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3 Ind. J. Const. Design 1 (2018)

handle is hein.journals/indjcstd3 and id is 1 raw text is: A Taxonomy of Independent Electoral Reapportionment Systems James Ruley* INTRODUCTION One of the fundamental principles of democracy is that government is both of the people and for the people.' To that end, elections on both the provincial and national levels receive great scrutiny because elected officials are, by design, supposed to represent their constituents. Democratic societies allow citizens to vote by proxy; though citizens cannot all serve in government, all citizens can choose the individuals they want representing them. The United States Supreme Court has crystalized a fundamental principle of democracy in the mantra one person, one vote, summarizing the chief principle that, under the law, all have equal say in who governs them, and all votes count equally.2 Most countries are subdivided into constituencies, or districts.3 Two major methods underlie the division of constituencies. The first is the majority/plurality system. Underlying this system is the theory that each constituency should have only one elected representative.4 Ideally, this will result in a large number of small constituencies where voters feel personally represented by their representatives.5 The second method is called Proportional Representation (PR). This system seeks to provide fairer, and more equal, representation of citizens.6 For supporters of PR, the fundamental problem with majority/plurality systems is that only a majority of votes are required to win the seat in government. Thus, while a candidate may win the election with fifty-one percent of the vote, his party gains one hundred percent of the legislative seats. As a result, in PR systems constituencies are larger, and both majority and minority parties gain seats in the legislature. In a simplified example with only ten legislative seats, if the majority party wins seventy percent of the votes and the minority party gains thirty percent of the votes, the majority gets to send seven representatives to the legislature and the minority party gets to send three.7 Both of these systems have benefits and problems with them, far beyond the scope of this paper.8 However, it is essential to remember that countries do draw their boundaries based on different principles, and these principles affect all other election-related policies and practices. *Editorial Affiliate, Center for Constitutional Democracy; J.D. Candidate, 2017, Indiana University Maurer School of Law. My deepest thanks to Professor David Williams, without whose insight and passion this paper would never have been written. 1 For a discussion of forms of democracy and the expression of this principle in the United States, see BUREAU OF INT'L. INFO. PROGRAMS, U.S. DEP'T. OF STATE, DEMOCRACY IN BRIEF 5-7 (2007). 2 See, e.g., Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186 (1962) (codifying the principle of one person, one vote in the United States). See also Harvard Law Review Ass'n, Congressional Redistricting, 97 HARV. L. REV. 135 (1983) (discussing the development and importance of redistricting in the United States). ' Because the majority of countries call these constituencies, I will call them constituencies throughout this paper. 4 ANDREW REYNOLDS, ET AL., INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR DEMOCRACY AND ELECTORAL ASSISTANCE, ELECTORAL SYSTEM DESIGN: THE NEW INTERNATIONAL IDEA HANDBOOK, 28 (2005). 5 Id. at 28. 6 Id. at 29. 7 For other examples, see id. See, e.g., SIMON HIX ET AL., BRITISH ACADEMY POLICY CENTRE, CHOOSING AN ELECTORAL SYSTEM (2010); John C. Courtney, Plurality-Majority Electoral Systems: A Review, UNIV. SASKATCHEWAN (1999); Pippa Norris, Choosing Electoral Systems: Proportional, Majoritarian, and Mixed Systems, 18(3) INT'L POLITICAL SCIENCE R. 297 (1997). 1

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