[EM] Using gerrymandering to achive PR

[Raph Frank]

On 9/4/08, Kristofer Munsterhjelm <km-elmet at broadpark.no> wrote:
>  By what law? Since I'm not American, I'm not familiar with the law, and
> thus I can't comment on whether this kind of indirect PR would be covered.

Warren covers it here
http://rangevoting.org/PropRep.html

I re-read what I said, and just to be clear, I meant that they can't
use PR for electing their Representatives for Congress.  They can
presumably use whatever means they want for the State legislatures.
In fact, perhaps, that might be a better (possible) first target.

>  The result could easily become a
> bipartisan gerrymander, where the two parties reach agreement on border
> divisions that keep their incumbents in office. Better would be to use
> Iowa's solution, or to support PR on a local scale with an aim of
> overturning the law once people get familiar with PR.

This is why I was suggesting that each party must run 2 candidates in
any district it is assigned.  I think voters would be willing to vote
out an incumbent if the system is abused.  The incumbent (if he
controls nomination) would need to appoint a candidate who he can
beat, but not one who is obviously a poor choice.

Maybe they could have an approval election in each district.  Ballot
access for the approval election would be easy.  The top 2 most
approved candidates then get ballot access for the main election.  Is
that legal?  Would they also have to add a 'hard' way to get access?