FairVote Feed: The Fair Voting Solution for U.S. House Elections

Getting a Real “Colbert Bump” for Women’s Representation Takes Fair Voting Systems and Better Party Rules

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 14:38:27 -0700

After voters in South Carolina rejected four women running as Democratic Party nominees in the 2012 congressional elections, the state in a special election this May again has a chance to elect its first female House members since 1990. The likely continuation of an all-male delegation provides lessons for what it will take to achieve gender parity in Congress: a combination of gender-conscious party rules and fair voting methods.

In December, Gov. Nikki Haley appointed fellow Republican Tim Scott to the U.S. Senate to fill the vacancy created by Jim DeMint's sudden retirement. The appointment resulted in the Senate's first African American Senator in nearly two years and created a vacancy in the state's 1st congressional district.

The resulting special election has drawn particular attention because Democrats have nominated Elizabeth Colbert Busch, sister of Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert. After easily winning the Democratic primary with 96% of the vote, Colbert Busch will face the winner of a Republican primary runoff in which the favorite is former Gov. Mark Sanford, who is seeking a political comeback four years after his much-publicized extramarital affair.

Even though polls suggest a very close race, Busch faces a tough challenge in the general election in a state without a single woman in its national delegation and heavy Republican partisanship. In 2012, Mitt Romney won the 1st congressional district by 18 percentage points. With few voters today splitting their ticket in presidential and congressional elections, South Carolina's Republican House candidates have a huge advantage.

Even with Nikki Haley as governor, South Carolina has one of the nation's worse records for electing female candidates. It has never elected a woman to the U.S. Senate and only five women have been elected to the U.S. House, four of which were elected in special elections to fill vacancies caused by the deaths of their husbands.

Gov. Haley is South Carolina's only female statewide elective executive; and only three other women have filled statewide positions in the past: Nancy Stevenson was lieutenant governor (1979-1983), while Barbara Nielsen and Inez Tenenbaum were superintendents of education (Nielsen from 1991-1999, and Tenenbaum from 1999-2007).

Before ascending to 49th place in 2012, South Carolina had the lowest percentage of women in its legislature for a decade. In 2012, Republican Katrina Shealy broke through the state's all-male Senate. She was the first woman in four years to be elected to the institution, which has never held more than three women at a time, accounting for a mere 6% of the chamber.

Women have a hard time winning general elections in South Carolina, but it's not due to a lack of running on the Democratic side. While Republicans did not nominate a single female candidate for a House race in 2012 - and last did so in 2008 - four of the six Democratic nominees were women. But they all lost, by an average of nearly 20% with the biggest factor being that Romney defeated Obama in each of their districts by at least 10%. In the 1st congressional district, for example, Tim Scott defeated Bobbie Rose by 27%.

Due to winner-takes-all electoral rules, Democratic House candidates have a good chance to win just one South Carolina district, the 6th district, which has been represented for two decades by James Clyburn. Of the state's seven districts, six are controlled by Republicans with an underlying Republican partisanship of more than 57%. To put that in perspective, even while 2012 was a good year for Democrats nationally, they did not take over a single Republican seat in a district with a partisanship above 54% Republican.

The fact that Democratic women are running and losing in South Carolina underscores the misleading notion that women will always increase their representation simply by running for office. It's not only about women running; it's also about parties running women where they have a real chance to win.

Two reforms would boost representation of women in South Carolina by addressing that problem directly. First, within the current districts, few women will win without Republicans nominating more women. The 2010 gubernatorial primary provides a great example of how intervention can make a difference. In March 2010, Nikki Haley was polling at 12%, in fourth place. Two months later, she surged to the lead with 30%, and ultimately won 49% in the June primary with a landslide win of 65% to 35% in a runoff.

The May poll came four days after Haley earned the endorsement of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin. Then at the peak of her popularity, Gov. Palin that year endorsed four Republican women in competitive gubernatorial primaries who were ultimately elected. Gov. Palin may stir controversy, but her role in boosting election of women governors cannot be denied - which helps explain why today four Republican governors are women, compared to only one Democratic governor.

South Carolina Republicans have the power to adopt gender-conscious rules to enhance women's representation. At a minimum, they should create incentives for local party arms to recruit and train more women candidates. For example, South Carolina's 7th district has a strongly Republican partisanship and was the state's only open House seat in 2012. Republicans could have recruited qualified, female, primary candidates, but men won 95% of the primary vote. This year's special election in the 1st congressional district was even more abysmal; 15 of 16 Republican primary candidates were male and together won more than 99% of the vote.

Parties can go further by considering rules that parties recruit a minimum number of women candidates to run in open seat elections. Before assuming that such requirements would never gain support, consider that both the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Republican National Committee (RNC) have party rules promoting gender parity in selection of party leaders. The RNC, for example, reserves one position for a man and one for a woman from every state and territory and requires women to hold key executive positions.

But suppose South Carolina Republicans cling to gender-blind rules and continue to almost never nominate women for high office. What else can be done?

For Democrats to win in South Carolina, they need fairer methods of voting. It's not like the state doesn't have Democratic voters - Barack Obama won more than 44% of the vote in both 2008 and 2012; and Democratic candidates for the House won 41.2% of the vote in 2012.* But the state has an unfair winner-take-all voting system that gives Democrats a realistic chance to win only one of seven districts.

Switching to a fair voting electoral system, like our proposed map with multi-seat districts and a non-winner-take-all voting system like choice voting, would allow far more voters to elect a preferred candidate. Our plan would make it easier for Republicans to have party rules that result in more women nominees and mean that Democrats would likely win three of seven seats - making the fact that Democrats nominate more women directly meaningful for changing representation.

It's premature to write off Colbert Bush this year, of course. In special elections, voter turnout can be a big wildcard, and Mark Sanford's controversial history could make him a vulnerable candidate if he wins the nomination. Also, the "Colbert bump" due to her brother's celebrity may play a meaningful role in the race.

But in today's hyper-partisan political environment, partisanship typically trumps everything else, whether it be a candidate's personal charisma, political philosophy or campaign spending. And regardless, South Carolina will remain a troubling testament of how winner-takes-all districts and a lack of gender-conscious party rules are the leading reasons for why the United States ranks 92nd in the world for representation of women in its national legislature. It's time for real change. We need to adopt gender-conscious party rules and a fair voting system.

*Two races were uncontested, the 2nd district with a Republican incumbent and the 6th district with a Democratic incumbent.

2012 Congressional Elections Demonstrate Need for Fair Voting

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 08:21:25 -0800

FairVote has analyzed the 2012 congressional elections, and the results are conclusive: it's time to get rid of winner-take-all and elect Congress using fair voting methods. Here are some highlights from our coverage of the recent election:

Partisan Bias in U.S. House Elections: In a Washington Post op-ed, FairVote Executive Director Rob Richie argues that House elections have a significant structural bias in favor of Republicans as a result of winner-take-all elections
The Vanishing Congressional Moderate: Moderates in Congress have all but disappeared, and fair voting is the best way to bring them back
Most Voters Wanted a Democratic House: FairVote's unique analytic methods show that although the Republicans won the House, 52% of voters preferred Democratic candidates
FairVote Correctly Predicts 333 House Races: In July, FairVote made projections for 333 of the 435 congressional races in the 2012 election, all of which proved to be correct
Monopoly Politics 2012: Detailed state profiles and analysis about the 2012 House elections, including election projections
Fair Voting 2012: Comprised of the Fair Voting Interactive Map, Fair Voting Plans for 50 States, and supporting analysis and documentation, Fair Voting 2012 presents a new way of electing the U.S. House of Representatives that aims to correct the political impasse reinforced by our current winner-take-all system by instituting fair voting systems of proportional representation, grounded in our American electoral traditions
Examples of Fair Voting Systems: A description of four fair voting proportional systems that could be implemented under the Fair Voting 2012 plan

No More Gerrymanders: Missouri's Partisan Plan versus the Fair Voting Alternative

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 11:31:25 -0800

Missouri's new congressional redistricting plan is a classic partisan gerrymander. Republicans are likely to win 75% of House seats even in years when their candidates receive fewer votes statewide than Democrats. Of eight congressional districts, only one is even remotely balanced between the major parties.

Reformers rightly criticize such partisan gerrymandering, but the root of this unfairness is Missouri's use of winner-take-all voting. Changing winner-take-all voting is the only way to ensure that all Missouri voters participate in meaningfully contested elections while also earning fair representation. To showcase a better way to elect representatives, FairVote is drawing a series of congressional plans based on adopting a fair voting alternative to winner-take-all elections. If Missouri adopted our fair voting plan, nearly all of its voters would help elect a preferred candidate in every election. For a more detailed analysis of redistricting in Missouri and our fair voting plan, read our new report No More Gerrymanders: Missouri.

Missouri's 2011 Gerrymander

In May 2011, Missouri approved a congressional redistricting plan in which Republican state legislators sought to help their political friends and hurt their adversaries - just as partisans typically do when in control of redistricting. The result was a collection of highly gerrymandered districts that prioritized politics above preserving communities. In effect, elected officials chose their voters before voters had had a chance to choose them.

Missouri's Congressional Redistricting Map

With Missouri losing one of its U.S. House seats, the Republican plan eliminated the St. Louis-based district of Democrat Russ Carnahan and packed all of St. Louis into the 1^st District of William Lacy Clay, Jr. The Kansas City district represented by Clay's fellow Congressional Black Caucus member Emanuel Cleaver also became more heavily Democratic. That packing of Democratic voters into two districts allowed the legislature to keep all remaining districts heavily Republican. The five returning Republican incumbents all represent districts expected to be won by more than 20 percentage points in a typical year, and the one open seat (vacated by Republican Todd Akin) also has a strong Republican lean.

Unsurprisingly, Democratic Governor Jay Nixon vetoed this map. But Republicans and some African American Democrats in the state legislature joined to override his veto. A lawsuit challenging the lack of geographic compactness is before the state Supreme Court.

The Root of the Problem: Winner-Take-All

Although it is easy to point fingers at the perpetrators of this partisan gerrymander, beneath the surface is a structural problem that enables their behavior. In American elections, no structural rule is more central than "winner-take-all" voting, which allows 50% +1 of voters to win 100% of representation in a district.

In winner-take-all voting, backers of a defeated candidate do not receive any representation - meaning as many as 49.99% of voters can be denied representation. Winner-take-all voting gives those shaping districts great power, particularly because American voters have increasingly rigid preferences when faced with a choice between the major parties.

It doesn't take much to make a district "safe" for the majority - and devoid of competition. A district's tilt makes the results highly predictable once outside of a range of 45% to 55%, just as presidential states can be divided into "battlegrounds" and "swing states." More than two-thirds of congressional districts fall outside that partisan range, and political activity in those districts has little chance to change the outcome.

In the 2010 elections, for example, only a single Republican won nationally in the 155 U.S. House districts with a Democratic lean of more than 54%. Only five Democrats won in one of the 149 House districts with a Republican lean of more than 56%. One of those heavily Republican districts was that of Ike Skelton, Missouri's long-serving Democratic incumbent who finally succumbed in 2010 to the power of partisanship in the modern era. His three fellow Missouri Democrats held on because they represented much more Democratic districts.

The partisan tilt to most districts is only occasionally attributable to blatant gerrymandering. Because most Members of Congress represent regions of a state that have an inherent advantage for one party, a state that drew perfectly compact districts would usually end up with mostly noncompetitive elections. National maps color-coded to illustrate the partisan control of U.S. House districts (Republicans in red and Democrats in blue) underscore this point. Most areas of the country are dominated by one party, reducing the nuanced views of many voters to a simplistic "Republican red" or "Democratic blue."

To be sure, allowing legislators to draw their own district makes an already unjust situation worse. But winner-take-all voting is inherently undemocratic in its effect no matter what the intent. When only one side can win, no district can accurately reflect its actual partisan composition, and most districts will not be competitive.

The Solution: Replace Winner-Take-All

FairVote advocates replacing winner-take-all voting rules that make gerrymandering so tempting. Our report, No More Gerrymanders: Missouri, is the latest in an ongoing series in which we demonstrate-state by state-how only a modest change in federal and state laws would have a dramatic impact on voter choice and political representation.

Fair Voting with Super Districts Map

Our fair voting system combines Missouri's eight single-seat districts into two multi-seat "super-districts," one with five representatives and the other with three. Within these multi-seat districts, voters select representatives to the U.S. House using a form of proportional representation, several of which are already used in local elections in the United States and in national elections in other nations. In the five-seat district, about 17% of voters could win one of five seats. In the three seat district, it would take just over a quarter of the vote to win representation.

Although we were limited to combining the heavily gerrymandered districts created by the state legislature, our plan shows how Missouri can achieve genuine competition, voter choice, and reflective representation. Under our plan, Republicans and Democrats each would be well positioned to win three seats in every election. Republicans would be favored to win the two remaining "toss-ups," one in each super-district, but Democrats could win depending on quality of candidates and the national partisan tide.

Unlike the gerrymandered map, the resulting partisan balance is reflective of the state's political divide. Republicans and Democrats would be certain to win in both super-districts, meaning each would have shared representation, all voters would participate in a meaningful election and most would elect a preferred candidate. The districts also would allow for new opportunities for independents, third parties, women and "innovative" thinkers within the major parties -- winners would likely reflect differences within the parties, not just between them.

Permitted by the U.S. Constitution, fair voting could be implemented by states once Congress repeals a 1967 federal law mandating single-seat districts. Many states have already used multi-seat districts in the past, including two states (Hawaii and New Mexico) that were doing so at the time of the 1967 law.

Our democracy is severely constricted through winner-take-all voting rules that reward partisan tactics. Until these rules are replaced by fair voting, we will have mostly meaningless, uncompetitive elections and distorted representation. Fair voting would bring millions of voters-long sidelined by winner-take-all-back into an electoral process they should control rather than politicians. By adopting fair voting, we can invigorate our electoral system and finally have truly representative democracy.

