Gerrymandering Isn’t the (Only) Problem

Redrawing district lines will never eliminate the unfair bias toward Republicans in House elections. Here's what will.

By Rob Richie

Democrats had a very good 2012 election. In the presidential race, Barack Obama defeated Mitt Romney by 126 electoral votes and nearly five million popular votes. Republicans won only eight Senate races, the worst performance for a major party in Senate races since the 1950s. In House [RETURN TO ARTICLE]

  • Reader Comments

    Although adopting a single-transferable vote electoral system would be a major advance in proportionality over the current single-member district/plurality electoral system, drawing an electoral map of relatively small magnitude (number of seats) multi-member districts that the proposed system would require could still be gerrymandered.  Indeed, anything less than proportional representation using a single national district, as in the Dutch Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, poses at least some risk of gerrymandering.  American politicians refusing to look for partisan advantage in drawing any electoral map simply expects too much of them.  That temptation ought to be taken away from them because, as the old German saying goes: “opportunity makes thieves.”  Instead, what we might do is to treat the states as ‘at large’ proportional representation districts.

    Posted by John Hickman on Dec 20, 2012 at 10:24 AM

    Good luck getting that act of Congress to happen.

    Posted by Drunk Driving is Fun! on Dec 20, 2012 at 11:11 AM