Cayuga County, New York, elects 15 members to its County Legislature, on a partisan basis. The 15 districts are not similar to each other in population. Instead, the county has a system in which each member’s vote in the Legislature depends on how many constituents he or she has. The legislator with the most constituents casts 81 votes (called “points”) each time he votes; by comparison, the legislator with the fewest constituents casts 47 points.
Democrats in the Cayuga County legislature are suggesting that this system be ended, and that the districts be redrawn so that each district is approximately equal in population. See this story.
EXACT P.R. —
Elect at least 2 legislators in each election area.
Each winner to have a voting power equal to his/her original votes plus moved votes from losers — via pre-election candidate rank order lists.
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Regular P.R. —
Total Votes / Total Seats = EQUAL votes needed for each seat winner — via pre-election candidate rank order lists.
Hawaii’s constitution has a similar provision which was to ensure that the Neighbor Islands each had separate representation and that there would not be a need for canoe districts that link island groups separated by 100s of miles of international waters.
After an initial apportionment was made, each island group was granted a minimum of two senators and three representatives who would have a weighted vote based on the original apportionment divided by 2 or 3. So if based on population, an area were entitled to 1 senator and 2 representatives, it would elect two senators who would have 1/2 vote each in the legislature, and three representatives who would have 2/3 of a vote each.
A federal district court overturned the constitution provision (I think the judge decided that it violated One Man One Vote, because a person who lived in a smaller district would have less influence in the legislature, even though he had more relative effect in selection of that representative. In subsequent apportionments Hawaii had canoe districts than included areas from for example, Kauai and Oahu.
Hawaii apportions its legislative districts on the basis of “permanent residents”. The problem is that the census bureau does not provide such information. The redistricting commission in 2001 spent a lot of effort deciding who to exclude. They don’t have information on non-citizens, particularly non-permanent residents. But they do exclude non-resident students, which includes both students from overseas as well as students from the mainland. And they also exclude military personnel who are not tax resident of Hawaii. After a lot of discussion, Attorney General opinions, etc. they decided that dependents of military persons should not be counted also. It appears that the motivation was to the Neighbor Islands nearer to a population that would eliminate canoe districts (most of the military population is concentrated on Oahu). Ironically, under SCOTUS decisions, canoe districts might not be necessary. While legislative districts with population deviation of less than 10% deviation (largest to smallest) are presumed to be constitutional, those with a deviation greater than 10% are not intrinsically unconstitutional – but the state would be required to demonstrate a rational interest. In this case, the canoe districts are essentially unrepresentable because the areas have no common interest. The part of the district with 62% of the population will choose the representative for the entire area.
A system of weighted voting was proposed in the recent debate in Britain over reducing the size of the Commons, and making more-equal constituency sizes (the AV referendum was attached to the legislation, but the real issue of contention were the equalization of constituency sizes). The Commons does its roll call votes by MPs physically going to separate lobbies where the votes for and against a motion are recorded. It was in the formal divisions of the House where the weighted voting would be used.
Democracy 101 —
A legislative body exists ONLY because ALL of the Electors-Voters can NOT generally assemble in person and enact laws.
i.e. legislators are AGENTS/SERVANTS of the Electors-Voters.
However – the EVIL New Age arrogant powermad party hack robots in gerrymander districts act as if each of them is an absolute monarch — who got 100 percent of the votes in *his/her* privately owned gerrymander district — political concentration camp. See especially the MONSTERS in the gerrymander Congress.
P.R. and App.V.
#3, that is one of your best comments ever, because that first sentence of your comment explains the foundation for your strongly-held underlying philosophy about representation and gerrymandering. I tend to think that most people would agree with your first sentence.
There is only a very slight difference in the New Age party hack robot arrogant monarchs in the various gerrymander legislative bodies and the likes of Gaddifi {spelling) in Libya.
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History note — in the EARLY American colonies ALL of the adult males (sorry females) met in person and enacted the early laws — some with an elite initial oligarchy.
Population growth (impossible for ALL such males to assemble) >>> Early gerrymanders — starting in VA along the James River — 1 or more plantations becoming a gerrymander district.
The CRISIS in Western Civilization is N-O-W — the gerrymander MONSTERS in the U.S.A, the U.K., Canada, etc. etc.
See the growing CHAOS in the CA, WI, NY, etc. etc. etc. State gerrymander regimes.
#4 DR’s comment is not inimical to weighted vote in an assembly. If there are 12,000 persons in one community and 10,000 in another; then the representative from the first community can be said to be acting as an agent for that entire community, and should have more influence over the collective decision of the large community for which the legislature serves.
Weighted votes cause various machinations — see the polisci and law review articles from the 1960s-1970s.
A major reason WHY the 5% rule was promulgated by the Federal Supreme Court was to combat the possibility of Rotten Boroughs arising here. This system that the Hawaiian Legislature devised is quite ingenious. They are to be commended working on preserving historic communities in their Islands.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weighted_voting
Mr. Banzhaf did much of the early math.
#9 There is not that much variation in Cayuga County as shown in the examples in the Wiki article.
In fact, the problem appears to be that in the past reapportionment they were unwilling to cut a district out of Auburn which has a declining share of the population.
The article would have you believe the problem is that they can’t split the rural towns, when the problem is that have chopped Auburn into too fine of pieces.
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