Yesterday's Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v Callais brings renewed urgency to the question of how we might one day escape the escalating partisan gerrymandering of US House districts.
In an op-ed for Science originally drafted in early March but published (coincidentally) today, I advocate for going back to the drawing board: replacing single-member districts by multimember districts and the plurality election system with proportional ranked choice voting.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aeg4298
This proposal is the subject of the Fair Representation Act, HR 4632 introduced by Representative Donald Beyer.
In a sample map produced by Fair Vote, Louisiana's six congressional districts would be combined into two districts electing three members each. With proportional ranked choice voting, any candidate who earns more than 25% of the vote would be elected.
https://fairvote.org/sample-fair-representation-act-maps/
Voters in each district submit ballots ranking all the candidates, like in an instant runoff voting election. If some candidate exceeds the threshold for election, earning say 40% of the vote, the excess votes are reallocated to other candidates in proportion to voters' choices.
Similarly, if too few candidates meet the threshold for election, the last place candidates are eliminated and their supporter's voters are reallocated to other candidates. So there are fewer "wasted" votes for both losing and winning candidates.
Importantly, proportional ranked choice voting solves the problem at the heart of the Louisiana v Callais case. Minority "communities of interest" will have a much easier time electing representatives because the threshold for election is reduced from 50% to 25%.
&Multimember districts are harder to gerrymander!