No More Gerrymanders: Congressional Representation in the Seven At-Large States

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 13:26:05 -0800

All across the nation, lawmakers are engaged in a grand political game - decennial congressional redistricting - designed to benefit party elites rather than the people. Already, a number of states have passed controversial, opportunistic maps in which elected officials have chosen their voters before voters have chosen them. Redistricting, when combined with a winner-take-all rule in which 50% + 1 of the district vote guarantees 100% of representation, not only leaves substantial voting blocs unrepresented, but it reduces the vast majority of U.S. House elections to ceremonial, uncompetitive contests, in which voters are asked not to elect but to ratify the decisions party elites have already taken.

To address these problems, FairVote, as part of an ongoing series, has proposed state-specific "super-district" plans designed for elections with a proportional representation system, which we call "fair voting." Rather than use a winner-take-all rule, which accentuates the unfair effects of redistricting and encourages partisan games, FairVote has combined winner-take-all, gerrymandered districts to form multi-member super-districts. When using a fair voting system in these larger districts, every voter in every election will have a meaningful choice in a competitive contest and will be more likely to earn fair representation - a representative balance likely to include a winner from both major parties and occasionally a third party or independent candidate.

Winner-Take-All Plagues Seven At-Large States: However, in a handful of states, the partisan jockeying that is congressional redistricting does not occur. In each of these seven states - Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, Delaware, and Vermont - just one member of Congress runs at-large across the entire state, meaning that controversies over redistricting occur only on the state legislative level. Rather than redrawing districts every ten years as the 43 other states must in order to maintain equal populations in each district, an at-large district's borders are fixed.

Though spared the controversies of congressional redistricting, winner-take-all rules still plague at-large states. By design, winner-take-all elections reduce millions of voters to irrelevancy, either because they live in a district that widely favors one party or because they vote for a candidate in a competitive constituency who falls short. Nowhere are the shortcomings of our voting system more acute than in at-large, winner-take-all races, where one individual is - rather astonishingly - responsible for representing the political and demographic diversity of an entire state. That this occurs in the U.S. House, the chamber of the national legislature that is by definition intended to reflect the complexities and vicissitudes of public opinion, is even more alarming. Americans forms of proportional representation, by contrast, would alleviate these problems.

When taken as a whole, FairVote's state-specific fair voting plans will achieve a U.S. House much more reflective of the nation's partisan and racial composition than what is possible under gerrymandered, winner-take-all contests - and, even more importantly, make every voter's participation meaningful in every election. Since these at-large states are locked in at one seat apiece, however, our construction of multi-seat super-districts is impossible under the U.S. House's current structure. For fair voting plans to be feasible in at-large states, one of two changes would need to occur: either a statutory change to federal law in order to expand the U.S. House beyond 435 seats (as was done regularly until 1910), which would give each of the at-large states at least two representatives, or a constitutional amendment allowing states to join with others to form interstate congressional districts.

Recent Winner-Take-All Elections in At-Large States: That said, it is informative to look at these states' recent congressional election results, in order to understand the degree to which winner-take-all has polluted the political waters. Racially, the at-large states are predominantly white (81.0%), with blacks (4.6%), Latinos (4.5%), and Native Americans (5.4%) all comprising roughly the same share of the combined population. Delaware is the only state with a significant black population (20.8%), while Alaska (14.4%) and South Dakota (8.5%) both contain an appreciable number of Native Americans.

With just one seat in each at-large state, racial minorities have had no chance to elect a preferred candidate who can't also draw significant support from white voters; unsurprisingly, none of the seven states have ever sent a racial minority candidate to Congress. The problem, of course, is not simply that these states lack multiple congressional districts in each of these states; rather, winner-take-all systems naturally struggle to reflect accurately the demographic composition of districts. Conversely, proportional systems lower the threshold of support necessary for like-minded voters in a minority group to help elect candidates of choice.

In terms of partisanship, all of the at-large states have partisanship index ratings that give a clear tilt toward one major party over the other. In other words, seven of seven seats are uphill battles for the other political party in House races – to the point that at least in presidential races, the contests essentially are over before they start.

Vermont and Delaware, with respective Democratic Party partisanship indexes of 64.9% and 58.9%, have backed the Democratic candidate in every presidential election since 1992. Of the other five states - Wyoming (30.3% Democratic partisanship), Alaska (35.6%), North Dakota (42.1%), South Dakota (42.2%), and Montana (45.2%) - all except Montana have voted Republican in every presidential election since 1968, and even then, the Big Sky Country gave only 37.6% to Bill Clinton in 1992, with independent Ross Perot earning 26.1% of the vote. Although the minority party has had some successes in these states' House races, all of them today are in line with their partisan leanings.

Partisanship Breakdown in the At-Large States

At-Large State	Population	Partisanship (D)	Safe Seats (D)	Leaning Seats (D)	Toss-Up	Leaning Seats (R)	Safe Seats (R)
AK	710,231	35.60%	0	0	0	0	1
MT	989,415	45.23%	0	0	0	1	0
WY	563,626	30.25%	0	0	0	0	1
SD	814,180	42.16%	0	0	0	1	0
ND	672,591	42.05%	0	0	0	1	0
DE	897,934	58.86%	1	0	0	0	0
VT	625,741	64.87%	1	0	0	0	0
Totals	5,273,718	-	2	0	0	3	2

*Partisanship percentages are based on an interpretation of vote totals in the 2008 presidential election. The seats are defined according to the following ranges: toss-up districts have a partisanship rating between 46% and 54%, leaning seats have a partisanship between 54% and 58%, and safe seats have a partisanship greater than 58%. Our projections do not take into account incumbent advantages but reflect the underlying partisanship leanings of each district.

At the congressional level, some at-large states have shown more competitiveness than their partisanship rating would suggest - likely a holdover of the more fluid political realities of the last century. For instance, Republican Mike Castle represented Delaware for nine terms until leaving the House in 2010 to run - unsuccessfully - for Vice President Joseph Biden's former U.S. Senate seat. Similarly, North Dakota and South Dakota sent Democrats to Congress before both were defeated in 2010 by Republican challengers; in the former, nine-term Democratic incumbent Earl Pomeroy fell to Rick Berg, while in the latter, four-term Democrat Stephanie Herseth Sandlin lost to Kristi Arnold Noem.

While these results show that both Democratic and Republican voters in these states have experienced electoral success, winner-take-all rules in one-seat states still mean that, in any given congressional district, only one major party's voters receive representation - and we likely will see fewer such surprises in the years ahead unless the partisan differences between the parties again become less clear. Such unfair results are to be expected in a voting system that makes nuanced representation virtually impossible.

Most at-large states have been dominated by one political party. Wyoming, for example, has not sent a Democrat to the U.S. House since Teno Roncalio resigned in 1978, while Alaska's last Democratic U.S. House representative, Nick Begich (father of current U.S. Senator Mark Begich), died while in office in 1972. In other words, it has been over 30 years since Democrats in either of these states have sent a candidate who shares their views to the U.S. House. Meanwhile, Vermont Republicans have not elected a U.S. House Member since 1990.

The U.S. House elections of 2008 and 2010 are illustrative of the lack of representation inherent in winner-take-all. In 2008, a combined 787,916 voters (counting Democrats in AK, MT, WY, and DE and Republicans in SD and ND) were left unrepresented - a number that would have been even larger had Vermont's Peter Welch received a Republican challenger. The same story occurred two years later in 2010, when - despite partisan turnover in three of the seven seats - a combined 700,304 voters (counting Democrats in AK, MT, WY, SD, and ND and Republicans in DE and VT) were unable to send a favored candidate to the U.S. House. In spite of our basic American principles grounded in representative democracy, winner-take-all ensures that the voices of many thousands of voters are left unheard and unrecognized in the halls of Congress.

Neglected Major Party Voters in the 2008 and 2010 U.S. House Elections

At-Large State	2008 Winning Party	Number of Losing Party 2008 Voters	Losing Party % 2008 Vote	2010 Winning Party	Number of Losing Party 2010 Voters	Losing Party % 2010 Vote
AK	R	141,754	45.1%	R	77,606	30.7%
MT	R	154,713	32.4%	R	121,954	33.8%
WY	R	103,677	42.8%	R	45,768	24.5%
SD	D	122,943	32.4%	R	146,589	45.9%
ND	D	118,430	37.9%	R	106,542	45.1%
DE	R	146,399	38.0%	D	125,442	41.0%
VT	D	Unopposed	N/A	D	76,403	32.1%
Totals	-	787,916	-	-	700,304	-

*Source for 2008 data and 2010 data is the New York Times.

Conclusion

Although at-large states avoid the partisan jockeying that goes along with congressional redistricting, they still struggle under the weight of oppressive winner-take-all rules. If the winner-take-all games continue, voters are likely to become even more disenchanted with our political system. In all of the at-large states, scores of voters are left unrepresented, sometimes for decades. They are forced to participate in congressional elections that lack competition and give them a representative in the "people's house" with views they strongly oppose. It is clear that one candidate cannot possibly reflect the makeup of everyone in a district, as winner-take-all assumes. Therefore, we need a new approach that will more accurately reflect the residents of each state. This will be harder to achieve for states with one House member, but by adopting fair voting plans with multi-seat super-districts, we can begin the march toward a more representative democracy.

No More Gerrymanders: California's Commission Plan versus the Fair Voting Alternative

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 12:46:24 -0700

Summary:

Lawmakers in California have recently passed a congressional redistricting plan as required by the U.S. Constitution.
The root of the worst problems associated with redistricting lies with winner-take-all elections, in which 50% + 1 of the vote guarantees 100% of the representation.
As part of an ongoing series, FairVote has produced a "super-district" plan designed for elections with a fair voting system. Fair voting systems are a constitutionally permissible form of proportional representation and, by allowing voters to participate in a meaningful election, are a far better way to achieve public interest objectives than winner-take-all elections.
FairVote's fair voting plan for California would result in more balanced representation and competitive elections.

The Political Context in California

California and the 2010 Census: From 2000 to 2010, California's population grew slightly, from 33.87 million to 37.25 million, for an increase of 10.0%, as compared to a rate of 13.8% from 1990 to 2000. This rate was roughly equivalent to the national average of 9.7%. As a result, California maintained its 53 seats, making 2010 the first Census since 1920 that the state did not increase the size of its U.S. House delegation. From 1920 through 2000, the state's number of House seats skyrocketed from 11 to 53.

Internally, population shifts within the state appear to help congressional Republicans, as slow-growing, Democratic-heavy urban districts and coastal areas failed to keep pace with inland Republican-leaning regions. Racially, California is a 'no-majority' state, with whites (40.1%) currently comprising a plurality. Asians (12.8%) posted the largest rate of growth of any group at just over 30%, while the Latino community (37.6%) - fast on track to becoming the most numerous group in the state - continues to increase appreciably as well. Blacks held steady at roughly six percent of the population.

Although Democrats controlled all levels of government in Sacramento in 2001, supermajority requirements in redistricting gave Republicans shared power over maps. The process was a protracted affair, with legal challenges by disenchanted Latino interest groups extending the process until January 2003, when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a June 2002 California U.S. District Court ruling against the plaintiffs. Fearing that a citizen referendum or a state Supreme Court packed with Republican appointees might overturn an overtly partisan map, Democrats decided to collaborate with GOP state legislators in order to secure the required supermajority. As a result, both political parties essentially signed off on a deal to maintain the status quo.

And the status quo is what Californians received. In the five elections since 2001 redistricting, the partisan composition of California's U.S. House delegation changed by only one (2002: 33D, 20R; 2004: 33D, 20R; 2006: 34D, 19R; 2008: 34D, 19R; 2010: 34D, 19R). During the same period, only a stunning two of 253 incumbent representatives (0.8%) lost their bids for reelection, while just 14 of 265 contests (5.3%) were won by less than ten percentage points; 233 of these 265 (87.9%) races were either blowouts (20%+ margin of victory) or uncontested.

With Redistricting, a New Way of Doing Business in the Most Populous State: At its core, California remains a Democratic state, with Arnold Schwarzenegger's election to the governorship in a 2003 post-recall special election and reelection in 2006 being the latest examples of Republicans winning major statewide office. In light of numerous post-2003, statewide Democratic wins, however, Schwarzenegger's twin victories are better understood as anomalies attributable to his personal appeal and former governor Gray Davis' foundering, than as harbingers of GOP ascendancy. In 2010, for instance, big-name Republican candidates Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman lost their respective bids against U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer and former governor Jerry Brown in two races the GOP had thought winnable but ended up losing by wide margins.

At the U.S. House level, however, California's delegation in 2010 again saw no change in terms of partisan composition, as voters returned all 51 incumbents who ran for reelection and stuck with the candidate representing the incumbent party in the remaining two open seats. Such stasis was clearly at odds with the discernibly anti-incumbent and anti-Democratic national trend in 2010, although a few Democratic candidates, such as Loretta Sanchez of the 47^th District and Jim Costa of the 20^th District, performed far below their 2008 numbers. Yet while the Californian congressional elections to the 112^th Congress were an aberration nationally, they nevertheless conformed to the state's post 2001-redistricting reputation for safe seats and commensurate political calcification.

This reputation for no-contest elections, which Governor Schwarzenegger famously captured with the quip, "We laugh at Putin in Russia...but there's more turnover in the Kremlin than...in California," caused voters to support recent ballot initiatives designed to reshape dramatically the way California draws its political boundaries. In 2008, a slim majority of voters approved Proposition 11, which took control of redistricting away from the state legislature and established an independent commission charged with crafting state legislative districts. In 2010, 61.3% of voters approved Proposition 20, which extended the jurisdiction of the California Citizens Redistricting Commission (CCRC) to include the drafting of congressional lines as well, and voted down Proposition 27, a measure designed to repeal the CCRC largely funded by the Democratic establishment.

