Stop Gerrymandering. Do This Instead.
According to Spotlight PA, “the data needed to redraw Pennsylvania’s political districts is more than five months behind schedule” which “could also put the 2022 primary election at risk of being delayed.”
Not good! It has to be re-drawn because the Keystone State is losing a congressional seat, going from 18 to 17. The worry here is that gerrymandering will occur. What’s that you ask? According to FairVote.org, it’s “the act of politicians manipulating the redrawing of legislative district lines in order to help their friends and hurt their enemies”.
Of course, we all know that politicians don’t have friends. Nevertheless, this process hurts voters. And I don’t want to be hurt as a voter. So what do we do?
I have a simpler process that gives voters maximum choice and gives politicians different avenues to win. Just cut the state in half. One half will have eight Congresspeople and the other will have nine. Just draw a line north-south or east-west to balance out the population. Not half exactly. The nine-Congressperson side will be 52.94% of the population.
Okay, so how do you still avoid gerrymandering in this case? Some rules: Try not to break up counties. If you have to break up counties, try not to break up towns. If you MUST break up towns, try not to break up zip codes.
Once you get to zip code level, can you trade zip codes to get the balance needed? Great! If not, now you probably only have to break up a couple of zip codes. That’s it. It’s easy!
So your ballot would be Congress: House Of Representatives: Please choose up to, but not more than 8 or 9, depending on the side you’re on. Instead of sides, there are now SUPERDISTRICTS. Fun!
I am hoping this encourages more folks to run and for voters to feel like their vote counts. Oh, it also removes the wait for census data. Once you know the number of seats, you never have to do this waiting game ever again.
