What reforms have successfully avoided the issues of Gerrymandering?

Question

In democracies like the United States, Gerrymandering to construct districts with artificial boundaries such that incumbents and their parties are favored to win has been a long standing issue. While technically illegal, it seems to still happen.

Some have put forth the idea of computer generated algorithmic redistricting, such as the shortest splitline algorithm put forth here:

http://rangevoting.org/GerryExamples.html

What are the largest jurisdictions where Gerrymandering has been effectively eliminated and how was that accomplished?

Answer 1

Gerrymandering is surprisingly easy to avoid as long as the people in power are willing to make it that way, but if they're only in power because of gerrymandering you can have issues. Using a algorithm to calculate the lines is one way to do it, but not the only way and not necessarily even the best way (algorithms tend to happily do things like cutting a major city into pieces)

I don't know that they're the largest, but several places credit Canada with having particularly fair districts. For example, here's Toronto:

Canada manages this by leaving the redistricting to an independent body, Elections Canada. By "independent" I mean "non-partisan", which is very different than "bipartisan" and harder to achieve. Bipartisan groups (in the U.S., at least) have a reputation for maintaining the status quo by gerrymandering equally, so that both sides keep the seats they have forever. Independent groups theoretically have no such motivation, and will attempt to draw the fairest lines they can. Australia and the UK also use independent groups to handle redistricting, but it's less clear how successful they have been at avoiding gerrymandering

Answer 2

Australian elections are generally held under the supervision, or threat of supervision, of independent electoral bodies, such as the Australian Electoral Commission. These commissions draw boundaries based on agreed rules and submissions.

While most boundaries are drawn without malapportionment, Western Australia and Queensland are malapportioned ( http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2004/guide/glossary.htm#malapportionment ) in favour of rural votes, a Gerrymander in favour of rural conservatism of one of three flavours: small town liberal-conservatism, agrarian capitalists in favour of state aid to industry, and rural Labor which tends to a conservative streak.

In addition to this malapportionment, there is a malapportionment in the Australian senate where Tasmania elects as many Senators as New South Wales. However, since the 1980s, states votes have tended to converge on the general ideological divisions of Australia; leading this malapportionment to be expressed through preference flow deals between parties.

The reason for Australia's contemporary low level of gerrymander can be seen in two factors:

• Parliamentary politics doesn't matter very much. The real political action in Australia has tended to be industrial in nature.
• Australia's system of spoils and graft is gentle in nature, and systematic corruption of parliamentarians is comparatively uninstitutionalised. Before people attempt to correct me: magistrates, judges and bureaucrats are appointed "impartially" by a system of corruption that operates without reference to parliament, and occasionally by systems of non-corruption, such as the legal professions' jealous guarding of judicial appointments.

Counter-intuitively, a bureaucratic civil service has ensured greater democracy in the appointment of executive and judicial figures by the parliamentary than would be the case in terms of direct election to such offices.

Answer 3

The Israeli Knesset avoids gerrymandering by not drawing any district boundaries at all; it's elected by nationwide closed party list proportional representation.

Answer 4

Several states, like Iowa, also employ an independent/non-partisan committees (Iowa calls it the Legislative Services Agency) for redistricting. They propose new maps to the legislature for approval that are supposed to be based upon population data rather than political party interests.

Answer 5

First, as @dan04 pointed out, proportional representation with large multi-seat districts (or even a single nationwide district) removes the issue. There are many different systems but that's basically how (the lower chamber of) parliament is elected in Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, Israel, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Belgium and many other countries.

In some cases (Germany, Spain, Portugal…), the electoral districts are also the provinces/states so you cannot simply redraw a district without deep consequences on the territorial organization of the country and a change to the constitution.

With single-seat electoral districts, it's very difficult to completely avoid distortions (deliberate manipulation being only one of them). Outright gerrymandering can still be reduced by several mechanisms:

• Supervision by an independent body or electoral commission or by the courts.
• Requiring some sort of supermajority to change the electoral map.

But these can still be manipulated, e.g. if the main parties try to keep newcomers out by agreeing on changes to the electoral map or on appointments to the independent commissions. An additional problem with all this is that institutional constraints typically make changes more difficult but regular updates are in fact required to keep up with demographic evolutions and keep the elections fair.