California's Citizens Redistricting Commission and Its Work: On February 20, 2011, the Justice Department pre-cleared California Proposition 20, making the new commission's oversight of redistricting official. Although 2011 marks the first time in California's history that citizens, rather than state legislators, will draw district boundaries, California joins a handful of other states nationwide employing a redistricting commission.

Very specific rules, designed to ensure the process is bipartisan and independent, govern both the body's composition and its work. First, the fourteen-member commission must contain an equal number of registered Republicans and Democrats (five each), as well as four independents/no affiliation voters. Second, the selection process is multi-tiered - government auditors select eight of the members (3R, 3D, and 2 independent) randomly from a pool of voters, while these eight commissioners, in turn, select the final six individuals (2R, 2D, and 2 independent). Third, once the maps have been drawn, nine of the 14 commissioners must approve - three from each party and three independents/no affiliates. Finally, lobbyists or individuals having given more than $2,000 in political donations in a two-year cycle may not serve on the CCRC's staff.

Despite these precautions, the CCRC was ultimately accused of partisanship, especially during the contracts phase of the project. Republicans cried foul when the commission tapped what they believed to be Democratic-leaning firms to produce maps and provide legal advice regarding minority rights and voting power. Tom Del Beccaro, chairman of the California GOP, warned that the CCRC's selection of such firms "defeat[ed] the very purpose of the commission's existence."

On July 29, the commission approved preliminary congressional maps by a 12-2 vote, moving the draft plans to a 14-day public review stage. Employing a wide range of glowing superlatives, the commissioners extolled the CCRC's work as "extraordinary," "unprecedented," and "enriching," noting that its maps "portend[ed] a brighter political future for California." Two weeks later, the CCRC formally certified these maps on August 15 and forwarded them to the secretary of state's office, after another 12-2 vote.

Arguing the CCRC had produced congressional maps advantaging Democratic candidates, California Republicans wasted little time in organizing a voter referendum to overturn the work of a commission they believed "political partisans" had "hijacked." The GOP, however, dropped its initial plan in late September, citing inadequate fundraising and lackluster enthusiasm among certain Republican members of the California U.S. House delegation, such as Minority Whip Kevin McCarthy; several GOP strategists contended the statewide referendum against the congressional map was a poor use of limited campaign resources.

Undeterred, however, dissenting Republicans, led by former U.S. congressman George Radanovich , joined minority voters to file suit on September 29 with the California Supreme Court, alleging that some of the CCRC's congressional boundaries were in violation of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (1965). Republicans in the state have a history of working with black and Latino groups, recognizing that drawing districts with larger numbers of minority voters also produces surrounding districts that lean GOP. On October 22, the CCRC officially requested that the state Supreme Court dismiss the lawsuit, saying it had met the constitutional requirements and Voting Rights Act obligations governing redistricting. Four days later, on October 26, the Supreme Court - without comment - unanimously rejected the Radanovich suit as well as the GOP's request for an emergency stay that would have halted use of the maps.

The Fair Voting Alternative

Time for an Honest and Fair System: California's redistricting plan demonstrates the way in which the current system is inadequate: it fails to represent accurately the people of state. Even in states that employ an independent redistricting commission to redraw district boundaries, U.S. congressional elections are still problematic. The absence of partisan antics in the redistricting process does not lead us to a fair election process, as the underlying winner-take-all voting framework still ensures undemocratic results.

In contrast to the California redistricting commission's winner-take-all plan, the fair voting alternative actually puts voters first. Rather than use a winner-take-all system, which exaggerates representation for certain groups, FairVote has combined these single-member districts to form larger "super-districts." As an American form of proportional representation, this fair voting system will elect multiple representatives in each super-district and allow far more voters to elect a favorite candidate. As our analysis will demonstrate, FairVote's super-district plan with a fair voting system generates competitive elections in every corner of the state; it also allows for fuller representation of the political and demographic dynamics of geographical areas: what we call "shared representation."

Under the current winner-take-all system, candidates must receive over 50% of the vote to be sure of winning a seat. Consequently, substantial voting blocs are often left unrepresented. For instance, one party's candidate could get just one vote shy of the 50% threshold, and all of her voters would lose out on representation. Similarly, if a voter lives in a district that widely favors one party, that voter might feel like his vote does not matter, especially if that voter favors the less popular party.

With fair voting in super-districts, on the other hand, nominees from more than one party are nearly certain to represent a district, which enables a more accurate representation of the broad spectrum of political opinion. These multi-seat districts also lower the threshold for racial minority groups to select a preferred candidate of their own.

Several candidate-based forms of fair voting, notably choice voting and cumulative voting, have been upheld by the courts and fit well with our traditions. Choice voting systems, in which voters rank candidates in order of choice in at-large elections, helped break the power of urban political machines in New York and Cincinnati. It is used currently by Minneapolis in citywide elections. From 1870 to 1980, members of the Illinois House of Representatives were elected using cumulative voting, where voters can cast as many votes as there are seats. Using this fair voting system, nearly all of the districts elected both Democrats and Republicans in every election.

Our California plan upholds U.S. Supreme Court rulings on apportionment while providing fair representationand voter choice for California voters. Fair voting plans in super-districts are legal for congressional elections under the U.S. Constitution, but Congress would need to repeal a 1967 law mandating single-member districts. State and city governments often have the power to adopt fair voting systems under current law.

Winning with Fair Voting in a Super-District: From the 53 congressional districts in California, the FairVote proposal creates 11 super-districts: ten five-seat districts and one three-seat district. Each congressional seat still represents approximately 702,905 people, but with a fair voting system, representation is far more likely to reflect the political opinion and demographic makeup of the state. In a five-seat district, like-minded voters are assured of a representative if they consist of at least 16.67% of the electorate, and in the only three-seat district, like-minded voters are assured of a representative if they consist of at least 25% of the electorate.

California 2011 Redistricting Plan

California Fair Voting Plan with Super-Districts

Super-District Breakdown

Super-District	Number of House Seats	Population Per Seat	Threshold of Exclusion	Districts Used to Make SD
1	5	702,904	16.67% + 1	38, 40, 43, 44, 47
2	5	702,904	16.67% + 1	28, 29, 30, 34, 37
3	5	702,906	16.67% + 1	32, 39, 45, 46, 48
4	5	702,905	16.67% + 1	31, 35, 41, 42, 49
5	5	702,905	16.67% + 1	36, 50, 51, 52, 53
6	5	702,904	16.67% + 1	24, 25, 26, 27, 33
7	5	702,905	16.67% + 1	11, 12, 13, 14, 15
8	5	702,905	16.67% + 1	10, 16, 17, 18, 19
9	5	702,905	16.67% + 1	3, 5, 6, 7, 9
10	5	702,905	16.67% + 1	8, 20, 21, 22, 23
11	3	702,905	25% + 1	1, 2, 4

Partisanship Analysis: Based on the 2008 presidential election, California has a partisanship index of 58.3% Democratic. However, the CCRC's plan does not reflect the partisan split of the entire state. Based on district partisanship, the commission's plan would allocate Democrats 29 seats (24 safe and 5 lean) and Republicans 12 seats (8 safe and 4 lean) with an additional 12 districts that could swing to either party. To put this in perspective, the statewide Republican partisanship index of 41.7% should generally result in Republicans winning 22 seats, yet the California plan creates only eight absolutely safe seats. To win those 22 seats, Republicans would need to hold on to their four leaning seats, as expected, and succeed in 10 of 12 toss-up districts. This presents a daunting challenge for the GOP every election year, regardless of the party's national momentum.

California Plan's Partisanship Breakdown, Summary

	Statewide Percentages	CCRC's Plan
Democrats	58.3%	24 Safe, 5 Lean
Republicans	41.7%	8 Safe, 4 Lean
Toss-Up	-	12

*Partisanship percentages are based on an interpretation of the 2008 presidential election. Our source for the data is from RedistrictingPartners.com The seats were allocated according to the following ranges: toss-up districts have a partisanship between 46% and 54%, leaning seats have a partisanship between 54% and 58%, and safe seats have a partisanship greater than 58%. This does not reflect incumbent advantages. Full district partisanship data located here.

In stark contrast, the FairVote super-district plan accurately represents the state's partisan divide, positioning each major party to win at least one seat in every super-district. Republicans would have a clear advantage to win 17 seats and be well-positioned to add between three to nine seats based on the quality of their candidates and the national partisan swing. Democrats would have a clear advantage to win 26 seats, a reasonable chance to add seven more and an outside chance of winning up to 36 seats.

FairVote's plan clearly offers a far more reflective representation of the state's political division than California's redistricting plan, which gives the Democratic Party a running start every election year. Fair voting also increases voter interest because almost all Republican and Democratic voters will be able to elect a candidate in their district, who represents their political views. Additionally, voters will have a real choice within their party's candidates, since each super-district election presents each party with a chance to win multiple seats.

Once in Congress, representatives from opposing parties would share constituents of super-districts and, therefore, have new incentives to cooperate on at least some legislative initiatives. There also would be more representatives bridging the gap that currently exists between the major parties, as fair voting means a more balanced representation of the left, right, and center. As far as competition, the California plan offers at best 12 competitive districts; in the super-district plan, every voter would experience a competitive election.

While these partisan breakdowns are based on the current two-party duopoly, the FairVote proposal would open the door for third-party and independent candidates, unlike the single-member district, winner-take-all plan. Because challengers to the major parties are rarely able to acquire over 50% of the vote, their backers are left typically unrepresented. Fair voting methods lower the threshold and provide third parties a better chance to win seats. Fair voting is not just fair for Democrats and Republicans; it is fair for voters of all political opinions.

FairVote's Super-District Partisan Breakdown

Super-District	Number of Seats	Threshold to Win	Partisanship (D)	Safe Seats (D)	Leaning Seats (D)	Toss-Up	Leaning Seats (R)	Safe Seats (R)
1	5	16.67% + 1	62.5%	3	0	0	1	1
2	5	16.67% + 1	66.8%	3	0	1	0	1
3	5	16.67% + 1	48.6%	2	0	1	0	2
4	5	16.67% + 1	51.3%	2	0	1	0	2
5	5	16.67% + 1	51.8%	2	0	1	0	2
6	5	16.67% + 1	51.8%	2	0	1	0	2
7	5	16.67% + 1	74.3%	3	1	0	0	1
8	5	16.67% + 1	61.1%	3	0	0	1	1
9	5	16.67% + 1	58.2%	3	0	0	0	2
10	5	16.67% + 1	45.6%	2	0	0	1	2
11	3	25% + 1	50.3%	1	0	1	0	1
Statewide	53	-	58.3%	26	1	6	3	17

*The seats were allocated according to the following ranges: toss-up districts have a partisanship ±4% of the threshold, leaning seats have a partisanship 4-8% greater than the threshold, and safe seats have a partisanship greater than 8% of threshold. This does not reflect incumbent advantages.

Race and Voting Power: When a racial minority group votes as a bloc and meets the threshold, it has the power to elect a strongly preferred candidate, although it may not choose necessarily a racial minority. California is one of the most racially diverse states in the country, yet the CCRC's redistricting plan does not reflect its demographic composition. To evaluate the racial impact of the California plan, we have tabulated the number of districts in which a racial minority group exceeds the threshold to win a seat (50% + 1 vote). For districts where a racial minority group is within three percent of the threshold, we have designated the seat as a strong "opportunity" to win.

The way the CCRC plan is currently constructed, white voters have a disproportionate advantage (32 seats + 2 opportunities, or 64%) to elect candidates of their preference, though their share of the citizen voting age population (CVAP) sits at just over 55%. The Latino community represents 23% of the state's CVAP but has opportunities to elect a preferred candidate in only nine districts (7 seats + 2 opportunities, or 17%). African Americans and Asian Americans may have a significant presence in some districts, which, combined with strong incumbents, can lead to victories for candidates of these racial groups. But these communities are not anywhere close to meeting the 50% threshold in any single district, which severely jeopardizes their chances of receiving representation in the state's congressional delegation. In an additional ten districts, no racial group meets the threshold or falls within our opportunity category, so racial minority groups have increased chances to elect preferred candidates, provided they can build a diversified coalition of voters.

California Plan Race Breakdown, Summary

CVAP by Race	Statewide	CCRC's Plan
White CVAP	55.4%	32 + 2 Opportunities
Black CVAP	7.3%	0
Latino CVAP	23.3%	7 + 2 Opportunities
Asian CVAP	12.0%	0
???	-	10

*Race data for each district can be found here.

Though the CCRC plan makes significant strides to extend voting power to multiple racial groups, the fair voting plan offers opportunities more reflective of the state's racial composition. In the super-district plan, white voters have the voting power to win 30 seats (57%), while Latinos broaden their voting power to 11 seats (9 seats + 2 opportunities, or 21%). Unlike the CCRC's map, the fair voting plan also gives voting power to African Americans and Asian Americans. African Americans are well positioned to win at least one seat and make up more than half of what it takes to win a seat in four additional super-districts. Asian American voters jump from voting power in zero districts to voting power in three seats, with their numbers more than half of what it takes to win a seat in seven more districts. Both these racial minority groups and Latino voters would be competitive for many of the eight seats in which no racial group meets the threshold or falls within the opportunity category.

FairVote's Super-District Race Breakdown

Super-District	Number of Seats	Threshold to Win	White CVAP	Black CVAP	Latino CVAP	Asian CVAP
1	5	16.67% + 1	27.5%	16.3%	42.2%	12.2%
2	5	16.67% + 1	46.4%	11.8%	28.6%	12.0%
3	5	16.67% + 1	52.9%	2.7%	25.8%	17.4%
4	5	16.67% + 1	51.4%	8.6%	31.8%	6.3%
5	5	16.67% + 1	60.7%	5.5%	23.2%	8.6%
6	5	16.67% + 1	62.7%	4.4%	19.2%	12.3%
7	5	16.67% + 1	52.5%	10.7%	12.5%	22.3%
8	5	16.67% + 1	53.1%	4.2%	22.7%	18.3%
9	5	16.67% + 1	62.0%	9.0%	15.2%	11.1%
10	5	16.67% + 1	58.2%	5.6%	29.4%	4.5%
11	3	25% + 1	84.8%	1.7%	7.2%	2.9%
Statewide	53	-	55.4%	7.3%	23.3%	12.0%

Conclusion

California's plan is clear evidence that even an independent redistricting commission cannot alleviate the problems of our U.S. House elections. Although partisan gerrymandering receives the most attention, the undemocratic nature of our elections is endemic to the winner-take-all voting system - a structural issue the CCRC was not allowed to change. In this analysis, we have not touched CCRC's lines that were our building blocks; we merely changed the rules and showed that fair voting provides immediate dividends to all voters, empowering them to choose representatives who truly reflect their perspectives.

