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I was thinking about the redistricting fiasco and recent SCOTUS ruling abomination and have concluded that the whole concept of a congressional district electing a single representative in Congress is fatally flawed.

Consider a state that has an evenly distributed population that is 80% republican and 20% democratic voters. Suppose the state was divided into 100 equal area square "districts" of 100,000 people per district. Each district would be 80% republican and 20% democratic.

If there was only one representative elected per district, there would almost certainly end up being 100 republicans elected to Congress. How can this possibly fairly represent the state's 20% democratic voters? The representatives have no incentive to do anything that would benefit the 20% minority population since they only need the votes of the 80% majority to be elected again and again.

And of course, the same thing would apply to an 80% democratic and 20% republican district.

It seems to me that an ideal way to fix this would be to elect MORE than one representative per district. How many more is up for debate, but I'd suggest at least 10.

The result would be 4350 House members. Yeah, it's a lot, but it would much more fairly represent the population fairly. And somehow, ideally, each representative SHOULD represent the same number of people. That might necessitate even more members.

Consider a state that has an evenly distributed population that is 80% republican and 20% democratic voters.

Thing is, Dems are not evenly distributed. That is why the regime is investigating the vote in Wayne County, MI, which voted 62% for Harris, in a state Trump the Great carried, and Fulton County, GA, which voted 72% for Harris, in a state Trump the Great carried.

Steve

Thing is, Dems are not evenly distributed. That is why the regime is investigating the vote in Wayne County, MI, which voted 62% for Harris, in a state Trump the Great carried, and Fulton County, GA, which voted 72% for Harris, in a state Trump the Great carried.

Yes, but if the districts are allocated using a sensible equal area, equal shape algorithm (details need to be ironed out of course), AND we have (at least) 10 representatives per district, the end result will be a more fair representation of the populations of each district, both democrats and republicans.

The result would be 4350 House members. Yeah, it's a lot, but it would much more fairly represent the population fairly.

Unfortunately, looking at the matter from the perspective of how deliberative bodies work…… you’d end up with a ponderous mob, not anything resembling a group of men and women who could weigh and intelligently decide complex issues.

Still, it would be better than the smaller gaggle of gridlocked mad babies we have now.

But I think you’re right to be considering alternatives.

Unfortunately, looking at the matter from the perspective of how deliberative bodies work…… you’d end up with a ponderous mob, not anything resembling a group of men and women who could weigh and intelligently decide complex issues.

Yeah, being able to get all 4350 members together to vote or debate could be a problem.

We'd probably need to construct a new office building at a minimum. At least one that would have 4350 offices for all those members.

As for debates, we'd either need a new stadium of some sort, or, perhaps we could just allow only 435 members at to be randomly selected (from those who indicated they had something to say) at a time to engage in debate on the current House floor, with the other members attending virtually.

For a size comparison, the Icahn Stadium in Manhattan seats 5000 in a linear arrangement, but it could just as well be made circular, like the Roman Coliseum!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icahn_Stadium

the Icahn Stadium in Manhattan seats 5000 in a linear arrangement, but it could just as well be made circular, like the Roman Coliseum!

Like a circular firing squad.

Unfortunately, looking at the matter from the perspective of how deliberative bodies work…… you’d end up with a ponderous mob, not anything resembling a group of men and women who could weigh and intelligently decide complex issues.

In the really really olden days of democracy, the citizens of Athens would line up, listen to (or participate in) the debate on an issue, and then drop colored stones into a vase. Dump the vase, count the stones, issue decided. No bother with “representatives’, every citizen had a vote. That’s true Democracy.

Of course there were tons of people who didn’t have a vote: slaves, women, those not yet citizens, and so on, so it wasn’t perfect. Wasn’t perfect? It was downright terrible if you were among the disenfranchised.

With the internet today it would be possible to return to “pure democracy”. With verified status (only those who can successfully identify all the squares with a bicycle), you could let every citizen vote on every issue. What fun that would be!

But pretty much that’s why we don’t have “democracy”, but “representative democracy”. In making that step change, you automatically guarantee that some voices will not be heard or will be pushed to the edge of irrelevance. It’s worse now than at other times, but it’s never been perfect.

I lived for a time in Massachusetts. You mostly did not want to be a Republican there, although they did elect some Republican governors. I also lived (very early life) in California. Again, not a great place for Republicans these days.

Now I live in Tennessee, where Republicans have both Senate seats, most Reps, the Governorship, and most judges. I keep my head down but still work for the opposition, even though it comes to nothing.

I think it would be better with a Constitutional Amendment prohibiting redistricting except after each 10 year Census, and then done by an independent citizens council which would (somehow) be protected from political dominance. I would also like to see some sort of mathematical or algorithmic way of doing so to take the “human emotion” out of it as entirely as might be feasible. (Tough putt, that, but I think it could be achieved.)

