with 13 of 18 House seats.

Mainers may recall the state’s tussle on redistricting in 2011.

The state had usually adopted new districts to take effect four years after the previous federal census ”“ in this case 2014. The GOP said that the new districts should apply to the 2012 election as in most other states, and a federal court agreed.

With only two districts and both Democratic representatives winning by good margins, one could wonder why the GOP cared so much. In the end, even if Republican Kevin Raye had gained all 20,000 voters to be moved into the 2nd District, he would have lost to Mike Michaud, the Democratic incumbent.

But there may have been another, unstated reason to explain the need to draw new district lines before the 2012 elections.

Maine and Nebraska are the only two states that allot electoral college votes for president based on both statewide and congressional district results. In Maine, a candidate can win all four electoral votes or only three, the opposing candidate gaining one by carrying one congressional district.

A leading national analyst placed Maine’s 2nd District among the top 10 “states” ”“ actually nine states and the Maine district ”“ that might provide the decisive electoral vote for president.

So the GOP effort to increase the number of Republicans in that district this year may have had as much to with defeating Obama as ousting Michaud.

What’s the moral of this story?

When people vote in state legislative elections, they are unlikely to think for an instant about the implications for the future of Congress or major national issues that may be over the horizon. That may be a mistake, but one that can be remedied by voters.

Every election matters and every vote counts.

— Gordon L. Weil is an author, publisher, consultant, and former official of international organizations and the U.S. and Maine governments.