If the redistricting process paired with a winner-take-all rule continues, voters are likely to become disenchanted with our political system. Under California's redistricting plan and many others like it across the country, a vast amount of voters are left unrepresented. Many of these congressional elections lack competition or offer just two candidates to the diverse array of voters. It is clear that one candidate cannot possibly reflect the makeup of her district, as winner-take-all assumes, so we need an alternative to make full representation possible. By adopting fair voting methods in super-districts, we can attain a more representative democracy.

No More Gerrymanders: Georgia's Partisan Plan versus the Fair Voting Alternative

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 13:11:56 -0700

Snapshot:

Lawmakers in Georgia have recently passed a congressional redistricting plan as required by the U.S. Constitution.
The root of the worst problems associated with redistricting lies with winner-take-all elections, in which 50% + 1 of the vote guarantees 100% of the representation.
As part of an ongoing series, FairVote has produced a "super-district" plan designed for elections with a fair voting system. Fair voting systems are a constitutionally permissible form of proportional representation and, by allowing voters to participate in a meaningful election, are a far better way to achieve public interest objectives than winner-take-all elections.
FairVote's fair voting plan for Georgia would result in more balanced representation and competitive elections.

Political Context in Georgia

Georgia and the 2010 Census: From 2000 to 2010, Georgia's population grew robustly, from 8.19 million to 9.69 million, for an increase of 18.3%, as compared to a rate of 26.4% from 1990 to 2000. This rate was significantly above the national average of 9.7%. As a result, Georgia gained one U.S. House seat in congressional reapportionment, going from 13 seats to 14, which continued a positive trend in its number of House seats dating back to the 1980 Census.

Internally, population shifts appear to help congressional Republicans; the rural areas of northern Georgia have driven the state's population growth, as Democratic-leaning urban centers have stagnated. Of the state's five largest cities - Atlanta, Augusta, Columbus, Savannah, and Athens - only Athens posted growth over five percent; Macon, the state's seventh largest incorporated place, actually saw its population decline. Racially, Georgia remains majority white (55.9%), with an appreciable percentage increase for the black (30.0%) and Latino communities (8.8%), the latter of which nearly doubled.

Redistricting in 2001 was highly contentious as Democrats survived racial and regional infighting to craft an ambitiously partisan map; the Democratic plan was designed to reduce the state's 8-3 GOP U.S. House advantage. Viewed by some as an overreach, the U.S. District Court in D.C. nevertheless upheld the plan. Democrats picked up the state's two new seats and ultimately held 6 of 13 seats in 2006-2010 before falling back to five seats in 2010. Even so, in the five congressional elections since 2001, only seven of 65 (10.8%) seats were won by less than ten percentage points, while 53 (81.5%) contests were blowouts (20%+ margin of victory) or uncontested.

Republicans, in Control, Push through Partisan Redistricting Plan: Although Democrats won every governor's race from 1872 to 2002, Georgia has now become a predominantly Republican state. Democrats haven't won a federal statewide election since 1996, when disabled Vietnam veteran Max Cleland joined the U.S. Senate. In 2008 Barack Obama ran stronger than many expected, finishing six percentage points behind John McCain, while incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss finished below 50% of the vote. But Chambliss won his December 2008 runoff easily and in 2010, Nathan Deal defeated former governor Roy Barnes by 10%.

Democratic officeholders at the U.S. House level struggled in 2010, with the 8^th District's Jim Marshall - one of the most conservative Democrats in the 111^th Congress - falling to Austin Scott in 2010. Sanford Bishop and John Barrow barely held onto their seats.

Having claimed the governorship and majorities in both chambers of the state legislature, Republicans ensured they would exercise control over the drawing of district boundaries, lines capable of locking in a GOP advantage at the U.S. House level for a decade. This year marks the first time in Georgia history that the Republican Party will control the congressional redistricting process.

Republicans in the Georgia General Assembly made their plan public on August 22, with each chamber, according to The Atlanta Constitution Journal, "moving quickly on proposals favorable to the Legislature's Republican majority." Ignoring Democratic protestations that the proposed map would dilute racial minority voting power, the Georgia House on August 25 passed an amended version of the plan along party lines, by a vote of 110-60, receiving concurrence from the Senate six days later, 34-21. Governor Deal signed the new lines into law on September 7, insisting the map"honor[ed] the sacred principle of 'one person, one vote.'"

Georgia, with its history of racial discrimination, is among the states required by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (1965) to obtain federal approval for changes to its state election laws and district boundaries. Governor Deal and Attorney General Sam Olens decided to seek "pre-clearance" for their redistricting maps in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. rather than from the Department of Justice. In 2001, Georgia Democrats under Barnes employed a similar strategy.

Partisan Effects of the Republican Redistricting Plan: Looking at the partisan implications of the map, Republicans have "packed" Democrats into four redrawn districts in order to create safe or lean-GOP districts in other parts of the state.

The most striking aspect of the plan is the GOP's clear targeting of John Barrow - the Deep South's (SC, GA, AL, MS, LA) last remaining white U.S. House Democrat. Under the new map, Barrow's 12^th District would become overwhelmingly Republican, losing liberal Savannah, from where Barrow derives much of his support, to Republican Jack Kingston's southeastern 1^st District, while picking up Republican-leaning Augusta. "Barrow is a tough man to bring down," The Washington Post notes, but such a "staggering shift" in the partisan composition of his constituency means he is a "marked man."

Although Barrow, currently of Savannah, is not constitutionally required to live in the district he represents, tradition and political expediency leave him with little choice but to move to Augusta; previously, the GOP's 2006 mid-Census fine-tuning of redistricting had caused Barrow to abandon his home in Athens. Barrow has assailed the map, saying that it "reflects a rigging of the district lines in order to produce a predetermined outcome." Republican State Representative Lee Anderson will be Barrow's likely general election opponent.

Elsewhere, the plan squeezes the state's newly awarded fourteenth constituency - though branded as the 9^th District - into northeastern Georgia, shifting the old districts of GOP representatives Phil Gingrey, Tom Graves, and Paul Broun. Graves - who took over Governor Deal's former seat - now lives in the 14^th District, having shed Hall County, the home of Deal and Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle. Not surprisingly, Hall County State Representative Doug Collins, a purported "close ally" of the governor, has announced he will run in the new 9^th District.

Finally, the GOP apparently decided to spare Sanford Bishop after his narrow win in 2010. His 2^nd District is now over 50% black; previously, Bishop's district had been approximately 47% black. Although the map thus creates a fourth majority-minority district, Democrats have accused Republicans of having "bleached" surrounding districts by packing blacks into four constituencies, thereby reducing the potential influence of the black community in other areas of the state. Republicans have countered that "minority influence districts" are not protected under the Voting Rights Act.

The Fair Voting Alternative

Time for an Honest and Fair System: These controversies demonstrate the way in which the current system is inadequate: it fails not only to represent accurately the people of Georgia, but reduces voters to mere pawns in a grand political game designed to benefit party elites rather than the people. Especially in states affected by reapportionment, there is the impulse to engage in gerrymandering and other highly undemocratic maneuvering.

In contrast to the Georgia state legislature's politically motivated plan, fair voting puts voters first. Rather than use a winner-take-all system, which accentuates the effects of redistricting and encourages partisan jockeying, FairVote has combined these winner-take-all, gerrymandered districts to form multi-member constituencies called "super-districts." As our analysis will demonstrate, FairVote's super-district plan with a fair voting system generates competitive elections in every corner of the state; it also allows for fuller representation of the political and demographic dynamics of geographical areas: what we call "shared representation."

Our Georgia plan upholds U.S. Supreme Court rulings on apportionment while providing fair representation and voter choice for California voters. Fair voting plans in super-districts are legal for congressional elections under the U.S. Constitution, but Congress would need to repeal a 1967 law mandating single-member districts. State and city governments often have the power to adopt fair voting systems under current law.

With fair voting in super-districts, on the other hand, it is nearly certain that candidates from at least two parties will represent a district, which enables a more accurate representation of the broad spectrum of political opinion. These multi-seat districts also lower the threshold for racial minorities to select a preferred candidate of their own.

Winning with Fair Voting in a Super-District: If FairVote were working from scratch, we could draw the super-district lines with more geographical compactness. Because we created the super-districts from the recently approved congressional districts, however, our super-districts also appear to look rather gerrymandered. Even so, the super-district approach demonstrates that full representation can be attained even within these highly gerrymandered confines.

Georgia 2011 Redistricting Plan Georgia Fair Voting Plan with Super-Districts

From the 14 congressional districts in Georgia, the FairVote proposal creates four super-districts: three three-seat districts and one five-seat district. Each congressional seat still represents approximately 691,975 people, but with a fair voting system, representation is far more likely to reflect the political opinion and demographic makeup of the state. In a three-seat district, like-minded voters are assured of a representative if they consist of at least 25% of the electorate, while in a five-seat district, like-minded voters are assured of a representative if they consist of at least 16.67% of the electorate.

Super-District Breakdown

Super-District	Number of House Seats	Population Per Seat	Threshold of Exclusion	Districts Used to Make SD
1	3	691,975	25% + 1	3, 13, 14
2	3	691,975	25% + 1	9, 10, 12
3	3	691,975	25% + 1	1, 2, 8
4	5	691,975	16.67% + 1	4, 5, 6, 7, 11

Partisanship Analysis: Based on the 2008 presidential election, Georgia has a partisanship index of 43.79% Democratic. However, the recent plan passed by the state legislature does not reflect accurately the political composition of the entire state and grossly exaggerates Republican influence. Based on district partisanship, the Georgia plan should result in ten safe Republican seats, four Democratic seats (three safe, one leaning), and no toss-ups. To put this in perspective, the statewide Republican partisanship index of 56.21% should result in the GOP winning only eight of 14 seats, yet the Georgia plan is designed to guarantee Republicans two more seats than their expected share. Democrats, on the other hand, should win at least five seats, but they are only given the opportunity for four. To win at least five seats, Democratic candidates would need to succeed in flipping a gerrymandered, safe Republican district.

Additionally, Georgia's plan produces uncompetitive elections all over the state: 13 out of the 14 districts are projected as safe victories for one party or the other. Over the next decade, Democratic voters living in the ten safely Republican districts will have no shot at electing a representative who reflects their ideological preference, likewise for any Republican residents in the three urban Atlanta districts, which have a heavy Democratic tilt. There is just one district that might offer a competitive election, but it requires the Republicans to perform well in a Democratic-leaning district.

Georgia Plan's Partisanship Breakdown

District	Population Per Seat	Partisanship (D)	Safe Seats (D)	Leaning Seats (D)	Toss-Up	Leaning Seats (R)	Safe Seats (R)
1	691,974	41.1%	0	0	0	0	1
2	691,976	54.5%	0	1	0	0	0
3	691,974	30.7%	0	0	0	0	1
4	691,976	69.9%	1	0	0	0	0
5	691,976	81.1%	1	0	0	0	0
6	691,975	37.0%	0	0	0	0	1
7	691,975	35.9%	0	0	0	0	1
8	691,976	34.5%	0	0	0	0	1
9	691,975	21.2%	0	0	0	0	1
10	691,976	35.6%	0	0	0	0	1
11	691,975	31.6%	0	0	0	0	1
12	691,975	40.6%	0	0	0	0	1
13	691,976	63.8%	1	0	0	0	0
14	691,974	24.8%	0	0	0	0	1
Statewide	9,687,653	43.8%	3	1	0	0	10

*Partisanship percentages are based on an interpretation of the 2008 presidential election. Our source for the data is DailyKos.com . The seats were allocated according to the following ranges: toss-up districts have a partisanship between 46% and 54%, leaning seats have a partisanship between 54% and 58%, and safe seats have a partisanship greater than 58%. This does not reflect incumbent advantages.

In stark contrast, the FairVote super-district plan accurately represents the state's partisan divide. FairVote's super-district plan shows that both major parties have the opportunity to win at least one seat in every super-district. Republicans would have a clear advantage to win seven seats and be well positioned to add between one to two seats based on the quality of their candidates and the national partisan swing. Democrats would have a clear advantage in four districts and a reasonable chance to add one or two more seats.

In addition to providing more accurate partisan representation, FairVote's plan triggers other positive effects: it sparks voter interest and helps to repair the emergent ideological divide between the left and the right. Almost all Republican and Democratic voters will be able to elect a candidate in their district, who represents their political views. Voters will also have a real choice within their party's candidates, since each super-district election presents each party with a chance to win multiple seats. As far as competition, the current Georgia plan offers zero competitive districts; in the super-district plan, every voter would experience a competitive election. Once in Congress, representatives from opposing parties would share constituents of super-districts and, therefore, have new incentives to cooperate on at least some legislative initiatives. Since multiple candidates of a political party are able to win office under the fair voting plan, there will be more opportunities for moderate candidates to win office and contribute their temperate message to the political forum.

