Tweaking The Math Behind Political Representation

mlimber writes "Nature magazine's news section has an interesting story about how the seats in the US House of Representatives should be divided up. The problem is that the population isn't evenly divided by the number of seats in the House (435). So how should one allocate the fractional parts? The current method tends to favor big states, while a recent proposal by a mathematician is for what he calls a 'minimally unfair' allotment. He is predicting 'one person, one vote' challenges on this topic in the near future."

They've finally found it!

[wpegden]

Once they get this little pesky problem fixed, our government will be awesome!

Edelman method = Non starter

[Naughty Bob]

From TFA-

The method ... doesn't necessarily come up with unique solutions -- there could be many ways to achieve equal 'unfairness'.

So basically, any re-jigging using this method will arbitrarily (or otherwise) favor one state over another, with no rationale. Additionally, it would likely mire the US electoral process in endless legal challenges. And we can't have that! (waka waka waka)

Fixing the wrong problem

[jfengel]

The article starts by noting that California dominates the House of Representatives, but this doesn't really change that fact. Tweaking a seat up or down does change things a bit, especially where the electoral college is concerned, but the real problem is gerrymandering. Seats end up being permanently allocated to one party or another, with the incumbent enjoying an immense advantage.

If you want to fix a problem, come up with a better algorithm for drawing district boundaries. Right now the party in charge DOES use an algorithm, one designed to create the pessimal boundaries that ensure its maximum advantage.

Of course, there are many such algorithms, and no matter how fair they are the legislature would vote to choose whichever one favors them best.

Solving the wrong problem

[Geoffrey.landis]

Of all the problems in the US electoral system, this is undoubtably the least important.

A vastly more critical glitch is that it is possible to draw congressional boundaries in such a way as to increase the influence of demographics tending toward electing one party and decrease the influence of the demographics tending toward the other, and the people who have the power to redraw districts barely even bother to hide the fact that they're doing so anymore. Solving that glitch with a means to draw boundaries that is guaranteed to be impartial, so that the elected representatives actually did reflect the preferences of the people electing them-- now that would be a serious improvement to democracy.

some of us have no representation

[Presto Vivace]

Did he mention Washington, DC [dcvote.org] in his mathematical formula?

Re:Solving the wrong problem

[thirty-seven]

To prevent gerrymandering, have independent boundary commissions to redistrict after every census. Make one of their priorities be to keep historic and geographic communities-of-interest together when drawing districts. As a part of this, allow for greater differences between districts' populations (say, up to 15%) in order to allow for nice, neat districts that follow county lines, city limits, or established neighbourhoods in big cities.

Yes, gerrymandering would be just as technically possible under my proposal as it is under current the U.S. systems, but, in practice, it should eliminate gerrymandering. Other countries that also use first-past-the-post single-member districts, such as Canada and the UK, as the U.S. does, use redistricting schemes very similar to the one I described, and they do not have gerrymandering.

For example, here are interactive maps of the electoral districts in southwestern Ontario [elections.ca] and Toronto [elections.ca], created using a system very much like the one I described. They are typical.

Re:Add more seats

[thrillseeker]

the wealthy town of Grosse Point Shores is in a very liberal Detroit district. Do you think their views are taken seriously?

Yes, money always gets taken seriously by elected officials.

Re:One person, One vote only IN your state

[alan_dershowitz]

Everything you say is true, but is not relevant to his definition of fairness. The Electoral College is not meant to be proportional to the population while the House of Representatives is. He's trying to make a system that was MEANT to be proportional more accurate, while you are arguing for a conceptual change to the system. His definition of "fair" is more procedural ("if it's supposed to be proportional, is it?") than yours, which is essentially political ("One Person One Vote is a better system than the Electoral College.") Not to say you aren't right, but he's a mathematician and not a politician so he's studying the former and not the latter.

Re:Correction

[DragonWriter]

The constitution says with the exception of the original 13 colonies, that there will be one representative for thirty thousand people and that each state will have at least one representative.

No, it doesn't. It says that (except for the period prior to the first Census, for which it spells out exact by-state representation) each state will have a number of representatives assigned in proportion to population based on a census count, except that each state will have at least one representative. It further states that the total number of representatives shall not be greater than 1 for every 30,000 people (that's not that the number will be 1/30,000: if that was the rule, the House would have, based on the 2000 census, 9,381 members — which would certainly reduce the voting-power impact of rounding problems from fractional seats.)

Re:Fixing the wrong problem

[DragonWriter]

If you want to fix a problem, come up with a better algorithm for drawing district boundaries.

If you want to fix a problem, design a system where the drawing of district boundaries doesn't matter much instead of one where it does. Its easier to do, for one thing: simply increase the number of seats per district, and adopt a preference voting system that generates proportional results, like STV. This makes it difficult to do much to ensure "safe" seats or enhance partisan advantage by messing with district boundaries.

Right now the party in charge DOES use an algorithm, one designed to create the pessimal boundaries that ensure its maximum advantage.

