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> In Canada, and I presume most countries of the G7, it's an independent entity Most countries have a proportional system, not a winner takes it all system. W

> In Canada, and I presume most countries of the G7, it's an independent entity Most countries have a proportional system, not a winner takes it all system. With a proportional system where X% of the votes results in X% of the seats (corrected by 3% or 5% barrier and rounding effects) gerrymandering in some cases can effect who exactly is the MP for a region, but party association matches the vote. In France two weeks ago they elected the president and the guy who in the second round got most votes nation-wide got the job. No counting per state/depardement/region. No electoral college, simple summing up. In Germany there is an interesting system that a each electoral district has a candidate elected and then parliament is filled up to match proportion. Some gerrymandering there can lead to some party benefiting from direct mandates, but that has little effect in the end. (There is some weirdness as direct mandates are supposed to be 50% of seats, but if a party gets a lot more direct mandates than proportional weight the compensation is weird) Generally the issue with giving districting away is that such commission have no democratic legislation, so if citizens are unhappy they have no way to vote them out. The University of Manitoba president is "unreachable" by the electorate. These core issues of core elements of the state (similar to rules for parliamentarians, election of supreme court justices, ...) are always problematic and rely on responsible individuals ...

nl 4y ago
Proportional vs winner takes all is a separate issue.
- winstonewert 4y ago
  Yes, but actually no. Gerrymandering is an issue precisely because of winner take all. In a proportional system the definition of districts (if they exist at all) doesn't have the same effect on the outcome of the election. In fact, the best solution to gerrymandering is adopting an electoral system (proportional) that isn't susceptible to gerrymandering.
  - ajuc 4y ago
    Proportional isn't one system, there are further details and depending on them gerrymandering can still be possible (but less important than in winner take all). For example the mandates might be distributed proportionally globally or per district. In the latter case gerrymandering works when you have rounding problems (10 mandates per district and one party has 9% of support). There are also usually thresholds under which you don't get to the parliament altogether, and the "wasted" votes are distributed proportionally between the other parties - so again, gerrymandering still works when this is done per-district rather than globally. This is exactly the situation in my country (Poland), and gerrymandering isn't a thing mostly because of people looking at it as corruption and protesting whenever some government tries to do it (last time it was PIS trying to change voting borders to add a lot of PIS-voting countryside to the capital city to finally win elections there :) - after protests they didn't do it).
    - winstonewert 4y ago
      You are right, it's not quite as simple as proportionality solving everything.
- mcv 4y ago
  It's not a separate issue, it's the root cause of the issue. Without Winner Takes All, there's no point in gerrymandering. Without districts, there's not even the possibility of gerrymandering.

nl 4y ago

Proportional vs winner takes all is a separate issue.

winstonewert 4y ago
Yes, but actually no. Gerrymandering is an issue precisely because of winner take all. In a proportional system the definition of districts (if they exist at all) doesn't have the same effect on the outcome of the election. In fact, the best solution to gerrymandering is adopting an electoral system (proportional) that isn't susceptible to gerrymandering.
- ajuc 4y ago
  Proportional isn't one system, there are further details and depending on them gerrymandering can still be possible (but less important than in winner take all). For example the mandates might be distributed proportionally globally or per district. In the latter case gerrymandering works when you have rounding problems (10 mandates per district and one party has 9% of support). There are also usually thresholds under which you don't get to the parliament altogether, and the "wasted" votes are distributed proportionally between the other parties - so again, gerrymandering still works when this is done per-district rather than globally. This is exactly the situation in my country (Poland), and gerrymandering isn't a thing mostly because of people looking at it as corruption and protesting whenever some government tries to do it (last time it was PIS trying to change voting borders to add a lot of PIS-voting countryside to the capital city to finally win elections there :) - after protests they didn't do it).
  - winstonewert 4y ago
    You are right, it's not quite as simple as proportionality solving everything.
mcv 4y ago
It's not a separate issue, it's the root cause of the issue. Without Winner Takes All, there's no point in gerrymandering. Without districts, there's not even the possibility of gerrymandering.