Political Districts

A GEOGRAPHICAL AREA that encompasses some section of a country's population, a political district can serve many purposes. In addition to electoral constituencies, political districts can define the borders of local government, as well as areas of judicial jurisdiction. The boundaries of electoral districts may or may not be dependent on other political boundaries within a country.

In the United States, the Senate electoral districts are defined directly by state borders. The same borders constrain the boundaries for congressional districts; but within a state, those congressional districts can be drawn in any form at the discretion of the state legislature. In fact, the legislatures sometimes take so much freedom in drawing district boundaries that the boundaries weave through partisan areas in order to maximize vote counts in those areas, a process referred to as gerrymandering. Other political districts in the United States overlap with local government areas, such as counties, cities, townships, and school districts. Wide variation is seen in the way other national legislative electoral districts are drawn in other countries, and whether they are directly related to the local-level constituencies.

Observation of electoral districts across countries shows a variation in size from small, local precincts to large, statewide constituencies. The number of officials elected from a particular constituency varies, based on the electoral system. For example, the United States and the United Kingdom use the plurality system to elect the one candidate who receives the greatest number of votes within the district; this is referred to as a single-member district. These districts tend to be relatively small, given the population of the country, because only one member is elected to the legislature from each district.

By contrast, multi-member districts produce more than one member for the legislature, generally through some form of proportional representation. Most multi-member districts have a magnitude of two to five elected members, but an extreme example of multi-member district size is the Netherlands, where the legislative election is conducted in one nation-wide district with a district magnitude of 150. Proportional representation generally increases the number of constituents represented by a particular district because more members are elected from each district.

There are several advantages in the use of single versus multi-member districts. Single-member districts [Page 513]have a clear relationship between the voters and their representatives, a benefit for constituency service and identity. This relationship translates into accountability in the next electoral cycle, because the single representative can be held responsible in each election. Single-member districts can also ensure geographic representation. However, there are several problems with single-member districts. Minority parties within the district are completely denied representation. This problem is especially acute when the majority party has a strong enough hold on the district that the minority party has no foreseeable chance of winning an election. Single-member districts also tend to promote repeated incumbent re-election, as well as clientelistic politics, more problematic aspects of the single representative accountability issue. Furthermore, the effects of gerrymandering are more likely, as districts must be continually redistricted, generally in a partisan manner.

Multi-member districts are preferred in most European countries, largely because of their ability to translate constituent preferences more accurately to the national legislature. This means the candidates available for election are more diverse than those in single-member systems, and represent a broader cross-section of societal views. Multi-member districts are also more flexible regarding numbers of electors assigned to each district (and to the legislature as a whole), which also means boundaries need not be redrawn after each census.

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