FairVote's Super-District Partisan Breakdown

Super-District	Number of Seats	Threshold of Exclusion	Partisanship (D)	Safe Seats (D)	Leaning Seats (D)	Toss-Up	Leaning Seats (R)	Safe Seats (R)
1	3	25% + 1	40.8%	1	0	0	0	2
2	3	25% + 1	32.6%	0	1	0	0	2
3	3	25% + 1	43.5%	1	0	0	1	1
4	5	16.67% + 1	51.9%	2	0	1	0	2
Statewide	14	-	43.8%	4	1	1	1	7

Race and Voting Power: When a racial minority group votes as a bloc and meets the threshold, it has the power to elect a strongly preferred candidate, although it may not choose necessarily a racial minority. Under Georgia's new plan, there are three districts with a black voting age population (VAP) greater than 50% and an additional "opportunity," which has a black VAP within three percentage points of the threshold. Over the next ten years, black voters will be positioned well to maintain voting power in these four districts. Latinos, for their part, currently make up over seven percent of the state's total population but have negligible influence in any single-member district.

Georgia Plan Race Breakdown

District	Total Population	Black VAP%	Latino VAP%	Black Voting Power	Latino Voting Power
1	691974	28.4%	5.0%	0	0
2	691976	48.9%	4.0%	1 Opportunity	0
3	691974	22.0%	4.4%	0	0
4	691976	55.4%	8.2%	1	0
5	691976	56.6%	6.9%	1	0
6	691975	12.4%	12.0%	0	0
7	691975	17.1%	16.8%	0	0
8	691976	28.2%	4.9%	0	0
9	691975	6.4%	9.0%	0	0
10	691976	23.7%	4.0%	0	0
11	691975	15.0%	9.3%	0	0
12	691975	32.8%	4.5%	0	0
13	691976	52.9%	8.7%	1	0
14	691974	8.0%	8.1%	0	0
Statewide	9,687,653	29.2%	7.5%	3 + 1 Opportunity	0

While the Georgia plan offers opportunities for African Americans in four of the state's 14 districts, under the fair voting plan, there is a real possibility to have the black community represented in all four super-districts. Currently, representation of the black community centers around three urban Atlanta districts, but a super-district plan would allow representation that extends throughout all regions of the state. Our fair voting system combines the Georgia legislature's highly concentrated majority-minority districts with predominantly white constituencies, while maintaining at least the same number of opportunities for the black community. In Super-Districts 1, 3, and 4, the black VAP surpasses the threshold required to win a seat. Yet another opportunity exists in Super-District 3, where a second seat representing the black community lies within three percentage points of the threshold. In Super-District 2, black voting power falls just below our opportunity category. Nevertheless, black voters have significant influence at 21% in a super-district with a 25% threshold, which gives them a significant voting bloc that candidates will have a strong incentive to align themselves with.

If the Georgia congressional delegation proportionally reflected the demographics of the state, the Latino community would have the voting power to elect one preferred candidate. Under this fair voting plan, the Latino community does not surpass the threshold in any super-district, but it does have significant presence in Super-District 4, where its 11% VAP just misses the super-district's 13.67% opportunity level. Given the competitive nature of super-district elections, candidates in Super-District 4 would presumably cater to the Latino community.

FairVote's Super-District Race Breakdown

Super-District	Number of Seats	Threshold of Exclusion	Black VAP%	Latino VAP%	Black Voting Power	Latino Voting Power
1	3	25% +1	27.4%	7.0%	1	0
2	3	25% + 1	21.0%	5.8%	0	0
3	3	25% + 1	35.1%	4.6%	1 + 1 Opportunity	0
4	5	16.67% + 1	31.6%	10.5%	1	0
Statewide	14	-	29.2%	7.5%	3 + 1 Opportunity	0

Conclusion

Although Georgia Republicans clearly engineered a partisan gerrymander, electoral problems do not rest solely with Democrats and Republicans. Rather, the problem lies with the winner-take-all nature of single-member district elections, which allow district lines to determine most outcomes no matter how they are drawn. In this analysis, we have not touched the blatantly partisan lines that were our building blocks; we merely changed the rules and showed that fair voting provides immediate dividends to all voters.

If the redistricting games of winner-take-all continue, voters are likely to become even more disenchanted with our political system. Under Georgia's redistricting plan and many others like it across the country, a vast amount of voters are left unrepresented. Many of these congressional elections lack competition or offer just two candidates to the diverse array of voters. It is clear that one candidate cannot possibly reflect the makeup of her district, as winner-take-all assumes. Therefore, we need a new approach that will more accurately reflect the residents of each state. By adopting fair voting methods in super-districts, we can attain a more representative democracy.

No More Gerrymanders: Illinois' Partisan Plan versus the Fair Voting Alternative

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 07:19:52 -0700

Snapshot:

Lawmakers in Illinois have recently passed a congressional redistricting plan as required by the U.S. Constitution.
The root of the worst problems associated with redistricting lies with winner-take-all elections, in which 50% + 1 of the vote guarantees 100% of the representation.
As part of an ongoing series, FairVote has produced a "super-district" plan designed for elections with a fair voting system. Fair voting systems are a constitutionally permissible form of proportional representation and, by allowing voters to participate in a meaningful election, are a far better way to achieve public interest objectives than winner-take-all elections.
FairVote's fair voting plan for Illinois would result in more balanced representation and competitive elections.

The Political Context in Illinois

Illinois and the 2010 Census: From 2000 to 2010, Illinois’ population grew slightly, from 12.42 million to 12.83 million, for an increase of 3.3%, as compared to a rate of 8.6% from 1990 to 2000. This rate was significantly below the national average of 9.7%. As a result, Illinois was one of ten states nationwide to lose seats during the 2010 reapportionment process, going from 19 U.S. House seats to 18. This continued a skid dating back to 1980, when the state lost two of its then-24 representatives.

Internally, population shifts appear to hurt congressional Democrats, as Cook County lost residents to the surrounding suburban counties, the respective populations of which grew by anywhere from 15% to over 25%. Racially, Illinois remains predominantly white (63.7%). Latinos (15.8%) increased appreciably as a percent share of the state, while the black population share (14.3%) declined slightly.

Redistricting in 2001 was a somewhat chaotic affair, with divided government – Republicans controlled the governorship and the State Senate, while Democrats were the majority in the State House – leading to a redistricting impasse . Such deadlock forced the state to look to a backup commission, of which Democrats gained control after the name of the tie-breaking ninth member, a Democrat, was randomly drawn.

Democrats, in Control, Push through Partisan Redistricting Plan: In the 2010 election, Republican candidates earned 47% of the statewide vote, a 10-point swing from 2008 that claimed four Democratic incumbents and gave the GOP control of the state’s U.S. House delegation for first time since 2003. Nevertheless, Democrats held on to both chambers of the Illinois General Assembly, and Governor Pat Quinn withstood a robust general election challenge, winning by one percent. Having retained the governorship and majorities in both chambers of the state legislature, Democrats earned control over the 2011 redistricting process.

Illinois law requires the state legislature to pass a redistricting map by June 30, with the provision for a nine-person, bipartisan backup commission in the event that the General Assembly cannot complete the task. State Democrats were keen on completing their redistricting map before the final day of the General Assembly’s regular session, on May 31 – any plan passed during a special session would have required a two-thirds supermajority likely beyond the Democratic Party’s means.

Illinois House Democrats unveiled their redistricting plan on May 27, passing a revised version on May 30 by a party line 63–54 vote over GOP protestations that the public had been without opportunity to evaluate the eleventh-hour changes. The Democrats in the State Senate approved the House proposal the next day without Republican support, 34–25, sending the redistricting proposal to Governor Quinn, who signed it into law on June 24, calling the map “fair.” Republicans protested, with one state lawmaker saying , “This congressional map is a national embarrassment [that] doesn’t really reflect the type of product that I think the people of this state would be proud of. This is a power grab.”

Illinois-based Republican consultant David From marveled at the map as “a work of art, [though] in the wrong direction,” while POLITICO called it a “masterstroke” that would place Illinois Speaker Mike Madigan among “other storied pols whose mapmaking exploits have become stuff of political legend.” The Washington Post, referring to the infamous 2003 Republican mid-Census redistricting in Texas, derisively referred to the plan as “Delay-lite.”

Partisan Effects of the Democratic Redistricting Plan: The 18 new Illinois U.S. House districts are unmistakably partisan, boosting Democrats and harming Republicans. It draws nearly all of the state’s 11 Republicans into districts with other incumbents, while creating 11 districts that favor Democrats. Such a move leaves each member of the ‘GOP eleven’ with the choice between three equally disagreeable options: wage a primary battle against a Republican colleague, contest a quixotic general election campaign against an established Democratic incumbent in a blue stronghold, or opt for retirement. Assuming all eleven Republican incumbents decided to run for reelection, it is not yet clear exactly where each will find his or her new political home – representatives are not required by the U.S. Constitution to live in the districts they represent.

The most pressing problem facing the Democratic Party was the population loss in the heavily Democratic Chicago area, a decline that under an independent redistricting proposal could have affected adversely the party’s seven Chicago-based incumbents. The Democratic plan, however, methodically expands the city’s solidly liberal districts outward into the suburbs that in 2010 elected four of the GOP’s five freshmen (Joe Walsh, Adam Kinzinger, Randy Hultgren, and Robert Dold) and eliminating the district of seven-term incumbent Judy Biggert. Republicans, noting that the plan sucks GOP-leaning suburban townships into the urban districts of Chicago Democrats, have charged that Democrats , rather than caring about fair representation, are focused exclusively on protecting the party’s incumbents and diluting the voting power of suburban conservative voters (the collar counties are divided between five districts ).

Downstate, Republicans have not fared much better, as Tim Johnson’s old eastern district, which has expanded south, and Bobby Schilling’s western district, which has moved north, have both become significantly more Democratic. In the center of the state, the plan has constructed an open-seat , which unites the Democratic areas of Champaign-Urbana, Springfield, and the Madison County suburbs of St. Louis, with an obvious Democratic lean. Nevertheless, Republican John Shimkus appears relatively safe, and the sudden retirement of 12-term Democratic incumbent Jerry Costello, who Roll Call labeled the Democrats’ “point-man for redistricting,” , has increased the opportunities for Republicans in the region. The “ill-time retirement” of Costello only serves to highlight the “perils” to a party of “over-gerrymandering” and spreading its support too thin.

The Illinois map does face numerous legal challenges. State Republicans have joined with some racial and ethnic minority groups to argue that the new districts are in violation of the Voting Rights Act, which requires districts “friendly” to Latinos and blacks. The GOP lawsuit alleges that the new map fails to provide Latinos with ample representation. The Latino community, for its part, believes its population growth entitles it to a second VRA district, with the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund criticizing the plan for favoring “incumbent protection over respect for the Latino community.” The state’s three African American representatives (Bobby Rush, Jesse Jackson, Jr., and Danny Davis) have also expressed concerns about the map.

A Fair Voting Alternative in Super-Districts

Time for an Honest, Proportional, and Fair System: These controversies demonstrate the way in which the current system is inadequate: it fails not only to represent accurately the people of Illinois but reduces voters to mere pawns in a grand political game designed to benefit party elites rather than the people. Especially in states affected by reapportionment, there is the impulse to engage in gerrymandering and other highly undemocratic maneuvering.

In contrast to the Illinois state legislature’s politically motivated plan, FairVote's alternative puts voters first. Rather than use a winner-take-all system, which accentuates the effects of redistricting and encourages partisan jockeying, FairVote’s plan combines these gerrymandered districts to form multi-member “super districts” in which a fair voting system can allow far more voters to elect a favored candidate. As our analysis will demonstrate, FairVote’s alternative plan generates competitive elections in every single district and allows for fuller representation of the political and demographic dynamics of geographical areas: what we call “shared representation.”

Under the current winner-take-all system, candidates must receive over 50% of the vote to be sure of winning a seat. Consequently, substantial voting blocs are often left unrepresented. For instance, one party’s candidate could get just one vote shy of the 50% threshold, and all of her voters would lose out on representation. Similarly, if a voter lives in a district that widely favors one party, that voter might feel like his vote does not matter, especially if that voter favors the less popular party.

With fair voting based in super-districts, on the other hand, nominees from more than one party are nearly certain to represent a district, which enables a more accurate representation of the broad spectrum of political opinion. These multi-seat super-districts also lower the threshold for racial minorities to select a preferred candidate.

Our Illinois plan upholds U.S. Supreme Court rulings on apportionment while providing fair representation and voter choice for California voters. Fair voting plans in super-districts are legal for congressional elections under the U.S. Constitution, but Congress would need to repeal a 1967 law mandating single-member districts. State and city governments often have the power to adopt fair voting systems under current law.

If FairVote were working from scratch, we could draw the super district lines with more geographical compactness. Because we created the super-districts from the recently approved congressional districts, however, our plan also appear to look rather gerrymandered. Even so, the super-district approach demonstrates that full representation can be attained with a fair voting system even within these highly gerrymandered confines.

From the 18 congressional districts in Illinois, the FairVote proposal creates four super-districts: one three-seat district and three five-seat districts. Each congressional seat still represents approximately 712,813 people, but using a fair voting system such as choice voting , representation is far more likely to reflect the political opinion and demographic makeup of the state. In a three-seat district, like-minded voters are assured of a representative if they consist of at least 25% of the electorate, while in five-seat district, like-minded voters are assured of a representative if they consist of at least 16.67% of the electorate.

Super District Breakdown

Super District	Number of Seats	Population Per Seat	Threshold of Exclusion	Districts Combined
1	3	712,813	25% +1	12, 13, 15
2	5	712,813	16.67% +1	2, 14, 16, 17, 18
3	5	712,813	16.67% +1	1, 3, 6, 8, 11
4	5	712,813	16.67% +1	4, 5, 7, 9, 10

Partisanship Analysis: Based on the 2008 presidential election, Illinois has a partisanship index of 58.85% Democratic. The recent plan passed by the state legislature is likely to generation representation that will not reflect the state’s overall partisan split. Based on district partisanship, the Illinois plan would result in 11 Democratic seats (nine safe and two lean), two safe Republican seats, and five toss-ups.

