I read the Charles article with interest.  I found it to make a compelling
argument for why, as a policy matter, a switch to multi-member districting might
better vindicate constitutional values.

But the arguments made by Charles seem to go more to the question of what the
law should be, rather than what a court could say the law is without exceeding
its institutional role.  Particularly given the current state of the law -- in
particular, the discussion in Voting Rights Act cases such as _Holder v. Hall_
-- which suggests that the current Court sees no principled basis for going any
deeper into the "political thicket" than it already has.

Does anyone on the list disagree with me?  If one were to take this argument
into a courtroom, is there precedential ground for it to stand on?


Thom Cmar
3L, Harvard Law School



Quoting Rick Hasen <Rick.Hasen@lls.edu>:

J. Paul Johnston writes:

Guy-Uriel Charles' Findlaw commentary on the constitutionality of 
single-member districting raises some very basic issues of electoral reform 
with arguments that many members of the list should find provocative, to say

the least.

An important point in his argument that was not overtly stressed is that the

solution of moving to multi-member districts only works, to the extent that
it 
does, because he combines it with a switch to using cumulative voting, too.
It 
also depends on voters adopting a partisan, slate-voting approach in making 
their allocations of cumulated votes. Indeed, the example he offers as an 
illustration is, however, a "take" on a well-known actual case: that used for

elections to the Illinois State House of Representatives prior to 1980. One 
"knock" on that experience was that the parties reached local arrangements 
wherein one party's stronghold was not challenged in return for like
treatment 
or one seat was effectively "conceded" to the second strongest party by the 
dominant one only running two candidates. Personally, I never found the 
argument that one should change an electoral that had desirable features 
[which I see this one as having] because of a flaw in the party system
wherein 
party elites chose NOT to compete. The Illinois example is a limited
instance, 
however, and I'm unaware of other instances, except perhaps at the municipal

level. Perhaps list members can cite some.
  
A more common combination using multi-member districts, within the 
majoritarian tradition, is to employ the "block vote" wherein the voter makes

as many simple candidate choices as there are positions [seats] to fill. This

combination actually worsens the control given to the dominant party and the

degree of seats share/votes share disproportionality that occurs. That is 
certainly NOT the direction one would want to take to improve either minority

representation or party competition.

My preference is to use multi-member districts employing three to seven 
members along with the "single transferable vote" procedure that employ a 
preferential ballot on which voters can rank any number of candidates up to 
the number of seats to be filled plus one. It accomplishes much the same 
outcome as Charles' example would yield, with even closer seats share/votes 
share proportionality when voters adopt "slate voting" practices in making
the 
rankings, approximating the degree found in largest remainder party-list PR 
systems.

An advantage of varying the district magnitude from 3 to seven seats is that

one can also better approximate the more exact "rep by pop" standards that 
have evolved in the U.S.A. in the "one person, one vote" tradition. And one 
can accommodate "local" or traditional geographically-based "communities of 
interest" more flexibly in drawing district boundaries.

J. Paul Johnston, Associate Professor
Department of Political Science
The University of Alberta, 
Edmonton, AB  Canada

J. Paul Johnston