8 ms·

There's a far better solution to gerrymandering than these creative ways to draw lines on a map. It's called proportional representation, and it's used in many

There's a far better solution to gerrymandering than these creative ways to draw lines on a map. It's called proportional representation, and it's used in many countries in Europe (usually combined with the d'Hondt formula). FPTP leads to far more silliness than PR and therefore countries using PR have healthier political discourse and systems. Sad that the UK rejected the proposal to abolish FPTP in the early 10s. Edit: changed this tautological sounding sentence - "None of the countries using PR suffer from the sillinesses arising from FPTP."

card_zero 3y ago
> None of the countries using PR suffer from the sillinesses arising from FPTP Frankly, I'd be surprised if they did. It seems much more likely that they'd suffer from the problems of PR instead.
- cherryteastain 3y ago
  I get what you mean, looking back that sentence reads like a tautology. I guess what I should've said is "FPTP leads to far more silliness than PR and therefore countries using PR have healthier political discourse and systems"
- ensignavenger 3y ago
  I wanted to add some additional thoughts on what the problems of PR might be... - Clusters of minority populations tend to not get as much representation, because they are but a small voice in a bigger ocean of voices. - Representatives can't focus on representing a smaller geographic area, including field offices, outreach, constituent services, etc as easily, because they have to represent a much broader geographic area. - A lack of community ties, as representatives are representing a broader geography, the representative is less likely to know the names, places, and small cultural quirks associated with the communities they represent. Please feel free to add comments of your own with additional downsides. I am generally a fan of proportional voting systems, but I think it is important to have an honest discussion of the pros and cons, as there are ways to build representative systems that balance these concerns- but we have to be aware of and acknowledge them.
  - RandomLensman 3y ago
    I think these are all minor quirks that can be addressed in some ways. The biggest "quirk" of PR is that you tend to get coalition governments, which isn't always so easy to strategize on as a voter.
    - ensignavenger 3y ago
      Yes, I acknowledge that their are ways to address them, but I wouldn't call them minor.
      - RandomLensman 3y ago
        I meant compared to getting coalition governments that most voters didn't want.
    - cherryteastain 3y ago
      Coalitions aren't a PR quirk. UK uses FPTP and has had several coalition governments, most recently in 2010-2015.
    - jameshart 3y ago
      The US House of Representatives currently has an uneasy coalition masquerading as a FPTP majority.
  - UncleMeat 3y ago
    > Clusters of minority populations tend to not get as much representation, because they are but a small voice in a bigger ocean of voices. This would be true if not for gerrymandering. Look at minority populations in states like Texas and Alabama and then look at the distribution of state and federal representatives. These voters are packed and cracked and would have a greater voice in a proportional system. > A lack of community ties, as representatives are representing a broader geography, the representative is less likely to know the names, places, and small cultural quirks associated with the communities they represent. My house rep lives 100 miles away from me in a town with very different demographics than mine. I am very confident that he does not know the cultural quirks associated with my community, except that he thinks that we are all cultural marxists indoctrinating children to be communist heathens.
- lawlessone 3y ago
  What are those though?
lupire 3y ago
USA operates under the political delusion that geographicallynlcoalnareas are politically unified.
- Spivak 3y ago
  You say delusion but I can tell your politics with far far better than random accuracy just by the city you live in. State legislators do actually deal with issues local to the district despite them being drawn increasingly weird. I don't think we should base our political system on the assumption but I don't think it's unfounded. It's tough to want to have the makeup of my state legislature reflect the will of the population at large while making sure when the pool is distributed my district gets a democrat because anything else would be insane given the political makeup of the area.
- UncleMeat 3y ago
  Yeah I consistently hear people say "well if we have proportional representation then you won't have access to your representative who is beholden to your needs specifically." My federal district has 600k voters. My house representative lives 100 miles away from me and is a complete asshole who regularly publicly attacks my demographic. I'm sure not able to take him to a baseball game to share my political concerns, let alone get him to care if I send a letter.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    No, but, say, areas in general have different concerns. E.g. setting a national minimum wage based on what people in cities want is a big problem for employers who are in lower-cost areas.
    - UncleMeat 3y ago
      The area covered by my federal representative is quite large. It contains significant areas of abject rural poverty, some small cities, as well as multiple large universities and their associated college towns. This area does not have meaningful uniform concerns.
p10jkle 3y ago
It's also an incredibly effective way of getting fascists elected - who can then use their platform to gain legitimacy and support. I look at Europe and see fascist parties gaining seats in every country - except the UK, because in the UK FPTP will ensure they never get one. Even UKIP, never won a seat, despite being hugely influential populists.
- penteract 3y ago
  UKIP won a seat in the 2015 general election, and previously won one in a by-election. They were also extremely successful in achieving their goal of getting the UK to leave the EU - the conservative manifesto promise to hold a referendum was directly due to the threat from UKIP.
- toyg 3y ago
  Disenfranchisement is a double-edged sword. Those parties prosper on self-victimization, and the best cure for that is to see them co-opted in actual government. Once voters realize they're just as bad as everyone else, the spell is broken. If you never let them in, they'll continue to fester outside, in the real world.
  - Taikonerd 3y ago
    Yes. And to paraphrase Lee Drutman's take in Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: far-right parties in the EU tend to get about 10% of the vote. And in a way that's bad (they get seats in parliament!). But in another way, it's good: they can't claim to be "the voice of the masses" when only 1 in 10 people votes for them.
