[EM] Competitive Districting Rule

[Brian Olson]

What's a district for? Districts achieve geographic representation on  
the theory that some region of people will share some concerns, or  
simply on the practical matter that it's administratively convenient  
and efficient to divvy up representatives that way.

Districts have sometimes been contorted to make sure that some  
minority (blacks and latinos, from what I've heard of The South and  
Texas) gets a representative. I think the correct solution to this  
desire to achieve ideological or identity representation through some  
proportional representation scheme such as STV, or through an instant  
proxy or asset voting legislative setup.

I'm opposed to favoring "competitive districts" because that is anti- 
democratic. What's the point of distorting a district to achieve a  
likely 50/50 split between the top two vote getters? General anti- 
incumbency? I think this assumes the current two-party, one vote  
system. We all know that there are better, more representative ways  
to elect a single winner. Any of our current 60/40 "safe" districts  
could potentially be blown wide open with a IRR/VRR/Condorcet  
election and a candidate who broke out from the squeeze between the  
60% and the 40%, taking the some combination resulting in 65%. With a  
better ballot, there are no "safe" seats because you can vote the bum  
out safely by ranking an alternative higher, with the mediocre  
incumbent in 2nd or 3rd.

Measuring driving time distance would be awesome. It would  
effectively have real sociological knowledge built in, and there  
would be less chance for someone to muck with trying to break  
districts along certain lines by inventing barriers. However, that's  
much more complicated mapping than I'm willing to implement right now  
so straight line distance it is.


I still think I want a bicameral legislature with one districted body  
and one PR/proxy/asset body.


Brian Olson
http://bolson.org/


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