Tweaking The Math Behind Political Representation 322
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."
I kind of like the original Constitutional idea (Score:3, Interesting)
The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand
A house of representatives with 10,000 people might actually be unwieldy enough to actually have to do business, rather than listen to speeches all the time.
One person, One vote only IN your state (Score:5, Interesting)
Therefore, for every 1 vote for a Republican in Wyoming, 60 votes for a Democrat in California are needed to cancel each other out. And this mathematician wants to make it more "fair" by giving more votes to smaller states?
Add more seats (Score:3, Interesting)
I understand the cost involved - just the buildings alone will be a fortune. But consider how hard it is now for your representative to stay in touch with his or her constituency. The average size of a Congressional district is just below 650,000! That is three times what it was at the turn of the last century. Considering the minimum was set at 30,000, the current sizes are way out of whack compared to the probable intent.
With 650,000 constituents,it really is no surprise how important campaign donations have become. Worried about lobbiests and PAC's? Well, here is the root of the problem. Yours is a voice in the crowd.
The REAL problem (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Divide each state into a grid of 1 mile by 1 mile "chunks"
2. Find the population of each "chunk" using census data.
3. Start in the Northern-West corner and start adding blocks to the district moving west to east and dropping down one row and changing direction each time you drop down.
"Drop down, change direction and increase speed" Lurr from Anthology on Interest 2: Futurama
4. When your population count hits what 1 representative can represent, start a new district.
5. Repeat
6. ????
7. Profit from special interest kickbacks and pork barrel spending.
Third House (Score:4, Interesting)
At the end, every law needs a majority vote in this new house in order to pass. Constitutional amendments require a 2/3rds or 3/4ths vote in order to pass.
If you can't convince a random sample (including people of all national origins, races, religions, sexual orientations, etc.) that a law is a good idea, it simply doesn't pass. The limited term and not being directly involved in the debate (only listening and then X rounds of questions) means that politics and political shenanigans are reduced to a minimum.
We also give this house the ability to override Presidental veto and Presdiential pardon/commutation. If 2/3rds of this house (alone) agrees that the President should not have vetoed a law or pardoned someone, then the President's action is null and void (i.e.: law passes, or person still goes to jail for obstruction of justice)
What do you think?
Re:Solving the wrong problem (Score:1, Interesting)
I think your forgetting the main reason boundaries are changed in the first place. The more the population grows, the more representatives that are needed to represent them. If a state was to grow in it's population without redrawing the political boundaries, it could be possible for the state to technically have a population large enough to support two or three additional representatives but not enough people in any one district to warrant splitting it or anything. The boundaries get changed primarily to reflect this difference and make sure that the people's representative are reflective of who is voting for them. The only problem here might be that any party in power can change this to favor their parties candidates. But even then, it would still reflect the people who are voting for them.
eu parliament (Score:3, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apportionment_in_the_European_Parliament [wikipedia.org]
Splitline Algorithm (Score:1, Interesting)
No affiliation - was just googling up some pictures to support my own (lesser) ideas for simple geometric rules to limit gerrymandering.
Bias towards red states? (Score:2, Interesting)
So, basically "red" states would gain seats and "blue" states would lose them?
At a quick glance, though, it does seem he has a point: Montanta has almost a million citizens per seat, while most states are around 700k.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_population [wikipedia.org]
I never realized that electoral votes are different than the number of representatives. With a minimum of 3 per state, some states have 1 vote per 200k +/- while populous states have 1 vote per 600k+/-. THAT is a system I'd like to see overhauled. Give each state one electoral vote per seat, or abolish it all together.
Even better, abolish the "one man, one vote" system. That's great as long as there are 2 parties, but to actually get accurate results you either need N-1 "approval" votes per N choices, or have the voters rank their choices and do instant runoffs until someone wins Otherwise you can have a situation in which 79% of the people like 4 candidates and hate 1, and then split their votes among those 4 and the one they hate withs with 21% of the vote.
Re:I kind of like the original Constitutional idea (Score:5, Interesting)
What is the largest number a person can adequately represent? I actually believe that 30K might be on the high side of that estimation. Right now, a Representative in the House isn't beholden to anyone other than the special interest groups. The Special Interest Groups only need to focus on 435 people currently. If they had to spread their $ around to more people, the amount they could offer each would be much less and more easily overcome by a small band of normal constituents.
I actuall see no problem with more representation, currently we're getting less and less. You tell me, do you feel adequately represented by anyone, let alone by your congress critter?
The REAL problem is mountains (Score:2, Interesting)
I agree completely, we need to draw congressional districts objectively. gerrymandering completely subverts the original (and very progressive) ideas about how the House should function. It's the most directly democratic part of the Federal Gov't.
regarding TFA's proposed solution, if the math works out that it's more fair, then I support it. i've seen a few posts above debating the math, but a compromise could be reached.
the main problem is that whenever a new proposal like this comes along, dem's and gop's game the system to see if the new proposal will be good or bad for them, and then create rhetoric to support whatever helps their side. it's understandable...partys try to maintain their power.
as a democrat, i'm confident that if truly done fairly, any objective system will favor the dem's in the long run. the overwhelming majority of american citizens are more left-leaning on policy issues when you remove the political rhetoric (polls and personal experience bear that out), but the problem is, less than half of our citizens vote