- yorwba 3y ago
  Winning seats proportional to a party's vote share grants them legitimacy and support exactly in proportion to the support they already have and that got them elected. For actual decision-making power, they need a parliamentary majority, which by design requires the support of a majority of voters. I hope the UK system isn't quite so rigged as to deny any seats even to a party that gets >50% of votes.
- 3y ago
penteract 3y ago
Regarding the "alternative vote" referendum in the UK: the voting system (also called "ranked-choice voting" or "instant-runoff voting") is an improvement to first past the post, but it's worth noting that it is not proportional representation and would do little to dissuade gerrymandering.
crazygringo 3y ago
Yes, but we have to consider what is politically feasible or plausible. The US is not going to switch to proportional representation at any point in the near to medium future. It's just not going to happen. There's zero public awareness or desire -- right now we're having a hard enough time just making the much smaller incremental improvement of ranked voting. On the other hand, there's no strong tradition of any kind behind drawing districts. If someone really can come up with a fair, objective way of doing it, it's far easier to see it getting adopted. Gradually at first (state by state), and then possibly nationally. Still difficult, but within the realm of possibility (unlike PR).
- peacefulhat 3y ago
  They're not switching to a new apportionment formula that doesn't politically benefit the party in power either
  - crazygringo 3y ago
    That's why I said gradually and state-by-state. Honestly I think a main way it could be adopted is imposition by the courts -- we've seen increasing cases of "stalemates" where states can't seem to produce maps acceptable to the courts at all. So courts do have the ability to say, "if you can't produce a satisfactory map, we will, and this is it." I'm not saying it's easy or quick, I'm just saying it's in the realm of the possible, unlike PR.
- evanb 3y ago
  Some states used to have at-large seats in addition to districts. But the court basically killed that in the 60s. There might be a clever legislative solution that would still be in the bounds of the 'one person, one vote' requirements the court set. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-large#U.S._House_of_Representatives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-large#U.S._House_of_Represe...
zeroonetwothree 3y ago
While PR seems good in principle if we look at the actual outcomes they don’t end up so great.
- anonymous_sorry 3y ago
  Whereas FPTP systems are a roaring success?
- cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
  I live in a PR jurisdiction. Please do correct me if I’m wrong but you sound like an American whose idea of being open-minded is to consider alternative voting systems as an engineering interest yet still can’t bring yourself to actually consider the experience of other jurisdictions. If my country, that I’m fairly fond of, moved to FPTP, it would at the very least cause me great anguish, and I’d strongly consider leaving. It’s quite clearly a far worse system, but please do keep your head in the sand.
SubiculumCode 3y ago
I strongly disagree. Its not just the ratio that matters, but whether your representative is geographically close to you. The American ideal is NOT just that you have a Representative, but that Representative knows YOUR community. Proportional representation could result in all my States Representatives coming from LA or SF, but not the rural areas. Ideally, I'd like Representatives that I'd have realistically met before in normal day to day living in the community. We need it representative for every 25,000 people, in my opinion. and that representative coming from my local community of 25,000 or so people.
- gmoot 3y ago
  I don't disagree, but the actual situation in America does not match this ideal at all.
  - SubiculumCode 3y ago
    It absolutely does not meet this ideal...ever since the capped the number of Representatives to 435 in 1918...a travesty against the Constitution, in my opinion. I don't care if it looks silly to have a stadium of reps. Look a this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_apportionment#/media/File:US_population_per_representative.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_ap... Our House should go back to something like 1 per 75,000.
    - cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
      “Looks silly” is putting it lightly. That would only increase the already ridiculous level of dysfunction that your government suffers from, and would require vast procedural changes to even get back to those levels.
      - SubiculumCode 3y ago
        You provide no evidence for your claims. More representative, more locally bound, less tied to corporate interests because you don't need to raise that much money to run a campaign for 20,000 citizens you represent. That means instead of spending half their day, every day, fundraising, they can attend to business.
grotorea 3y ago
I don't hear all that much about gerrymandering from Britain. And the referendum to abolish FPTP was IIRC not to abolish single-winner districts. Although I agree PR is better. The German version also even keeps the districts if you really like them.
yongjik 3y ago
I don't think PR would work for the US, at least in its most common(?) form where people vote for parties and each party has a list of candidates. A big problem with Gerrymandering is that it favors extremists. When a district is competitive, a candidate must appeal broadly to people of various political positions. When a district is artificially created to cater to party X, a candidate only has to be selected by party X, because then they're practically guaranteed to win. Thus candidates who are more loyal to party X is more likely to be elected, regardless of how they're viewed by the general population. PR has the same problem - someone who's at #1 position of Party X's list is as good as elected, and the position is determined by internal party politics. Thus, the top positions will be filled by those who always toe the party line and never compromise.
Affric 3y ago
Unless you have an electorate wide multi-member electorate (not as common as proportional systems rare) you will require geographic electoral boundaries to be drawn. The UK’s AV referendum was not for proportional representation but instant runoff voting for single member electorates. Which is a better system but in the UK in 2011 clearly would benefit the Lib Dems much more than actual multi member electorates would.
BurningFrog 3y ago
Sometimes people slide into Windows discussions telling people they should just switch to Linux instead. That might on some level be right, but it's completely unhelpful.