For the congressional delegation to reflect accurately the Republican statewide partisanship index of 41.2%, the GOP would need to win seven seats. However, under the gerrymandered Illinois plan, Republicans can secure safely only two seats. For the Republicans to win the seven seats, their candidates would need to succeed in all five toss-up districts. This presents a daunting challenge for the GOP every election year, regardless of the party’s national momentum.

Illinois Plan’s Partisanship Breakdown

District	Population Per Seat	Partisanship (D)*	Safe Seats (D)	Leaning Seats (D)	Toss-Up	Leaning Seats (R)	Safe Seats (R)
1	712,813	77.5%	1	0	0	0	0
2	712,813	77.8%	1	0	0	0	0
3	712,813	55.3%	0	1	0	0	0
4	712,813	77.6%	1	0	0	0	0
5	712,813	67.0%	1	0	0	0	0
6	712,813	48.4%	0	0	1	0	0
7	712,812	86.2%	1	0	0	0	0
8	712,812	58.6%	1	0	0	0	0
9	712,813	65.6%	1	0	0	0	0
10	712,813	59.9%	1	0	0	0	0
11	712,813	58.4%	1	0	0	0	0
12	712,813	52.0%	0	0	1	0	0
13	712,813	52.0%	0	0	1	0	0
14	712,813	47.6%	0	0	1	0	0
15	712,813	40.1%	0	0	0	0	1
16	712,813	47.3%	0	0	1	0	0
17	712,813	57.2%	0	1	0	0	0
18	712,813	41.3%	0	0	0	0	1
Statewide	12,830,632	58.9%	9	2	5	0	2

*Partisanship percentages are based on an interpretation of the 2008 presidential election. Our source for the data is DailyKos.com. The seats were allocated according to the following ranges: toss-up districts have a partisanship between 46% and 54%, leaning seats have a partisanship between 54% and 58%, and safe seats have a partisanship greater than 58%. This does not reflect incumbent advantages.

In stark contrast, the FairVote super-district plan accurately represents the state’s partisan divide. With a fair voting system, both major parties would be well positioned to win at least one seat in every super-district. Republicans would have a clear advantage to win five seats and be well positioned to add between one or two seats based on the quality of their candidates and the national partisan swing. Democrats would have a clear advantage in nine districts and a reasonable chance to add up to three more. FairVote’s plan also increases voter interest, since almost all Republican and Democratic voters will be able to elect a candidate in their district, who represents their political views – and have a real choice within their party’s candidates as well.

Once in Congress, representatives from opposing parties would share constituents of super districts and, therefore, have new incentives to cooperate on at least some legislative initiatives. As far as competition, the current Illinois plan offers five competitive districts, but a strong incumbent can make elections in that district uncompetitive; in the super-district plan, every voter experiences a competitive election in every election.

While these partisan breakdowns are based on the current two-party duopoly, the FairVote proposal would open the door for third-party and independent candidates, unlike the single-member district winner-take-all plan. Challengers to the major parties are rarely able to acquire over 50% of the vote, so those voters are typically left unrepresented. FairVote’s super-districts lower the threshold and provide third parties and independents with a better chance to win seats. The FairVote alternative is not just fair for Democrats and Republicans; it is fair for voters of all political opinions.

FairVote Plan's Partisan Breakdown

Super District

Number of Seats

Threshold of Exclusion

Partisanship (D)*

Safe Seats (D)

Leaning Seats (D)

Toss-Up

Leaning Seats (R)

Safe Seats (R)

1

3

25% +1

48.0%

1

0

1

0

1

2

5

16.67% +1

54.2%

2

1

0

0

2

3

5

16.67% +1

59.6%

3

0

0

1

1

4

5

16.67% +1

71.2%

3

1

0

0

1

Statewide

18

-

58.9%

9

2

1

1

5

Race and Voting Power: Under Illinois’ redistricting plan, the state’s four representatives of color are well positioned to remain in office; however, the plan does not offer opportunities for racial minority representation outside of these four majority-minority districts. The three majority black districts have elected the state’s three African American representatives, and they maintain their majority-minority status with this new plan. Although Latinos have become the largest racial minority group in the state, they have the power to select a preferred candidate in just one of the state’s 18 districts. The state’s sole Latino representative, Luis Gutierrez, keeps his Latino majority district intact, but the Latino community lacks the voting power in other districts to elect a candidate of choice.

If Illinois’ congressional delegation reflected the demographic consistency of the state (14.5% black and 15.8% Latino), then both black and Latino communities would have the voting power to elect two preferred candidates each. FairVote’s plan combines these highly concentrated minority districts with other predominantly white districts, but the super-district approach actually enhances opportunities for racial minority groups.

In the FairVote plan, Latino communities meet the threshold in two super-districts, allowing them to elect at least two preferred candidates. Black communities do not technically meet the threshold under this super-district plan, but they do have strong opportunities to elect a candidate in at least three super-districts. With three popular African American incumbents, the state has a strong chance to keep its African American representation under this alternative system. In addition, black voters are well positioned to be influential in Super-District 1, where their population is more than half of what it takes to be able to win a seat. While the current Illinois plan allows for racial minority representation in four districts, there is no real chance to gain more seats. The fair voting alternative creates many more opportunities for racial minorities to select a candidate who will address their interests in Congress.

Illinois Plan Race Breakdown

District	Total Population	White VAP%	Black VAP%	Latino VAP%	Asian VAP%	White Plurality	Black Plurality	Latino Plurality
1	712,813	37.3%	52.4%	7.4%	2.1%	0	1	0
2	712,813	33.5%	53.8%	11.1%	0.8%	0	1	0
3	712,813	66.3%	4.5%	24.6%	4.0%	1	0	0
4	712,813	26.1%	4.1%	65.9%	3.3%	0	0	1
5	712,813	73.3%	2.7%	16.1%	7.1%	1	0	0
6	712,813	81.6%	2.4%	7.4%	8.0%	1	0	0
7	712,812	30.5%	50.3%	11.4%	6.9%	0	1	0
8	712,812	60.5%	4.2%	22.1%	12.3%	1	0	0
9	712,813	68.0%	8.7%	9.6%	12.6%	1	0	0
10	712,813	65.0%	6.4%	18.1%	9.6%	1	0	0
11	712,813	59.7%	10.7%	21.8%	7.0%	1	0	0
12	712,813	79.7%	15.7%	2.4%	1.2%	1	0	0
13	712,813	83.4%	9.4%	2.6%	3.7%	1	0	0
14	712,813	83.6%	2.5%	9.4%	4.0%	1	0	0
15	712,813	92.9%	4.0%	1.9%	0.6%	1	0	0
16	712,813	88.1%	3.3%	6.5%	1.5%	1	0	0
17	712,813	81.7%	10.0%	6.4%	1.1%	1	0	0
18	712,813	91.8%	3.6%	1.9%	2.1%	1	0	0
Statewide	12,830,632	67.1%	13.6%	13.4%	4.7%	14	3	1

FairVote Plan Race Breakdown

Super District	Number of Seats	Threshold of Exclusion	White VAP%	Black VAP%	Latino VAP%	White Voting Power	Black Voting Power	Latino Voting Power
1	3	25%+1	85.3%	9.7%	2.3%	3	0	0
2	5	16.67% +1	75.7%	14.6%	7.1%	4	1 opportunity	0
3	5	16.67% +1	61.1%	14.9%	16.7%	3	1 opportunity	1
4	5	16.67% +1	52.6%	14.4%	24.2%	3	1 opportunity	1
Statewide	18	-	67.1%	13.6%	13.4%	13	3 opportunities	2

Conclusion

Although Illinois Democrats clearly engineered a partisan gerrymander, electoral problems do not rest solely with Democrats and Republicans. Rather, the dysfunction lies with the winner-take-all nature of single-member district elections, which allow district lines to determine most outcomes no matter how they are drawn. In this analysis, we have not touched the blatantly partisan lines that were our building block; we merely changed the rules and showed that fair voting systems in super-districts pay out immediate dividends to all voters.

If the redistricting games of winner-take-all continue, voters are likely to become even more disenchanted with our political system. Under the Illinois redistricting plan and many others like it across the country, a vast amount of voters are left unrepresented. Many of these congressional elections lack competition or offer just two candidates to the diverse array of voters. It is also clear that one candidate cannot possibly reflect the makeup of her district, as winner-take-all assumes; therefore, we need a new approach will more accurately reflect the makeup of each state. By adopting fair voting in multi-seat super-districts, we can attain a more representative democracy.

No More Gerrymanders: Ohio's GOP-centric Plan versus the FairVote Super District Alternative

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 13:48:11 -0700

Snapshot:

Lawmakers in Ohio have recently passed a congressional redistricting plan as required by the U.S. Constitution.
The root of the worst problems associated with redistricting lies with winner-take-all elections, in which 50% + 1 of the vote guarantees 100% of the representation.
As part of an ongoing series, FairVote has produced a "super-district" plan designed for elections with a fair voting system. Fair voting systems are a constitutionally permissible form of proportional representation and, by allowing voters to participate in a meaningful election, are a far better way to achieve public interest objectives than winner-take-all elections.
FairVote's fair voting plan for Ohio would result in more balanced representation and competitive evaluation.

The Political Context in Ohio

Ohio and the 2010 Census: From 2000 to 2010, Ohio's population grew slightly, from 11.35 million to 11.54 million, for an increase of 1.6%, as compared to a rate of 4.7% from 1990 to 2000. This rate was significantly below the national average of 9.7%. As a result, Ohio was one of only two states to lose more than one U.S. House seat in reapportionment, going from 18 seats to 16. This continued a skid dating back to the 1960 Census.

Internally, population shifts appear to have helped congressional Republicans, as residents have moved away from the Democratic-heavy urban districts. Of the state's five largest cities - Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo, and Akron - only Columbus posted growth. Racially, Ohio remains predominantly white (81.1%), with a slight percentage increase of black (12.0%) and Latino communities (3.1%).

Redistricting in 2001 was highly partisan, as Republicans crafted a map that disproportionally aided their party. Ohio Republicans have consistently won more seats than their share of the vote total, and Ohio democrats have consistently won fewer seats. In the 2010 elections, for instance, Republicans recieved 53.7% of the vote but won 72.2% of seats, while Democrats recieved 42.1% of the vote but only 27.8% of seats. Redistricting also protected the vast majority of incumbents. In the five congressional elections since 2001, 74 of the 80 incumbents (92.5%) won; 56 of the 74 (75.7%) victorious incumbents prevailed in blowouts (20%+ margin of victory) or uncontested races.

Republicans, in Control, Push through Partisan Redistricting Plan: Democrats have had recent statewide success in Ohio, including a win for Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential race and for Ted Strickland, who voters elected governor in 2006. Many Democratic gains, however, were undone in 2010, which The New York Times called "one of the most painful outcomes of the election" for the President and his party. (http://www.elections.nytimes.com/2010/results/ohio). Chief among the party's casualties was Strickland, who lost to former Republican Congressman John Kasich by two percentage points. Rob Portman, a former representative and Bush Administration official, delivered to the GOP the open U.S. Senate seat of retiring Republican George Voinovich, besting Democratic Lieutenant Governor Lee Fisher in a landslide. Republicans also won the battle for control over the state's U.S. House delegation, knocking off five Democratic incumbents to reverse a pre-election 10-8 Democratic majority into a 13-5 Republican advantage. In many respects, Ohio was the 'poster child' for Republican gains across the nation, swings that, when taken together, propelled favorite son John Boehner (R, OH-8) to the U.S. House speakership.

Having claimed the governorship and majorities in both chambers of the state legislature, Republicans ensured that they would exercise control over the drawing of district boundaries, lines capable of locking in a GOP advantage at the U.S. House level for a decade. Redistricting in 2011 marks just the second time in the last 60 years that one party has controlled all three parts in the process, the first having been 2001.

The Ohio General Assembly began work on congressional redistricting in mid-July and went public with their plan on Sept. 13. According to The Hill, close allies of John Boehner drew the congressional district map with regular input from the speaker. Perhaps hoping to deter a possible citizen referendum designed to block the map, Republican lawmakers added to the redistricting legislation a $2.75 million appropriations provision to help county election officials educate voters about the new districts. Under the Ohio Constitution, bills containing such spending authority are not subject to referenda. **Update

Ignoring Democratic protestations that the public did not have adequate time to review the proposed map, the Ohio Senate passed the plan on September 21, by a vote of 24-7, receiving concurrence from the House the same day, 60-35. Several Democratic black legislators, seeing an opportunity for greater representation, broke with the party line and voted for the new boundaries. Governor Kasich signed the bill into law on September 26. Democrats ripped the plan, with one state senator calling it "job security for a few at the expense of job opportunities for the many." Yet another Democratic lawmaker objected to a congressional map designed to benefit overwhelmingly one party in an evenly divided "50/50 state."

Partisan Effects of the GOP Redistricting Plan: Looking at the partisan implications of the map, Republicans have "packed" Democrats into four redrawn northern districts in order to create safe or lean-GOP districts in other parts of the state.

Under the plan, two Democratic incumbents, Marcy Kaptur, who is the most senior woman in the U.S. House, and progressive stalwart Dennis Kucinich, will likely face off in a primary in a district that snakes along the Lake Erie coastline from Toledo to Cleveland. Elsewhere, Betty Sutton, the Democratic base of whom has been apportioned into several districts, will now have to face off in a general election contest against Republican incumbent Jim Renacci, the marginal constituency of whom the plan has made increasingly conservative.

With Democratic lawmakers and voters packed into a handful of districts, many battleground constituencies have become significantly safer for GOP incumbents. In 2010, voters elected Republicans Steve Chabot, Steve Stivers, Pat Tiberi, and Bill Johnson with 51%, 54%, 56%, and 50%, respectively. Chabot, Stivers, and Tiberi have gone from representing districts carried by Barack Obama in 2008, to ones that are solidly red. Johnson, whose district narrowly voted for John McCain in 2008, will also get a safer seat. In perhaps the only setback for Republicans, mapmakers were unable to avoid combining the central Ohio districts of Steven Austria and Mike Turner into one new constituency; local analysts expect both to contest the prospective primary, which should be evenly matched.

