Friday, November 16, 2012

More on US electoral reform

John George, my friend at Coro Verdi, was asking me about my scheme for reforming the House of Representatives.  Being the obsessive type, I checked the 2010 census results and figured out how the seats would be apportioned under my scheme.

The way I figured it, Washington DC, Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota and Alaska would each get one seat; South Dakota, Delaware, Montana and Rhode Island would get two; New Hampshire, Maine, Hawaii and Idaho three; Nebraska, West Virginia and New Mexico four.  Each of these states would have nothing but category A seats, as they do today.

Nevada, Utah, Kansas, Arkansas, Missisippi and Iowa would get six seats; Connecticut seven; Oklahoma and Oregon eight; Kentucky nine; Louisiana, South Carolina and Alabama ten.  These states would get two category B seats each and the rest would be A.

Colorado and Minnesota would get 11 seats; Wisconsin and Maryland 12; Missouri, Tennessee and Arizona 13; Indiana, Massachusetts and Washington 14.  These states would get three B seats each, the rest A.

New Jersey would get 18 seats, North Carolina and Georgia 20.  These states would get four B seats and one category C seat, the rest A.

Michigan/Ohio would get 21/24 seats each, including 15/16 A, 5 B and 1 C; Illinois and Pennsylvania would both get 27 seats, including 20 A, 6 B and 1 C; Florida/New York would get 40/41 seats, including 30/31 A, 8 B and 2 C; Texas would get 54 seats, including 40 A, 11 B and 3 C; California would get 79 seats, including 59 A, 15 B and 5 C.

Now consider the totals.  There'd be 540 A seats (83.1% of the total), 92 B (14.2%) and 18 C (2.8%).  Five-sixth of the seats would still be chosen in the old "first past the post" way, so the system would not be seriously destabilized.  But a greater range of the public would be represented, and gerrymandering would have a much smaller effect.

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