card_zero 3y ago

> None of the countries using PR suffer from the sillinesses arising from FPTP Frankly, I'd be surprised if they did. It seems much more likely that they'd suffer from the problems of PR instead.

cherryteastain 3y ago
I get what you mean, looking back that sentence reads like a tautology. I guess what I should've said is "FPTP leads to far more silliness than PR and therefore countries using PR have healthier political discourse and systems"
ensignavenger 3y ago
I wanted to add some additional thoughts on what the problems of PR might be... - Clusters of minority populations tend to not get as much representation, because they are but a small voice in a bigger ocean of voices. - Representatives can't focus on representing a smaller geographic area, including field offices, outreach, constituent services, etc as easily, because they have to represent a much broader geographic area. - A lack of community ties, as representatives are representing a broader geography, the representative is less likely to know the names, places, and small cultural quirks associated with the communities they represent. Please feel free to add comments of your own with additional downsides. I am generally a fan of proportional voting systems, but I think it is important to have an honest discussion of the pros and cons, as there are ways to build representative systems that balance these concerns- but we have to be aware of and acknowledge them.
- RandomLensman 3y ago
  I think these are all minor quirks that can be addressed in some ways. The biggest "quirk" of PR is that you tend to get coalition governments, which isn't always so easy to strategize on as a voter.
  - ensignavenger 3y ago
    Yes, I acknowledge that their are ways to address them, but I wouldn't call them minor.
    - RandomLensman 3y ago
      I meant compared to getting coalition governments that most voters didn't want.
  - cherryteastain 3y ago
    Coalitions aren't a PR quirk. UK uses FPTP and has had several coalition governments, most recently in 2010-2015.
  - jameshart 3y ago
    The US House of Representatives currently has an uneasy coalition masquerading as a FPTP majority.
- UncleMeat 3y ago
  > Clusters of minority populations tend to not get as much representation, because they are but a small voice in a bigger ocean of voices. This would be true if not for gerrymandering. Look at minority populations in states like Texas and Alabama and then look at the distribution of state and federal representatives. These voters are packed and cracked and would have a greater voice in a proportional system. > A lack of community ties, as representatives are representing a broader geography, the representative is less likely to know the names, places, and small cultural quirks associated with the communities they represent. My house rep lives 100 miles away from me in a town with very different demographics than mine. I am very confident that he does not know the cultural quirks associated with my community, except that he thinks that we are all cultural marxists indoctrinating children to be communist heathens.
lawlessone 3y ago
What are those though?

