Voting Districts

[Jonathan Buhacoff]

Proposal:

Voting districts are established for the purpose of collecting votes on election day.

A voting district is the smallest division of people who can administer elections by collecting and counting votes cast by eligible voters who are registered to vote in that district.

A voting district certifies and publishes the vote tallies for all candidates and ballot questions presented to voters in an election. A voting district does not determine or declare the outcome of an election.

Voting districts must be established by local governments responsible for administering elections. Incorporated towns and cities will establish their own voting districts. Outside of incorporated cities, the local county, province, or administrative region will establish voting districts within its boundaries.

Voting districts do not need to be of equal size or population.

Elections administered in a voting district must be supervised by an election supervisor. The election supervisor is responsible for training and authorizing election administrators, paid staff, and volunteers, and recommending changes in equipment or procedures to the local government.

There is no minimum or maximum size for a voting district. The local government is responsible for creating voting districts or managing their boundaries in a sensible way that meets the requirements in this proposal. A local government may have a one or more voting districts to administer elections.

A voting district may be defined with a geographic boundary on land or water, or may be defined with a category of people who are constituents of the government but are not present or know they will not be present on election day, such as travelers, transport crew, people deployed for military or civilian service, and people who will be voting remotely for any other reason.

Voting districts must be drawn with a low variance among districts when measuring the distance between each registered voter’s home address and the nearest voting station using bands of equal-width concentric discs around each voting station. Voting districts must be funded with a low variance among districts when measuring the per-voter budget they will receive to administer elections. Voting districts must be planned with a low variance among districts when measuring the number of voters per voting station. Voting districts must be staffed with a low variance among districts when measuring the number of election administrators per voting station. Voting districts must be equipped with a low variance among districts when measuring the number of voting booths or voting machines per voting station.

Voting districts do not determine the candidates or ballot questions in an election. A voting district presents the candidates and ballot questions from its locality, region, state, and federation. All the voting districts in the same locality must present the same local candidates and local ballot questions to voters. All the voting districts in the same region must present the same regional candidates and regional ballot questions to voters. All the voting districts in the same state must present the same state candidates and same state ballot questions to voters. All the the voting districts in the same federation must present the same federal candidates and same federal ballot questions to voters.

A locality in this proposal is an incorporated town, county, or city which is the lowest level of elected government in the area, or the entirety of un-incorporated area in a county or province.

A region in this proposal is a county or province or other administrative region which has two or more localities in it.

A state in this proposal is an independent and self-governing area, which may also be called a country in some cases.

A federation in this proposal is a federation of states, which may also be called a country in some cases, or any higher-level federation such as a federation of countries.

A new map approved within 6 months of an election day shall not be effective until the first day following the election.

Any registered voter may challenge the voting district boundaries established by their local government.

If a new voting district map is successfully challenged in court, the remedy is to immediately re-instate the previous map.

In an election for positions in a local or state government, every registered voter within the boundary of the local or state government participates in the same election for the same elected positions. The voting districts do not determine who registered voters can elect.

Intent:

To support free and fair elections by promoting sensible and stable voting districts. To reduce expenses associated with administering elections. To support election integrity by facilitating transparency and accountability.

This proposal is also part of a solution to eliminate the possibility of influencing election results by redrawing district boundaries.

Discussion:

In a local election, for example for a mayor and city council and sheriff, all the voting districts have the same candidates on the ballot and are used only to collect the votes and send them to the local government offices. Each voting district certifies and publishes its own results, so that everyone in other voting districts can add up the totals themselves and there is no chance for officials or employees in the local government to cheat in elections by changing the numbers. If a local government were to attempt gerrymandering the districts, it wouldn’t affect the results because the tallies would be the same regardless of which district a person casts their vote.

Voting districts do not need to be of equal size or population. As a part of this proposal, the size and population of a voting district will not affect the outcome of an election. Not mandating equal size and population gives flexibility to local governments in establishing voting districts that make sense for effective, efficient, and fair administration of elections.

Voting districts must be drawn with a low variance among districts when measuring the distance between each registered voter’s home address and the nearest voting station using bands of equal-width concentric discs around each voting station. This means that if voters have to walk to the voting stations they have similar distances and one group is not significantly and systematically advantaged over another. Some homes will be closer to voting stations than others. To be a fair measurement, it can be done in equal-width bands of concentric discs around the voting stations and the number of people in each band can be compared across voting districts. For example the number of people within 1km, 2km, 3km, etc. of the voting station in urban areas or the number of people within 10km, 20km, 30km, etc. of the voting station in rural areas. The local government must use the same bands to compare voting districts within its boundaries. The width of the band refers to the distance between the inner and outer radius of the band. The measurement refers to the registered voter’s home address so that the burden of actual voters will be considered, and not distance from any other homes that won’t be participating in the election such as abandoned houses and empty lots. A low variance among districts when measuring the distance between each voter’s home address and the nearest voting station means that a rural county or province can establish its voting districts fairly and a large city can establish its voting districts fairly, while the two separate local governments are not compared to each other.