FairVote's Super District Alternative

Time for an Honest, Proportional, and Fair System: These controversies demonstrate the way in which the current system is inadequate: it fails not only to represent accurately the people of Ohio, but it also reduces voters to mere pawns in a grand political game designed to benefit party elites rather than the people. Especially in states affected by reapportionment, there is the impulse to engage in gerrymandering and other highly undemocratic maneuvering.

In contrast to the Ohio state legislature's politically motivated plan, FairVote's alternative puts voters first. Rather than use a winner-take-all system, which accentuates the effects of redistricting and encourages partisan games, FairVote's plan combines these gerrymandered districts to form multi-member districts called "super-districts," in which a fair voting system can allow far more voters to elect a favorite candidate. As our analysis will demonstrate, FairVote's super-district plan with a fair voting system generates competitive elections in every single district; it also allows for fuller representation of the political and demographic dynamics of geographical areas: what we call "shared representation."

Our Ohio plan upholds U.S. Supreme Court rulings on apportionment while providing fair representation and voter choice for California voters. Fair voting plans in super-districts are legal for congressional elections under the U.S. Constitution, but Congress would need to repeal a 1967 law mandating single-member districts. State and city governments often have the power to adopt fair voting systems under current law.

Image: Ohio's new plan (left) and FairVote's super district alternative (right)

If FairVote were working from scratch, we could draw the super district lines with more geographical compactness. Because we created the super-districts from the recently approved congressional districts, however, our super-districts also appear gerrymandered. Even so, the super-district approach demonstrates that full representation can be attained even within these highly gerrymandered confines.

From the 16 congressional districts in Ohio, the FairVote proposal creates five multi-seat districts: one four-member district and four three-member districts. Each congressional seat still represents approximately 721,032 people, but using a proportional voting system such as choice voting, now representation is far more likely to reflect the political opinion and demographic makeup of the state. In the four-seat district, like-minded voters are assured of a representative if they consist of at least 20% of the electorate. For the three-seat districts, this threshold to pick up a seat rises slightly to 25%.

Super District Breakdown

Super District	Number of House Seats	Population Per Seat	Threshold of Exclusion	Districts Used to Make SD
1	4	721,032	20% + 1	9, 11, 13, 14
2	3	721,032	25% + 1	6, 7, 16
3	3	721,031	25% + 1	4, 5, 12
4	3	721,032	25% + 1	3, 10, 15
5	3	721,031	25% + 1	1, 2, 8

Partisanship Analysis: Based on the 2008 presidential election, Ohio has a partisanship index of 51.3% Republican, a narrow margin reflecting its status as a swing state in presidential elections. However, the recent plan passed by the state legislature does not reflect the close partisan split of the entire state. Based on district partisanship, the Ohio plan would result in 12 Republican seats and just four Democratic seats, far off from the near 50/50 statewide split. In fact, most of the districts result in landslide victories for one party. Ten districts have a Republican partisanship greater than 56%, with the four Democratic safe seats packed in such a way that Democratic candidates can expect to win on average by margins greater than two-to-one. The lone competitive district has a district partisanship of 46.1%, which falls barely within our toss-up range of 46%-54% for open seat elections.

To put this in perspective, the statewide Democratic partisanship index of 48.7% should result in the Democratic party winning around seven seats and the Republican party winning around eight seats, while an additional seat would swing to the party or individual candidate performing well that election cycle. Yet, the Ohio plan guarantees the Republicans more than their expected share. To win seven seats, Democrats would need to succeed in flipping two Republican-leaning districts. This gerrymandered setup presetns a daunting challenge for the Democrats every election year, regardless of the party's national momentum.

Ohio Plan's Partisanship Breakdown

District	Population Per Seat	Partisanship (D) *	Safe Seats (D)	Leaning Seats (D)	Toss-Up	Leaning Seats (R)	Safe Seats (R)
1	721,031	43.8%	0	0	0	1	0
2	721,031	43.2%	0	0	0	1	0
3	721,032	66.2%	1	0	0	0	0
4	721,031	41.6%	0	0	0	0	1
5	721,031	43.4%	0	0	0	1	0
6	721,031	46.1%	0	0	1	0	0
7	721,032	43.9%	0	0	0	1	0
8	721,031	38.0%	0	0	0	0	1
9	721,032	62.3%	1	0	0	0	0
10	721,032	42.2%	0	0	0	1	0
11	721,032	79.7%	1	0	0	0	0
12	721,032	39.1%	0	0	0	0	1
13	721,031	62.3%	1	0	0	0	0
14	721,032	45.6%	0	0	0	1	0
15	721,031	42.5%	0	0	0	1	0
16	721,032	43.4%	0	0	0	1	0
Statewide	11,536,504	48.7%	4	0	1	8	3

* Partisanship percentages are based on an interpretation of the 2008 presidential election. Our source for the district election data; our source for statewide election data. The seats were allocated according to the following ranges: toss-up districts have a partisanship between 46% and 54%, leaning seats have a partisanship between 54% and 58%, and safe seats have a partisanship greater than 58%. This does not reflect incumbent advantages.

In stark contrast, the FairVote super-district plan accurately represents the state's partisan divide. FairVote's super-district plan shows that both major parties would be well positioned to win at least one seat in every super district. Republicans would have a clear advantage to win seven seats and be well positioned to add between one and three seats based on the quality of their candidates and the national partisan swing. Democrats would have a clear advantage to win six seats and a reasonable chance to add up to three more.

FairVote's plan clearly offers a far more reflective representation of the state's political division than the 75% of representation Republicans would earn even when losing the statewide vote. It also increases voter interest since almost all Republican and Democratic voters will be able to elect a candidate in their district who represents their political views - and have a real choice within their party's candidates as well.

Once in Congress, representatives from opposing parties would share constituents and have new incentives to cooperate on at least some legislative initiatives. As far as competition, the current Ohio plan offers at best one competitive district; in the super-district plan, every voter would experience a competitive election. Three of five super-districts would have a real chance to change partisan representation, and in all districts voters would have choices within their preferred party.

While these partisan breakdowns are based on the current two-party duopoly, the FairVote proposal would open the door for third-party and independent candidates, unlike the single-member district winner-take-all plan. Challengers to the major parties are rarely able to acquire over 50% of the vote, leaving those voters unrepresented. The multi-member setup of FairVote's super-districts lowers the threshold and provides third parties a better chance to win seats. The FairVote alternative is not just fair for Democrats and Republicans; it is fair for voters of all political opinions.

FairVote's Super District Partisan Breakdown

Super District	Number of Seats	Threshold of Exclusion	Partisanship (D)	Safe Seats (D)	Leaning Seats (D)	Toss-Up	Leaning Seats (R)	Safe Seats (R)
1	4	20%+ 1	62.5%	2	0	1	0	1
2	3	25% + 1	44.5%	1	0	0	1	1
3	3	25% + 1	41.4%	1	0	0	0	2
4	3	25% + 1	50.3%	1	0	1	0	1
5	3	25% + 1	41.6%	1	0	0	0	2
Totals	16	-	48.7%	6	0	2	1	7

Race and Voting Power: Under the Ohio plan, one district has a black population greater than 50%. Louis Stokes, the first African American to represent Ohio in the House of Representatives, came from this Cleveland district, and the district has continued to select African American leaders since his election in 1968, with Marcia Fudge currently holding the seat. The super-district plan combines this highly concentrated district with other predominantly white districts, but the total black citizen voting age population (CVAP) of the super-district exceeds the 20% threshold necessary to elect a candidate of choice.

Therefore, black voters in this super-district have the voting power to elect a preferred candidate, who best represents their interests. In addition, black voters are well-positioned to be influential in Districts 4 and 5, where their population is more than half of what it takes to be able to win a seat.

Ohio Plan Race Breakdown

District

Total Population

Black CVAP

Latino CVAP

1

721,031

20.87%

2.17%

2

721,031

8.88%

1.35%

3

721,032

28.69%

4.78%

4

721,031

5.67%

3.25%

5

721,031

3.66%

3.46%

6

721,031

2.50%

0.70%

7

721,032

4.32%

1.30%

8

721,031

10.28%

2.24%

9

721,032

14.54%

6.81%

10

721,032

11.25%

1.65%

11

721,032

52.37%

3.35%

12

721,032

6.12%

1.77%

13

721,031

10.97%

2.16%

14

721,032

3.88%

1.71%

15

721,031

4.78%

1.59%

16

721,032

1.91%

1.48%

Race data for each district provided by District Builder here.

FairVote's Super-District Race Breakdown

Super District

Number of Seats

Threshold of Exclusion

Black CVAP

Latino CVAP

1

4

20% + 1

20.4%

3.5%

2

3

25% + 1

2.9%

1.2%

3

3

25% + 1

5.2%

2.8%

4

3

25% + 1

14.9%

2.7%

5

3

25% + 1

13.3%

1.9%

Conclusion

Although Ohio Republicans clearly engineered a partisan gerrymander, electoral problems do not rest solely with Democrats and Republicans. Rather, the problem lies with the winner-take-all nature of single-member district elections, which allow district lines to determine most outcomes no matter how they are drawn. In this analysis, we have not touched the blatantly partisan lines that were our building block; we merely changed the rules and showed that multi-seat districts provide immediate dividends to all voters.

If the redistricting games of winner-take-all continue, voters are likely to become even more disenchanted with our political system. Under Ohio's redistricting plan and many others like it across the country, a vast amount of voters are left unrepresented. Many of these congressional elections lack competition or offer just two candidates to the diverse array of voters. It is also clear that one candidate cannot possibly reflect the makeup of his or her district, as winner-take-all assumes. Therefore, we need a new approach that will more accurately reflect the makeup of each state. By adopting fair voting in multi-seat super-districts, we can attain a more representative democracy.

######

**UPDATE: On October 14, 2011, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the new congressional map signed into law by Governor Kasich is subject to voter referenda, dashing Republican hopes that the appropriation provision they had tacked to the legislation would proscribe such a challenge. Assuming the Democratic-led effort obtains enough signatures, the map would appear before voters on the November 2012 ballot, likely throwing congressional elections into chaos. Under this scenario, candidates would have to either run at-large in a state without districts or contest elections within permanent single-member constituencies crafted by a federal court. Democrats have until December 26 to gather enough signatures.

The Democratic power play places the Ohio map in legal limbo. Not wishing to take their chances in court, Republicans have begun to search for a solution to the political impasse. Most likely, the GOP will propose an alternative map that is slightly less ambitiously partisan. To avoid having the alternative plan be subject to another citizen referendum, Republicans would need seven Democrats in the state house to join the 59 member GOP majority to pass an emergency clause – Republicans already have the requisite two-thirds majority in the state senate to pass the emergency provision.

No More Gerrymanders: Transforming Connecticut into One At-Large Super District

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 14:12:18 -0700

Highlights

Redistricting, which occurs every ten years, ensures political lines reflect population changes and that each district has approximately the same number of voters per seat.
Connecticut currently has monopoly U.S. House representation, with Democrats holding all five seats even though more than 40% of voters are likely to back Republicans in competitive statewide federal races.
Lawmakers in Connecticut are debating how to redraw the boundaries of the state's five U.S. congressional districts in the wake of the 2010 Census. Both chambers of the state legislature must approve a plan by a two-thirds vote before it becomes law. Fully in control of the state legislature, the Democratic Party is expected to push through a new map that protects its incumbents and monopoly control of the delegation.
The controversies associated with redistricting are products of our winner-take-all elections, in which 50.01% of voters can elect 100% of representation. Winner-take-all rules marginalize like-minded voters of a political minority no matter their relative numerical strength, thereby depressing turnout and providing inadequate representation.
As part of an ongoing project, FairVote has produced a "super district" map designed for election with a proportional voting system. Our proportional plan upholds U.S. Supreme Court rulings on apportionment while guaranteeing fairer representation. Additionally, it would end gerrymandering and result in more nuanced voter choice than possible under the current winner-take-all system.
Proportional voting plans are legal under the U.S. Constitution, but would require Congress to repeal a 1967 law mandating single-member districts.

The Political Context in Connecticut

Connecticut and the 2010 Census: From 2000 to 2010, Connecticut's population grew from 3.41 million to 3.57 million, for an increase of 4.9%. This rate, while significantly below the national average of 9.7%, nevertheless outperformed the Northeast's 3.2%, with only New Hampshire besting the state in the region. Racially, Connecticut is still predominately White (71.2%), although Hispanics (13.4%) and Blacks (9.4%) continue to grow appreciably as a percent share of the state. Connecticut emerged from the reapportionment process having neither lost nor gained any congressional seats.

As is inevitable, the last decade has seen the populations of the five districts fall out equilibrium; the 2010 Census showed the most populous Second District having 729,771 residents and the least populous Fourth with 706,740, a difference of 23,031. Due to Supreme Court rulings that require a state's congressional districts to be equal in population, redistricting is necessary to bring the districts back into balance.

With Democrats in control of redistricting (although because they lack the needed supermajority, Democrats will not be able to ignore Republican input) and holding all five U.S. House seats, congressional redistricting in 2011 is expected to be a more sedate affair than in 2001, when the state, having lost a seat during the 2000 Census reapportionment process, struggled to collapse six districts into five.

State Democrats to Protect National Incumbents: With the redistricting process under the direction of the Democratic-dominated Connecticut General Assembly, the party will be looking to construct safer seats in the historically Republican Fourth and Fifth Districts, presently held by incumbent Democrats Jim Himes and Christopher Murphy, respectively. As such, the state legislature's map will likely buttress Himes and Murphy at the marginal expense of their House colleagues Rosa DeLauro in the Third and John Larson in the First, both of whom should have in 2012 less demanding paths to victory after having been returned to Congress with robust majorities in 2006, 2008 and 2010.