lupire 3y ago

USA operates under the political delusion that geographicallynlcoalnareas are politically unified.

Spivak 3y ago
You say delusion but I can tell your politics with far far better than random accuracy just by the city you live in. State legislators do actually deal with issues local to the district despite them being drawn increasingly weird. I don't think we should base our political system on the assumption but I don't think it's unfounded. It's tough to want to have the makeup of my state legislature reflect the will of the population at large while making sure when the pool is distributed my district gets a democrat because anything else would be insane given the political makeup of the area.
UncleMeat 3y ago
Yeah I consistently hear people say "well if we have proportional representation then you won't have access to your representative who is beholden to your needs specifically." My federal district has 600k voters. My house representative lives 100 miles away from me and is a complete asshole who regularly publicly attacks my demographic. I'm sure not able to take him to a baseball game to share my political concerns, let alone get him to care if I send a letter.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  No, but, say, areas in general have different concerns. E.g. setting a national minimum wage based on what people in cities want is a big problem for employers who are in lower-cost areas.
  - UncleMeat 3y ago
    The area covered by my federal representative is quite large. It contains significant areas of abject rural poverty, some small cities, as well as multiple large universities and their associated college towns. This area does not have meaningful uniform concerns.

p10jkle 3y ago

It's also an incredibly effective way of getting fascists elected - who can then use their platform to gain legitimacy and support. I look at Europe and see fascist parties gaining seats in every country - except the UK, because in the UK FPTP will ensure they never get one. Even UKIP, never won a seat, despite being hugely influential populists.

penteract 3y ago
UKIP won a seat in the 2015 general election, and previously won one in a by-election. They were also extremely successful in achieving their goal of getting the UK to leave the EU - the conservative manifesto promise to hold a referendum was directly due to the threat from UKIP.
toyg 3y ago
Disenfranchisement is a double-edged sword. Those parties prosper on self-victimization, and the best cure for that is to see them co-opted in actual government. Once voters realize they're just as bad as everyone else, the spell is broken. If you never let them in, they'll continue to fester outside, in the real world.
- Taikonerd 3y ago
  Yes. And to paraphrase Lee Drutman's take in Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: far-right parties in the EU tend to get about 10% of the vote. And in a way that's bad (they get seats in parliament!). But in another way, it's good: they can't claim to be "the voice of the masses" when only 1 in 10 people votes for them.
yorwba 3y ago
Winning seats proportional to a party's vote share grants them legitimacy and support exactly in proportion to the support they already have and that got them elected. For actual decision-making power, they need a parliamentary majority, which by design requires the support of a majority of voters. I hope the UK system isn't quite so rigged as to deny any seats even to a party that gets >50% of votes.
3y ago

penteract 3y ago

Regarding the "alternative vote" referendum in the UK: the voting system (also called "ranked-choice voting" or "instant-runoff voting") is an improvement to first past the post, but it's worth noting that it is not proportional representation and would do little to dissuade gerrymandering.

crazygringo 3y ago

Yes, but we have to consider what is politically feasible or plausible. The US is not going to switch to proportional representation at any point in the near to medium future. It's just not going to happen. There's zero public awareness or desire -- right now we're having a hard enough time just making the much smaller incremental improvement of ranked voting. On the other hand, there's no strong tradition of any kind behind drawing districts. If someone really can come up with a fair, objective way of doing it, it's far easier to see it getting adopted. Gradually at first (state by state), and then possibly nationally. Still difficult, but within the realm of possibility (unlike PR).