Actually, there are two different things that are frequently done in redistricting: one is carving safe seats to protect incumbents, the other is maximizing seats in which one party has a majority. These are, to an extent, conflicting goals.

Re:Edelman method = Non starter

[Hatta]

As I understand it, it's essentially a rounding problem. So why don't we just give states fractional seats and let their fractional representatives cast fractional votes?

17th amendment

[ChristTrekker]

What is the largest number a person can adequately represent? I actually believe that 30K might be on the high side of that estimation.

Very insightful! I've been saying this for a long time now. When the 17th Amendment was ratified, populists thought that direct election of US Senators would be a great move for democracy! Instead, they shot themselves in the foot. Do you really think your Senator cares a fig about your opinion? You're one among millions. Back when s/he was accountable to the state's legislature though, you can be darn sure he paid attention to their few dozen opinions. Losing the support of any one legislator was significant.

Making Senators into super-Representatives was just silly. The House has a 2-year term because the electorate is fickle. Senators have a 6-year term because (in theory) your legislators are wise enough to make more thoughtful decisions. If we trust them enough to make laws for the state, can't we trust them enough to select Senators? But no, now we are stuck with our fickle decisions for 6 whole years - and 6 years after they make dumb decisions they can be sure we've forgotten about them, so they are even less accountable than ever!

Increase the House membership to 1000, and repeal the 17th Amendment. Those are the two best things we could do to "fix" the Congress in a relatively easy manner.

Re:Bias towards red states?

[ChristTrekker]

Instant runoff is a bad system. Throwing away part of someone's preference is a sure way to record an inaccurate preference. You need to evaluate them all simultaneously not sequentially - a Condorcet method. A preference for 4th place over 5th is just as important as a preference for 1st place over 2nd. You can't throw away the former just because they were "low" numbers! You may think Al Gore and Ralph Nader both stink, but if you think Ralph stinks less, that should still count for something!

Re:Proportional representation

[DragonWriter]

The small congressional districts where only one candidate gets chosen should be scrapped. Each state should become one voting district and all the congressional seats of the state should be allocated using the proportional D'Hondt method.

That's a really bad idea. If all the states were equal sizes, this would be arguably a good idea (I think candidate-centered elections are better than party-list, so I'd oppose it even then, but it would at least make some sense.)

As it is, states have between 1 and 53 representatives, so you get single member districts in several states, and huge party-list systems where most candidates are relatively unknown to the electorate in large states.

A better idea would be to expand the size of the House (may it, say, 5 times its current size), require districts to be of 4-7 members (set a floor of 4 or 5 members per state), and use a candidate-centered method that produces proportional results, like Single Transferrable Vote. You get the desirable features of proportional systems while at the same time keeping individual candidates directly accountable to the electorate.

Legitimacy

[mosb1000]

Any poly-sci major will tell you that the main purpose of elections is to grant the governing body "legitimacy". The idea is that if you say people voted for the government, people are more willing to accept governmental authority (if people didn't accept governmental authority, the government would not have any power). Since most people do not have a complete enough understanding of discrete mathematics to understand this problem, it will not grant the government any additional legitimacy and is therefore completely useless.

As a side note, I would like to take this opportunity to complain that people too frequently equate democracy with freedom. There is nothing about a democracy that means that it increases your level of freedom. People in this country could vote to take away all my money and forcibly sterilize me, and it would be no less of an infringement on my basic freedoms than if some psychopath broke into my house, stole everything I had and cut my balls off.

Re:Solving the wrong problem

[CrimsonAvenger]

It doesn't matter if Gerrymandering has taken place or not. If there are enough votes to elect someone then they are reflective of their voting populous.

Not quite. Consider the possibility of a state that is 55% Republican, 45% Democrat, with 20 Representatives. Ideally, any districting should elect about 11 Republicans and 9 Democrats.

It is a relatively trivial exercise, however, to divide the districts up so that 20 Republicans and 0 Democrats are elected.

And it's not even especially hard to divide them up so that 3 Republicans and 17 Democrats are elected.

While it is true that each of those districts is reflective of the voting population, alas, it's not necessarily true that the results at the State level are reflective of their voting populations.

Re:Solving the wrong problem

[russ1337]

When you say "Why should a state attempt to do anything that deviates from the existing conditions?" do you realize that the "State" does not do anything, it is actually an individual with political interests in staying in power that does this. Saying "State" makes it sound like a faceless majority, where it is a powerful MINORITY that can influence the results. This is not Democracy.

So, did you play the game?

This is not new

[slashname3]

The founding fathers knew this. When they setup congress the House and Senate were created to make sure the smaller states did not get short shrift. All states get equal representation in the Senate. The House provided a way to give the states a measure of representation based on population.

The posts complaining about gerrymandering have more of a point that trying to reallocate how the House is allocated. And if you want a really big problem that needs to be addressed then look no further than the electoral college. Of course that one depends on which side you fell on in the last couple of elections.