Yes, but if the districts are allocated using a sensible equal area,

The last thing you want is equal area. Land doesn't vote. People vote. You want equal population, not equal area. And that's what we have (roughly - and with gerrymandering).

If you want to better represent the voting population, you're on the right track with more representatives. 10 per district is probably unworkable, but 3 or 4 might work well. Let people vote for one representative on the slate, but the top 3 or 4 (or whatever number you pick) are elected. Of course, that would take a constitutional amendment, so don't look for it any time soon. If ever.

--Peter

The last thing you want is equal area. Land doesn't vote. People vote. You want equal population, not equal area. And that's what we have (roughly - and with gerrymandering).

Yes, you are right. We need some way of creating districts based on equal population that also makes all districts have minimal perimeter per area - as "inflated" as possible if you will - which would eliminate the "snake like" shapes of extreme Gerrymandering.

If you want to better represent the voting population, you're on the right track with more representatives. 10 per district is probably unworkable, but 3 or 4 might work well. Let people vote for one representative on the slate, but the top 3 or 4 (or whatever number you pick) are elected. Of course, that would take a constitutional amendment, so don't look for it any time soon. If ever.

Yes, that could work.

If you want to better represent the voting population, you're on the right track with more representatives. 10 per district is probably unworkable, but 3 or 4 might work well. Let people vote for one representative on the slate, but the top 3 or 4 (or whatever number you pick) are elected. Of course, that would take a constitutional amendment, so don't look for it any time soon. If ever.

I don't think you need a constitutional amendment, but you would need to repeal the federal statute that requires single-member districts for the Federal house.

As for multi-member districts, I suppose it really depends on what you're trying to solve for. It's nice to imagine that if you have a district that's 75% voters of the A party, and 25% voters of the B party, that if you have a multi-member district (MMD) election that picks four members you'd end up with 3 A members and 1 B member. But that really is a function of how many people compete for those seats. If you have 4 A-party candidates running, and 4 B-party candidates running, you'll likely end up with all A-party representatives. Then when you apply that over different types of majority/minority splits (75% white and 25% black, 75% urban and 25% rural, etc.) you can end up with a system where the representatives that get elected tend to come from the most majority of groups anyway.

As for algorithmically drawing districts, I find some of the arguments in this old commoncause discussion to be compelling:

“Doesn’t using computers to draw districts completely eliminate human bias?”

No computer program to draw districts will ever be free of human judgment and bias because human beings must input instructions for a computer program to follow. One or more human beings must make value judgments about whether to tell the program to prioritize competition between the major parties, keeping counties and or cities together, nesting state house districts into state senate districts, or one of the many measures of compactness, partisan symmetry, or responsiveness. Choosing which to consider or one over the other is a political and value judgment whether a person does it directly when drawing districts or programs a computer to do so.



“OK, but once humans have made all those decisions, can’t a computer automatically generate the best map?”

Ordering a computer to generate a map based on specific criteria does not result in one map. It results in an infinite number of maps.

https://www.commoncause.org/articles/not-a-job-for...

No computer program to draw districts will ever be free of human judgment and bias because human beings must input instructions for a computer program to follow.

Oh no question, there will some bias cooking into everything, but at least the bias will be somewhat consistent. At the moment there is nothing preventing raw political animus from carving up one district one way and another district by a completely different set of rules. I think most of us think that “rules” are a good feature of a democratic society.

That said, there are also some situations where a consistent set of rules might disadvantage (perhaps permanently) some groups. I can see how minority populations might be “smoothed” into the larger subset, rather than clustered as they are now, which produces at least some minority representatives. I’m sure you could find other deleterious effects as well, but at the moment we’re not even trying.

And my idea of “algorithm” is simpler, like “draw each district with substantially equal populations, using the least number of sides of the district boundary as possible”. (Not sure if that’s clear, but the idea would be to have the computer run multiple scenarios to find equal size districts with as little of the snake-like Gerry found in gerrymandering.)

But that really is a function of how many people compete for those seats.

True. Maybe. Depends a bit on the party discipline. My thought was that if you can only vote for 1 person and the top four get in, you pretty much can't keep out at least one minority candidate. If the minority party runs too many candidates, they risk losing all seats. If they run just a single candidate, they're going to get one seat. If they run 2 candidates, they might not.

You could also use a form of ranked voting. Vote for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choice. (Or more, depending on the math). Count up all the 1st choices. Eliminate the bottom vote getter, and move those votes onto the voter's second choice. Eliminate the new bottom vote getter and move those votes to the next down the line. (Could be second choice for some, 3rd choice for folks who picked the bottom two as their 1st and 2nd choice. Repeat until you have the desired number of winners. (Perhaps 4 in our example, could be just 1 in our current system of a single representative for a district.)

--Peter

PS - For a better explanation of ranked choice voting, here's a couple of good videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE CGP Grey
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P6aYbUo19U Robert Riech

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