peacefulhat 3y ago
They're not switching to a new apportionment formula that doesn't politically benefit the party in power either
- crazygringo 3y ago
  That's why I said gradually and state-by-state. Honestly I think a main way it could be adopted is imposition by the courts -- we've seen increasing cases of "stalemates" where states can't seem to produce maps acceptable to the courts at all. So courts do have the ability to say, "if you can't produce a satisfactory map, we will, and this is it." I'm not saying it's easy or quick, I'm just saying it's in the realm of the possible, unlike PR.
evanb 3y ago
Some states used to have at-large seats in addition to districts. But the court basically killed that in the 60s. There might be a clever legislative solution that would still be in the bounds of the 'one person, one vote' requirements the court set. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-large#U.S._House_of_Representatives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-large#U.S._House_of_Represe...

zeroonetwothree 3y ago

While PR seems good in principle if we look at the actual outcomes they don’t end up so great.

anonymous_sorry 3y ago
Whereas FPTP systems are a roaring success?
cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
I live in a PR jurisdiction. Please do correct me if I’m wrong but you sound like an American whose idea of being open-minded is to consider alternative voting systems as an engineering interest yet still can’t bring yourself to actually consider the experience of other jurisdictions. If my country, that I’m fairly fond of, moved to FPTP, it would at the very least cause me great anguish, and I’d strongly consider leaving. It’s quite clearly a far worse system, but please do keep your head in the sand.

SubiculumCode 3y ago

I strongly disagree. Its not just the ratio that matters, but whether your representative is geographically close to you. The American ideal is NOT just that you have a Representative, but that Representative knows YOUR community. Proportional representation could result in all my States Representatives coming from LA or SF, but not the rural areas. Ideally, I'd like Representatives that I'd have realistically met before in normal day to day living in the community. We need it representative for every 25,000 people, in my opinion. and that representative coming from my local community of 25,000 or so people.

gmoot 3y ago
I don't disagree, but the actual situation in America does not match this ideal at all.
- SubiculumCode 3y ago
  It absolutely does not meet this ideal...ever since the capped the number of Representatives to 435 in 1918...a travesty against the Constitution, in my opinion. I don't care if it looks silly to have a stadium of reps. Look a this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_apportionment#/media/File:US_population_per_representative.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_ap... Our House should go back to something like 1 per 75,000.
  - cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
    “Looks silly” is putting it lightly. That would only increase the already ridiculous level of dysfunction that your government suffers from, and would require vast procedural changes to even get back to those levels.
    - SubiculumCode 3y ago
      You provide no evidence for your claims. More representative, more locally bound, less tied to corporate interests because you don't need to raise that much money to run a campaign for 20,000 citizens you represent. That means instead of spending half their day, every day, fundraising, they can attend to business.

grotorea 3y ago

I don't hear all that much about gerrymandering from Britain. And the referendum to abolish FPTP was IIRC not to abolish single-winner districts. Although I agree PR is better. The German version also even keeps the districts if you really like them.

yongjik 3y ago

I don't think PR would work for the US, at least in its most common(?) form where people vote for parties and each party has a list of candidates. A big problem with Gerrymandering is that it favors extremists. When a district is competitive, a candidate must appeal broadly to people of various political positions. When a district is artificially created to cater to party X, a candidate only has to be selected by party X, because then they're practically guaranteed to win. Thus candidates who are more loyal to party X is more likely to be elected, regardless of how they're viewed by the general population. PR has the same problem - someone who's at #1 position of Party X's list is as good as elected, and the position is determined by internal party politics. Thus, the top positions will be filled by those who always toe the party line and never compromise.

Affric 3y ago

Unless you have an electorate wide multi-member electorate (not as common as proportional systems rare) you will require geographic electoral boundaries to be drawn. The UK’s AV referendum was not for proportional representation but instant runoff voting for single member electorates. Which is a better system but in the UK in 2011 clearly would benefit the Lib Dems much more than actual multi member electorates would.

BurningFrog 3y ago

Sometimes people slide into Windows discussions telling people they should just switch to Linux instead. That might on some level be right, but it's completely unhelpful.