5 ms·
Why not solve the problem of gerrymandering by getting rid of the "winner takes all" property? E.g. instead of having 100 districts selecting 1 representative
by q-big 4y ago
Why not solve the problem of gerrymandering by getting rid of the "winner takes all" property?
E.g. instead of having 100 districts selecting 1 representative using the winner-takes-all principle, which are very sensitive with respect to gerrymandering, make 10 districts where each one sends 10 representatives, where the distribution of representatives approximates the distribution of the submitted votes.
This should decrease the problem a lot.
- spaetzleesser 4y agoThat would be my preference. Or split between a number of representatives selected by winning a district and a number of representatives selected by the popular vote. Germany has a system like this.
- lkrubner 4y agoFrom the essay: Some nations have fine-grained representation of land but course-grained representation of ideas Some nations have fine-grained representation of ideas but course-grained representation of land You cannot have both, unless you're willing to have a legislature that has something like 5,000 people in it, which is not practical. (For instance, the USA has 50 states, so if we wanted 100 representatives from each state, the legislature would have 5,000 people in it — clearly not realistic.)
- colinmhayes 4y agoWhy do we need both? It's not like my house rep gives a shit about what I think even though I'm in his party. Having "your" rep seems incredibly overvalued.
- hvusslax 4y agoComing from a non-Anglosphere country with a long tradition of proportional voting, this idea of "my" representative has simply never made any sense to me. How can a member of a legislative body represent voters that didn't actually vote for him? What does it effectively mean to have "your" representative that you share with half a million other people and who doesn't share your values?
- smw 4y agoNZ has both geographic seats and list-based proportional seats?
- robocat 4y agoYes. NZer here. The list-based implementation is hideously undemocratic. The party chooses the list candidates. The problem is that the two major parties get to choose some of our members of parliament, because they are at the top of the party list. We get members of parliament that have zero franchise and that you effectively cannot vote out. Personally I think it's a really fucked system. Although even with all its suckiness, it is way way better than a two-party system like in the USA. We get some kooky third parties, but somehow the third parties seem to keep everything honest.