Voting districts must be funded with a low variance among districts when measuring the per-voter budget they will receive to administer elections. This gives flexibility to local governments to apply their election administration budget in a way that makes sense and is fair across voting districts, accounting for their variations in size and population. A district with more people in it will need more voting stations and staff than a district with less people in it. The per-voter budget is a per-capita comparison that considers only the number of registered voters in each district. Because the district boundaries are not expected to change as frequently as the population, it’s more effective to assign a budget each year based on the number of registered voters present in each district six months before the election day, when the voting district boundaries are locked in. It also means there must be at least one registered voter per voting district because if a district has no voters than the per-voter budget cannot be determined (division by zero) and therefore cannot be compared with other voting districts and therefore would be in violation of this rule.

Voting districts must be planned with a low variance among districts when measuring the number of voters per voting station. This gives flexibility to local governments when determining the number and location of voting stations in a way that best serves the voters. Voting districts of varying size and population can have a different number of voting stations, but must have a similar number of voters per voting station. This means more voting stations in more populated areas. It also means there must be at least one voting station per district because if a district has no voting stations the number of voters per voting station cannot be determined (division by zero) and therefore cannot be compared with other voting districts and therefore would be in violation of this rule.

Voting districts must be staffed with a low variance among districts when measuring the number of election administrators per voting station. This ensures a fair administration of elections so that no voting district is significantly understaffed and therefore the voters are significantly disadvantaged compared to the other voting districts. This is important because while the number of voting stations per voting district may be similar, if the local government does not staff them similarly it may affect the ability of voters in that district to cast their votes.

Voting districts must be equipped with a low variance among districts when measuring the number of voting booths or voting machines per voting station. This ensures a fair administration of elections so that no voting district is significantly under-equipped in comparison with the other districts. This is because even if the voting stations are similarly staffed but some are under-equipped it may affect the ability of voters in that district to cast their votes.

A new map approved within 6 months of an election day shall not be effective until the first day following the election. When a local government establishes its voting districts, or makes any changes to them, the effective date of the change must be early enough before the election to allow time for legal challenges to be filed and resolved. It must also be enough time before the election so that people administering elections have the assurance that whatever map they have 6 months before the election is “locked in” and they can make their plans and administer the election without a surprise change in the map.

Voting districts affect the ability of voters to cast their votes on election day and all constituents of the same local government are affected by the outcome of the election. Therefore any voter may bring a challenge to the voting districts established by their local government.

If a new voting district map is successfully challenged in court, the remedy is to immediately re-instate the previous map. This prevents a legislature from attempting to gerrymander districts and when they lose in court simply to provide another gerrymandered map and invite another challenge. The legislature can attempt to draw a new map but it would be an entirely new effort with its own timeline completely separate from the prior effort and challenge.

Comparison with the United States

In the United States, voting districts are used to partition the land into areas containing approximately the same number of people who then vote for a single candidate who then represents them. This sounds like a good idea, but in the United States this has led to widespread corruption called gerrymandering where the people in charge of drawing the map for these voting districts rig the map to help themselves or their party win future elections by slicing up areas that tend to vote for the other party and making them into minorities in adjoining areas. Another consequence of the one representative per district system is that a an elected representative who won 51% of the vote then represents barely over half of their home district when they vote in the legislature. A related proposal for representation in the legislature addresses this problem.

To ensure the integrity of elections, voting districts should only facilitate where and how people vote — not who they vote for — and it should not be possible to change the election results by redrawing the voting district map. Instead of voting districts selecting a a representative for that district, voting districts should be only a mechanism for collecting and tabulating the local vote and sending it on to the next higher level of government.

See also Algorithm for district boundaries.

Terminology

A voting precinct is a term used to refer to areas where people cast their votes. Generally, votes cast in a voting precinct are transported to local government offices for counting. In contrast, a voting district in this proposal would also count and publish the vote tallies for each candidate and ballot question. The government would then add up the tallies from each voting district and certify the outcome of the election. Independent observers would be able to confirm the outcome by adding up the published tallies from all voting districts.

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