Gerrymandering is a big impediment to fair elections in America. Gerrymandering is when district boundaries are drawn to ensure that one party always wins. It started early in America’s history.

This is the last in a series about how PeopleCount will deliver political accountability. This is the last of four articles about the third part of accountability, fire-ability.

How gerrymandering gives a party an unfair advantage

In many states the dominant party has drawn district boundaries to favor them. Here’s an example of how it can work.

Imagine a state has 10 congressional districts for their 10 million voters. And imagine the voters are 50% Democrat and 50% Republican so their are 5 million of each. Imagine that one year the Democrats win a tiny majority. They could redraw the boundaries of districts so 3 districts are 90% Republican. This means each has 900,000 Republicans and 100,000 Democrats. By putting so many Republicans, 2.7 million, in these 3 districts, they can arrange the other 7 to be heavily Democratic.

Once the 3 heavily Republican districts are made, they can evenly divide the remaining 4.7 million Democrats and 2.3 million Republicans into the remaining 7 districts. Each of these 7 districts is now 2/3 Democratic! So Democrats are guaranteed to win 7 of the 10 congressional seats and control the state, even though they only represent 50% of the population.

It’s even more unfair than just guaranteeing uneven party distribution. Basically, the 0.3 million Democrats in the Republican districts and the 2.3 million Republicans in the Democratic districts are guaranteed their choice of candidate will lose. Gerrymandering is simply unfair.

The remedy, a state proposition

California has a proposition process, where citizens can create legislative proposals for the state’s citizens to vote on in the next election. In the last decade, California voters supported a proposition that created a non-partisan citizen-committee to draw congressional district boundaries. While some citizens are die-hard party zealots, the overall population is more interested in fairness. Especially when supported by non-partisan groups like Common Cause and The League of Women Voters.

But many states have no proposition process. And nationally there is none. So most people can not use this method to rid their states of their parties’ unfair tactics. The two parties are too power-hungry to allow fair redistricting. They’re even actively challenging non-partisan citizen committees in the courts.

A serious problem for the country

In 2013, a few months after the election, this article on MajorityRules.org said:

Democrats received 1.4 million more votes for the House of Representatives, yet Republicans won control of the House by a 234 to 201 margin.

…

In the seven states where Republicans redrew the districts, 16.7 million votes were cast for Republicans (50.4%) and 16.4 million votes were cast for Democrats (49.6%). This elected 73 Republicans (68.2%) and 34 Democrats (31.8%). … 1.7 million votes (16.4 minus 14.7) were effectively packed into Democratic districts and wasted.

Gerrymandering is a huge national crime. We no longer have a true republic, a constitutional democracy. It violates both the principles of democracy as well as the right to vote enshrined in The Constitution. The Republicans have an excuse, that the Democrats do it whenever they can, too. But it needs to end.

The Constitution was not designed to handle parties

The US government was never designed to handle parties. The Constitution says nothing about them. And George Washington warned against them. But they’re the dominant force in Congressional politics. The parties care much, much more about power than about fairness.

If the people want to end gerrymandering, we’ll need a way of making it an important election issue. We’ll need a way to pressure politicians to take a stand on it. After anti-gerrymandering officials are in office, voters will need a way to hold them accountable to keep their promises and represent the will of the people. This is one of the things that PeopleCount will supply.

PeopleCount will deliver accountability

PeopleCount will make your members of Congress accountable to voters. It’ll deliver the foundational relationship where citizens are the boss. It’ll have our representatives report to us so we can judge them, the essence of accountability. This includes having them report on issues of our choosing. And it’ll improve fire-ability.

The sum of all this is that our candidates will compete to accurately represent us, the people, instead of parties or the wealthy. It’ll allow us to make Congress pass widely-desired laws to make elections in which voters can fully express their preferences in fair elections. It’ll let us pressure them to outlaw gerrymandering.

Currently voters can’t effectively communicate their opinions to their members of Congress. So the members look to the parties for guidance. With PeopleCount, members will see what all their constituents want. Our officials will be able to truly represent the people, instead of the parties.

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