| Conner Feng | The Johns Hopkins News-Letter |
Gerrymandering undermines democracy. State legislatures with entrenched majorities are less accountable and more out of touch with their electorate than those who are forced to compete in every election cycle. Gerrymandering silences the voices of political minorities, who deserve representation just as much as the majority in their states.
”Our democracy relies on competitive, fair elections
There are many viable alternatives to plurality voting used around the world that can easily be adapted to our federal republic. Proportional voting, for example, apportions seats based on the total percentage of votes a party receives. Each state’s congressional delegation could be divided based on the state-level vote total of a given party. The elections reform think tank FairVote has a proposal to implement a system that combines multi-member constituencies with ranked-choice voting, which preserves the ability of voters to choose their preferred candidates. For those that favor preserving the representation of individual districts to ensure local interests are still accounted for, the mixed-member proportional system used by Germany and New Zealand may be another option. In this system, single-member districts still exist, but overall, results are rebalanced based on the actual vote totals of each party.
The path toward electoral reform is difficult. Both parties stand to benefit from gerrymandering and have no reason to change a system that can entrench their power. Nonetheless, democratic legitimacy relies on voters choosing their representatives, not the other way around. The health of our democracy relies on competitive, fair elections. Until meaningful reforms are implemented, the endless cycle of tit-for-tat redistricting for partisan advantage will continue.