Such a strategically pro-Democratic redistricting plan, combined with the winner-take-all electoral system, would undoubtedly deprive Connecticut Republicans of what they believe to be their two greatest opportunities to make inroads into the state's congressional delegation, thereby making the state's 2012 House elections almost certainly uncompetitive. Put simply, the vote of a Republican in Connecticut, of which there were 460,000 in House racdes during the 2010 midterms, is set to become even more inconsequential.

Intra-Party Quarrels as Lawmakers Jockey for Position: Perhaps the most interesting political game involves the rumored battle over Bridgeport, the Democratic enclave that provided Himes his 11,621 vote margin (he won Bridgeport by 23,624 votes) when he narrowly edged ten-term Republican incumbent Christopher Shays in 2008. In April, the local press reported that Connecticut House Speaker Christopher Donovan, who is pondering a bid in the Fifth District after current incumbent Murphy indicated that he would run for Joseph Lieberman's soon-to-be-vacated Senate seat, was looking to buoy his prospects in the GOP-leaning constituency by redrawing the state's most populous city out of the Fourth.

Donovan also serves on the eight-member bipartisan committee the General Assembly has tasked with drafting the new district lines and could potentially seek to make the Fifth District more favorable to his run for office. Donovan denies harboring such plans, but this possible intra-party fight highlights two important points: first, the thoroughly undemocratic, backroom jockeying that commonly accompanies the redistricting process, and second, the way in which gerrymandering is an inherently biased process in which politicians often at least have the potential of pursuing their personal interests.

FairVote's Super District Alternative

Image: Connecticut's Current Congressional Districts (left) and the Super District Alternative (right)

Time for an Honest, Proportional, and Fair System: These controversies demonstrate the way in which the current system is inadequate: it fails not only to represent accurately the people of Connecticut, but reduces voters to mere pawns in a grand political game designed to benefit party elites rather than the people. Even in states unaffected by reapportionment, there is the impulse to engage in gerrymandering and other highly undemocratic maneuvering.

FairVote's solution to these problems, endemic to the current system, is to consolidate all five of Connecticut's single-member districts into one at-large, multi-seat super district employing proportional allocation. If Connecticut were to become a single super district, the state as a whole would simply elect five representatives, with 714,819 people represented per seat and, at a minimum, 16.67% of the vote (called the threshold of exclusion) necessary for a candidate to win a seat. Importantly, the new proportional, multi-seat system would produce a congressional delegation more reflective of popular opinion, infusing every voice with significance and empowering previously discouraged voters.

Partisan Analysis of FairVote's Super District Alternative: In a proportional system, a state that is as divided as Connecticut (with a statewide partisan index of 57.6% Democratic) would be highly unlikely to produce a congressional delegation uniformly from one party. With winner-take-all, single-member districts eliminated, the Democratic Party would no longer have 'blue barricades' to shield their candidates from the state electorate's substantial contingent of Republican voters, causing their monopoly of U.S. House seats to collapse. Democrats would be well-positioned to win three seats and Republicans two seats, although both parties would need to compete with independent candidates in a state with a tradition of strong independent candidacies.

Super District

Number of Seats

Population per Seat

Threshold to Win One Seat

Partisan Index* (D)

Projected Party Split

Districts Used to Create Super District

At large

714,819

16.67%

57.6%

Democrats: 3
GOP: 2
(with independents influential)

1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Voting Rights Analysis of FairVote's Super District Alternative: The new system's scrapping of the winner-take-all framework would provide racial minorities with increased opportunities for fair representation; instead of having to win a plurality in a single-member district, each group would now need only 16.67% of the vote to win a seat in the super district. Although the African American and Latino voting age populations, at 8.9% and 11.6%, respectively, are below the threshold of exclusion, both groups grew considerably over the last decade (the African share of the population increased 16.9% and the Latino share 49.6%). Thus, voters in each group would be well-positioned to join with other like-minded voters to win seats now and likely would become increasingly competitive as their numbers grow.

Super District

Number of Seats

Population per Seat

Threshold to Win One Seat

White VAP

Black VAP

Latino VAP

At large

714,819

16.67%

74.2%

8.9%

11.6%

Taking the Gerrymander out of Connecticut: To continue their domination of Connecticut's U.S. House races, Democratic candidates would have to win more than 83 percent of the statewide vote. With their 42.4% partisan index, Republicans would gain new relevance, strongly positioned to win two seats.

Existing Single-Member Districts

Projected 2011 Proposal

FairVote Super District

Partisan Split Projection

5 Democrats
0 Republicans

5 Democrats
0 Repupblicans

3 Democrats
2 Republicans
(independents would challenge for a seat)

Race and Representation

5 white
0 black
0 Latino

5 white voters' preference

0 black and Latino voters' strong preference

4 white voters' preference

1 minoriy voter influence

(increased opportunities for strong racial minority candidates)

Under FairVote's plan, neither party would have the power to gerrymander safe single-member districts that distribute their supporters where needed and their opposition's voters where convenient. Rather than having one-party dominate its U.S. House seats, Connecticut's congressional delegation would become more reflective of popular opinion. With the winner-take-all, single-member district format scrapped, all of Connecticut's voters would matter, equally. This is the way democracy should be.

No More Gerrymanders: Transforming Maine into One At-Large Super District

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 07:41:17 -0700

Highlights

Redistricting, which occurs every ten years, ensures political lines reflect population changes and that each district has approximately the same number of residents per seat.
Lawmakers in Maine are fiercely debating how to redraw the boundaries of the state's two U.S. congressional districts in the wake of the 2010 Census. Both political parties seek new maps favorable to their candidates, a process that could affect not only the current 2-0 Democratic U.S. House majority, but possibly also an Electoral College vote at the presidential level. According to state law, the 15-member bipartisan Legislative Apportionment Committee draws new boundaries. Both chambers of the state legislature must approve a plan by a two-thirds vote before it becomes law.
The controversies associated with redistricting are products of our winner-take-all elections, in which 50.01% of voters can elect 100% of representation. Winner-take-all rules marginalize like-minded voters of a political minority no matter their relative numerical strength, thereby depressing turnout and providing inadequate representation.
As part of an ongoing project, FairVote has produced a "super district" map designed for election with a proportional voting system. Our proportional plan upholds U.S. Supreme Court rulings on apportionment while guaranteeing competitive voter choice and fairer representation. Because Maine has only two congressional seats, our efforts to bring truly fair representation to the state are somewhat limited. Nevertheless, our plan would end gerrymandering and would result in more nuanced voter choice than possible under the current winner-take-all system.
Proportional voting plans are legal under the U.S. Constitution, but would require Congress to repeal a 1967 law mandating single-member districts.

The Political Context in Maine

Maine and the 2010 Census: From 2000 to 2010, Maine's population grew slightly, from 1.27 million to 1.33 million, for an increase of 4.2%. This rate, while below the national average of 9.7%, nevertheless outperformed the Northeast's 3.2%, with only New Hampshire and Connecticut besting the state in the region. Maine emerged from the reapportionment process having neither lost nor gained any congressional seats.

As is inevitable, the last decade has seen the populations of the two districts fall out equilibrium; the 2010 Census showed the more populous First District having 668,515 residents and the Second 659,846, a difference of 8,669. Due to Supreme Court rulings that require a state's congressional districts to be equal in population, redistricting is necessary to bring the districts back into balance.

Courts Order Accelerated Redistricting Timetable: Although state law stipulates the legislature need not produce new maps until 2013, plaintiffs, purportedly with Republican backing, arguing that population discrepancies between the districts necessitated changes in time for the 2012 elections, as is the norm around the country. In June, the U.S. District Court in Portland agreed and ordered the redistricting to occur this year.

State Democrats, satisfied with current congressional districts and having a stake in maintaining the present 2-0 Democratic majority, opposed the court's decision. The GOP welcomed the ruling as a significant boost to their electoral prospects at the congressional level. The state legislature has until September 30 to complete the task; Governor Paul LePage (R) has scheduled a special legislative session to begin on September 27, and the Maine Legislature has formed a bipartisan commission based on existing state law.

In 2003, redistricting proved a partisan affair with the state legislature unable to achieve the required two-thirds approval of both chambers for any proposed map, an impasse that forcing action by the Maine Supreme Court. The looming 2011 battle promises to be equally acrimonious as both parties jockey for position.

Partisan Factors - Republican Proposal Calls for Sweeping Changes: Although the GOP has enjoyed continued success at the U.S. Senate level and, in 2010, took over the governor's mansion and both chambers of the legislature, it has not elected its candidates to the U.S. House since 1994. Since 1987, Democrats have held the First District for all but two years (1995-1997), while in the Second, Republican ascendancy ended in 1995 when voters sent then-Rep. Olympia Snowe to the Senate.

Republicans, now controlling the state capitol for the first time in nearly a half century, are hoping to exercise their newfound power over the redistricting process. Despite the modest population differences between the state's two congressional districts, the GOP has proposed an opportunistic map for U.S. House elections that would greatly redraft present boundaries, resulting in the displacement of some 360,000 voters from one district to the other, or nearly one-fourth of the state's population.

The Republican plan would draw incumbent Democrat Chellie Pingree, who lives in North Haven and whose base is Knox County, out of the First District and into the Second. Such a move would leave Pingree with two objectionable choices: either engage her Democratic colleague, the Second's Mike Michaud, in a Democratic Primary or stay in the First (tradition, not law, stipulates that a U.S. House representative should live in the district in which she runs), but renounce her established network of Knox County voters. Moreover, State Senator Kevin Raye, the Republican President of the Maine Senate who is expected to challenge Michaud next year, would benefit considerably from a redrawn, more conservative Second District.

Some Democrats have argued that the GOP, in attempting to convert two Democratic seats into a safe-Democratic First District and a lean-Republican Second District, has designs on the state's Electoral College vote in presidential elections. Unlike most states, Maine does not employ a statewide winner-take-all system of electoral vote allocation. Joined by Nebraska, it awards one electoral vote for each congressional district won and two electoral votes for winning the state. If the Second District became more conservative because of a gerrymander, the Republican nominee for president could win potentially one electoral vote.

Democrats have countered the Republican plan with a proposal that would alter the current boundaries only marginally, moving 4,300 voters in the town of Vassalboro from the First District to the Second. The plan would likely result in the following: both seats would retain their Democratic advantage, Pingree would maintain her Knox Country base in the First District, and the electoral votes of both districts would remain squarely in national Democratic hands. The GOP has lambasted the map as a "status quo proposal" intended to protect Democratic officeholders, not to make the state competitive.

While some observers believe that a statue requiring a two-thirds majority of both chambers to pass any new map might encourage compromise between the entrenched parties, there have been rumors that Republicans are considering scrapping the statue for a simple majority rule. Such a development, if truly being considered, would permit the GOP to push through a controversial, partisan plan over Democratic protestations.

FairVote's Super District Alternative

Image: Maine's Current Congressional Districts (left) and the Super District Alternative (right)

Time for an Honest, Proportional, and Fair System: These controversies demonstrate the way in which the current system is inadequate: it fails not only to represent accurately the people of Maine, but reduces voters to mere pawns in a grand political game designed to benefit party elites rather than the people. Even in states unaffected by reapportionment, there is the impulse to engage in gerrymandering and other highly undemocratic maneuvering.

FairVote's solution to these problems, endemic to the current system, is to consolidate both of Maine's single-member districts into one at-large, multi-seat super district employing proportional allocation. If Maine were to become a single super district, the state as a whole would simply elect two representatives, with 664,180 people represented per seat and, at a minimum, 33.34% of the vote (called the threshold of exclusion) necessary for a candidate to win a seat. Importantly, the new proportional, multi-seat system would produce a congressional delegation more reflective of popular opinion, infusing every voice with significance and empowering previously discouraged voters.

Although FairVote prefers super districts with at least three seats, in order to allow for a greater balance of representation, ending single-member congressional districting in Maine still has clear advantages in that it would more fairly reflect the state.

Partisan Analysis of FairVote's Super District Alternative: In a proportional system, a state as closely divided as Maine, with a statewide partisan index of 55.0% Democratic, would be unlikely to produce a congressional delegation uniformly from one party. With winner-take-all, single-member districts eliminated, the Democratic Party would no longer have 'blue barricades' to shield their candidates from the state electorate's substantial contingent of Republican voters, causing their monopoly of Maine's U.S. House seats to collapse.

Voting Rights Analysis of FairVote's Super District Alternative: Because Maine's voting age population remains 95.6% White, voting rights issues of accurate representation for racial minorities do not apply. At present, Blacks comprise only 0.9% of the voting age population and Latinos 1.0%, both being some 32 points beneath the minimum threshold of support to win one seat.

Super Districts

Number of Seats

Population
per Seat

Threshold to Win One Seat

Partisan Index

Projected
Party Split

Districts Creating
Super District

at large

664,180

33.34%

55.0% (D)

1 Dem, 1 Rep
(possibly 1 independent)

1, 2

Taking the Gerrymander out of Maine: To continue their domination of Maine's U.S. House races, Democratic candidates would have to win at least 66.67 percent statewide, an aggregate total 11 points above the partisan index. With their 45.0% partisan index, Republicans would gain new relevance, strongly positioned to win in the Second District. Nevertheless, in a state where independent voters are particularly strong (Maine had an independent governor from 1995 to 2003), neither party could afford to take winning for granted, as independents could pick off a seat in the event of ideological overreach or candidate inadequacy by one or both of the major parties.

While the Republican redistricting proposal might result in a similar projected party split (D-1, R-1), FairVote's multi-seat super district achieves the same ends while employing different and distinctly more democratic means. Neither party would have the power to gerrymander safe single-member districts that distribute their voters were needed and the opposition's voters where convenient. Rather than a GOP proposal neglecting Republican voters in the First and Democratic voters in the Second or a Democratic proposal discounting Republican voters in both districts, FairVote's plan would erect a system under which all of Maine's voters would matter, equally.

In the spirit of Maine's state slogan, this is the way democracy should be.