Voting Districts

[Jonathan Buhacoff]

Proposal:

A voting district is the smallest division of people that 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.

The local government adds up the certified tallies from each voting district and certifies the sum of tallies for all local, regional, state, and federal candidates and ballot questions. For local candidates and ballot questions, the local government certifies the outcome of the election.

The regional government adds up the certified tallies from each local government and certifies the sum of tallies for all regional, state, and federal candidates and ballot questions. For regional candidates and ballot questions, the regional government certifies the outcome of the election.

The state government adds up the certified tallies from each local or regional government and certifies the sum of tallies for all state and federal candidates and ballot questions. For state candidates and ballot questions, the state government certifies the outcome of the election.

The federal government adds up the certified tallies from each state government and certifies the sum of tallies for all federal candidates and ballot questions. For federal candidates and ballot questions, the federal government certifies the outcome of the election.

If there are higher levels of federal government, each level continues with the same pattern.

Independent observers confirm the outcome of an election by adding up the published tallies from all voting districts, local and regional governments, state governments, and federal governments.

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. 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 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 a town, county, or city which is the lowest level of elected government in the area.

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.

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.

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.

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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