How to make voting districts fair to voters, not parties

"Should fairness to political parties be the standard for evaluating legislative redistricting? Across the nation, state lawmakers are jockeying to advantage their party – be it Republican or Democratic – while drawing boundaries for legislative and congressional districts. If the Freedom to Vote Act currently before Congress passes, many state maps that favor one party will become illegal. As a geographer who studies boundaries and a political scientist who studies Congress, we are interested in how spatial distributions of voters affect election outcomes. Our research on Pennsylvania demonstrates that fairness to parties in drawing legislative districts is an unworkable goal. However, reforming other rules that govern how districts are drawn and votes are counted could make more contests competitive and enhance legislators' accountability to the public." Emereti and Professor of Government, Linda Fowler notes in her new article published via The Coversation.

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