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Should we get rid of congressional districts

M

mfs378

Senior member
Some of the recent developments have got me thinking... should we get rid of congressional districts? What if there was just a certain number of representatives per state and it would be up to the representatives to decide which group of people to court (ie city, suburban, rural). A voter would then rank their choices for the congressional seats available and the ones who get the most votes take the prize.

One advantage would be that it would get rid of this gerrymandering business, but I think it would also promote the establishment of new political parties.

For example, I would guess that even committed environmentalists vote democrat instead of green party, because everyone knows the green party will never win and so a vote for green is like staying home, and giving the republicans the edge. But in the system without congressional districts this would not be so.

In addition, we all agree on some issues with a given politician and disagree on others. If we can vote for more than one representative it is almost like customizing our representative to match our views.

Any thoughts?
 
It would be EXTREMELY difficult to be an informed voter in a large state like Texas or California, with so many congressional seats that you can't possibly rank the people who ARE going to get the seats, much less the hundreds of people who won't.

I think a better solution would be to disallow partisan groups from drawing district lines at all as well as allowing "second choice" style voting, where your vote would go to an alternative candidate if your candidate didn't win. I think a better way to split up states by district would be to have a simple computer algorithm that splits up states in terms of population limited by geography, so candidates in MN, for example, couldn't have the vast majority of their constituents in Minneapolis and then a bunch of farms that would never get a say. Obviously finding the perfect balance would take time and effort, but it seems very doable.
 
Originally posted by: Rainsford

I think a better solution would be to disallow partisan groups from drawing district lines at all as well as allowing "second choice" style voting, where your vote would go to an alternative candidate if your candidate didn't win. I think a better way to split up states by district would be to have a simple computer algorithm that splits up states in terms of population limited by geography, so candidates in MN, for example, couldn't have the vast majority of their constituents in Minneapolis and then a bunch of farms that would never get a say. Obviously finding the perfect balance would take time and effort, but it seems very doable.
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I was going to say something similar - set the districts along county lines or something similar, and make gerrymandering illegal. But like you said, that would bias the vote toward population centers like large cities.

Nathan
 
I think we just need to have district reform. Most states have ridiculous district lines that are clearly favoring one party or the other. There has to be some better way than allowing one party or the other to essentially determine which side gets to win the most districts based on demographics.
 
HELLO!!! McFly!!! There are 53 seats in California... imagine the mess your idea would create.

I would like to see someone try the district by computer method.
Take census data and plug it into a computer with some limitations, such as distance between voters etc and see if we can find a way of making seats that works.

I get the feeling though that a computer would be no better at getting a 'fair' balance between the parties based on votes.
 
We could just do away with the house all together and maybe eventually the Senate by going to a direct democracy vote. We could do democracy on the computer.
 
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
We could just do away with the house all together and maybe eventually the Senate by going to a direct democracy vote. We could do democracy on the computer.
Click to expand...
That would be ideal. (Who doesn't loathe politicians at least some of the time?) But obviously there are some obstacles to overcome before it is viable.
 
Originally posted by: ProfJohn
HELLO!!! McFly!!! There are 53 seats in California... imagine the mess your idea would create.

I would like to see someone try the district by computer method.
Take census data and plug it into a computer with some limitations, such as distance between voters etc and see if we can find a way of making seats that works.

I get the feeling though that a computer would be no better at getting a 'fair' balance between the parties based on votes.
Click to expand...

It will if the voters are fairly evenly spread out, with some parties having a slight majority somewhere and other parties having a slight majority in other places. If, however, Democrats occupy only a few districts, where they have 90% of the vote, while Republicans are all over with 51% of the vote everywhere else, it's quite possible that representation would not be a fair balance like the raw votes might suggest. Although I still maintain that a computer model would be better, as it would prevent people from INTENTIONALLY drawing districts like this.

But the real question is whether or not this is "unfair". Should representation be purely based on numbers across the entire state, or does location have anything to do with fair representation? In other words, do Congressional reps have any duty to represent particular groups in their state, or just the state as a whole?
 
Originally posted by: Rainsford
It will if the voters are fairly evenly spread out, with some parties having a slight majority somewhere and other parties having a slight majority in other places. If, however, Democrats occupy only a few districts, where they have 90% of the vote, while Republicans are all over with 51% of the vote everywhere else, it's quite possible that representation would not be a fair balance like the raw votes might suggest. Although I still maintain that a computer model would be better, as it would prevent people from INTENTIONALLY drawing districts like this.

But the real question is whether or not this is "unfair". Should representation be purely based on numbers across the entire state, or does location have anything to do with fair representation? In other words, do Congressional reps have any duty to represent particular groups in their state, or just the state as a whole?
Click to expand...
Great question!
I would think they are supposed to serve the people who vote for them. So get enough radical people who believe in multiple wives and that women should be barefoot and pregnant and then give them their own congressman then that person should fit their views. No mater how crazy we thing they are. (Of course everyone has to follow the constitution and all that.)

The better question was do we make districts based solely on people within them, or be areas?

In other words... let's say Orange county FL gets 2 reps.
Do we give the city of Orlando its own rep and the other one for people outside the city, even thought it would create one funky looking district.
Or do we divide the county in two right down the middle?
Or maybe we group people by race and economic factors. Ending up with some crazy ass district that twists through the city. However, the 1000 poor people living in East Orange would now be grouped with the 10,000 poor people living in the west, and therefore have a better chance to have someone serve their needs.

What a complicated thing this can turn out to be huh?

 
Originally posted by: ProfJohn
HELLO!!! McFly!!! There are 53 seats in California... imagine the mess your idea would create.

I would like to see someone try the district by computer method.
Take census data and plug it into a computer with some limitations, such as distance between voters etc and see if we can find a way of making seats that works.

I get the feeling though that a computer would be no better at getting a 'fair' balance between the parties based on votes.
Click to expand...


You wouldn't have to vote for all 53. The system could be set up so each person can select 5, for example. Still more choice than we currently have.
 
Originally posted by: Infohawk
We should have no districts. We should have proportional representation.
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Aren't zip codes already sorta setup that way? 🙂

All we'd have to do is add voting booths in the post office! 😀
 
Originally posted by: mfs378
Some of the recent developments have got me thinking... should we get rid of congressional districts? What if there was just a certain number of representatives per state and it would be up to the representatives to decide which group of people to court (ie city, suburban, rural). A voter would then rank their choices for the congressional seats available and the ones who get the most votes take the prize.

One advantage would be that it would get rid of this gerrymandering business, but I think it would also promote the establishment of new political parties.

For example, I would guess that even committed environmentalists vote democrat instead of green party, because everyone knows the green party will never win and so a vote for green is like staying home, and giving the republicans the edge. But in the system without congressional districts this would not be so.

In addition, we all agree on some issues with a given politician and disagree on others. If we can vote for more than one representative it is almost like customizing our representative to match our views.

Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

[samir]Yes, this is horrible, this idea[/samir]
 
At last count the Democrats had 54.8 percent of the vote.
I don't know what the Repubs had since there were votes for third parties and independents.
Based on the 54.8 percent the Dems should have gotten a little over 238 seats.
So considering the third parties, who I am going to take a stab at got one percent, the Repubicans got 44.2 percent of the vote. Which would give them a little over 192.
Of course that would leave 5 seats for the indies.
Split them among the Dems and Repubs according to their vote count and you get 3-2 for Dems.
So under your proposal, based on the vote this year the Dems would have gotten 241 seats instead of the 232 they are projected to get when the votes are finalized this year.
Which is a substantial, I believe, 9 more seats.
If my math is right.
 
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