3 ms·

The core problem is the ability to leverage approximately 50% of votes into winning far more than 50% of seats.

dane-pgp 6y ago
Which suggests that a simplistic "solution" to gerrymandering is that, after the total vote share of the best-performing party is calculated (call it V%), and their share of seats is also calculated (S%), the second-best-performing party should be able to propose a change in district winners that reduces the gap between V% and S%. (And so on for the other parties competing). Of course that would be outrageously unfair, with politicians choosing which districts they win rather than voters choosing the politicians to represent them, and yet that is somehow an improvement over the current system of gerrymandering. A slightly less extreme option would be for the districts that get flipped to be decided by where a given party came closest to winning (the "best near-winner" system used in Baden-Württemberg), but really the aim of this system is to remove all incentive to gerrymander in the first place, so this result flipping rule would never have to be applied.
- aaronblohowiak 6y ago
  This is how the German system works. Not unfair at all. You cast two votes: one for a person, one for a party. At the end of the day the party percentages have to roughly line up (with a minimum percent for any representative at all.) This system has some very nice balancing properties in that you can vote for the person you want to represent you in the present race as well as the party you most strongly identify with.
  - dane-pgp 6y ago
    My understanding is that the German system is Mixed-Member Proportional Representation (MMP) [0] which usually involves having a list of top-up candidates who don't belong to any specific district. The Baden-Württemberg system is a clever way around this, although it does lead to some districts being represented by multiple representatives. Having more representatives than districts seems like it would be an overly-ambitious cultural shift in the US, whereas my proposal keeps the familiar 1:1 correspondence, even if there is gerrymandering. It also doesn't change the ballot papers or counting process; and, if gerrymandering is successfully disincentivised, the process works exactly the same as under the existing system. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-member_proportional_representation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-member_proportional_repr...
    - aaronblohowiak 6y ago
      yes, i dont believe i contradicted anything there, but you are right i didnt tell the whole story and thank you for spelling out some of the details. more representatives than districts would be a shift and i agree this may be a harder pill to swallow.
rstuart4133 6y ago
I'd say the core problem goes deeper than that, and getting rid of gerrymandering only solves part of it. Let's say you have parties representing 10%, 20%, 30% and 40% of the population respectively. Ideally, you'd like the politicians elected in the same proportions. In reality if the populations are dispersed evenly, then when you divide up the populations into seats and elect one representative from each seat you are going to end up with some mix of the 30% and 40% making up 100% of the parliament. If the distribution is perfectly even and you are using FPP then the entire parliament will all be from the 40% - which is more of a dictatorship by the 40% than a democracy. Gerrymandering, and a "fairer" voting system like instant runoff might alter the break up of the 30% and 40%, but either way the 10% doesn't get a seat. To have any say at all they have to vote for one of the 30% or 40%. In other words you end up with a 2 party system, which is of course what we do have. Neither getting rid of gerrymandering nor using a better voting system actually solve the problem, if the problem is ensuring parliament reflects the voting population. Yet we see those two things proposed over and over again here on HN and elsewhere. The solution is what the other posters in this sub-thread mention. Germany and NZ use it. To me, it looks to have worked very well for them. But getting there is hard as the incumbent 2 parties will combine to oppose it. The change always makes them lose seats to the minorities.

Which suggests that a simplistic "solution" to gerrymandering is that, after the total vote share of the best-performing party is calculated (call it V%), and their share of seats is also calculated (S%), the second-best-performing party should be able to propose a change in district winners that reduces the gap between V% and S%. (And so on for the other parties competing). Of course that would be outrageously unfair, with politicians choosing which districts they win rather than voters choosing the politicians to represent them, and yet that is somehow an improvement over the current system of gerrymandering. A slightly less extreme option would be for the districts that get flipped to be decided by where a given party came closest to winning (the "best near-winner" system used in Baden-Württemberg), but really the aim of this system is to remove all incentive to gerrymander in the first place, so this result flipping rule would never have to be applied.

aaronblohowiak 6y ago
This is how the German system works. Not unfair at all. You cast two votes: one for a person, one for a party. At the end of the day the party percentages have to roughly line up (with a minimum percent for any representative at all.) This system has some very nice balancing properties in that you can vote for the person you want to represent you in the present race as well as the party you most strongly identify with.
- dane-pgp 6y ago
  My understanding is that the German system is Mixed-Member Proportional Representation (MMP) [0] which usually involves having a list of top-up candidates who don't belong to any specific district. The Baden-Württemberg system is a clever way around this, although it does lead to some districts being represented by multiple representatives. Having more representatives than districts seems like it would be an overly-ambitious cultural shift in the US, whereas my proposal keeps the familiar 1:1 correspondence, even if there is gerrymandering. It also doesn't change the ballot papers or counting process; and, if gerrymandering is successfully disincentivised, the process works exactly the same as under the existing system. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-member_proportional_representation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-member_proportional_repr...
  - aaronblohowiak 6y ago
    yes, i dont believe i contradicted anything there, but you are right i didnt tell the whole story and thank you for spelling out some of the details. more representatives than districts would be a shift and i agree this may be a harder pill to swallow.

rstuart4133 6y ago

I'd say the core problem goes deeper than that, and getting rid of gerrymandering only solves part of it. Let's say you have parties representing 10%, 20%, 30% and 40% of the population respectively. Ideally, you'd like the politicians elected in the same proportions. In reality if the populations are dispersed evenly, then when you divide up the populations into seats and elect one representative from each seat you are going to end up with some mix of the 30% and 40% making up 100% of the parliament. If the distribution is perfectly even and you are using FPP then the entire parliament will all be from the 40% - which is more of a dictatorship by the 40% than a democracy. Gerrymandering, and a "fairer" voting system like instant runoff might alter the break up of the 30% and 40%, but either way the 10% doesn't get a seat. To have any say at all they have to vote for one of the 30% or 40%. In other words you end up with a 2 party system, which is of course what we do have. Neither getting rid of gerrymandering nor using a better voting system actually solve the problem, if the problem is ensuring parliament reflects the voting population. Yet we see those two things proposed over and over again here on HN and elsewhere. The solution is what the other posters in this sub-thread mention. Germany and NZ use it. To me, it looks to have worked very well for them. But getting there is hard as the incumbent 2 parties will combine to oppose it. The change always makes them lose seats to the minorities.