Districts drawn on natural boundaries as much as possible, that are geographically compact, will do a fairly decent job of representing people fairly as well as giving decent representation to minorities in segregated areas. Gerrymanders often are designed to violate this (for example, chopping up liberal Austin, Texas so that parts of it are in five separate congressional districts, each of which has a suburban majority).
It would also be an improvement to increase the size of legislatures to reduce the potential for gerrymandering. The UK parliament has 650 members, each representing 102.5k people. The US House has 435 members, each representing 754.5k people. The number is set by law and can be easily changed. Make it 1000. It would then be much harder to game things so one party can wind up with 80% of the seats with 50% of the vote.
> It would also be an improvement to increase the size of legislatures to reduce the potential for gerrymandering.
Increasing the number of single member districts doesn't reduce the potential for gerrymandering; quite the opposite, more single-member FPTP districts makes it easier to gerrymander.
This is a great solution and the historic number of constituents /per CD has been way lower - this is the highest ever and highest across modern democracies.
I believe it would allow more representation for under represented communities.
The UK has a reasonably good and independent process for redrawing constituency borders. One extra goal it was given was to reduce the number of MPs, because 650 is considered too much. This is partly because of the small size of the Commons (ask your MP for a free tour). I don’t think increasing the number will fix ftfp problems.
These are all arbitrary numbers. Besides, I am not convinced that a democracy is better than a republic. Additional layers of competent people and detachment from the current will of majority has benefits and mitigates the rule of the mob. It is like a filter on the underlying volatility, which we benefit.
> Besides, I am not convinced that a democracy is better than a republic.
Perhaps you need to read one of the many explanations of those terms, which make it clear that they are not mutually exclusive. For example "‘America Is a Republic, Not a Democracy’ Is a Dangerous—And Wrong—Argument" by The Atlantic.[0]
To steelman your position a little, let me assume that you meant "direct democracy" and "indirect democracy" respectively. However, I don't think anyone is proposing a completely direct democracy, where every decision is put to a referendum.
Also, even if there is some merit in dampening the underlying volatility and limiting the power of small majorities, it's not clear that gerrymandering (or the electoral college, or whatever else you had in mind) actually works to prevent extreme outcomes.
If anything, the current lack of democracy in the US conditions a minority of voters (not to mention a minority of citizens) to expect over-representation in the corridors of power, and, as we saw on 1/6, it is pandering to the will of the minority that is most likely to lead to the rule of the mob, nationally.
I’m sure there’s nuance I’m not appreciating, but my natural instinct as a person who votes is that minority rule doesn’t really feel like an improvement over majority rule. Sure, minorities need protection from majorities, but at the same time, majorities feel increasingly uncomfortable obeying the dictates of the few.
It would also be an improvement to increase the size of legislatures to reduce the potential for gerrymandering. The UK parliament has 650 members, each representing 102.5k people. The US House has 435 members, each representing 754.5k people. The number is set by law and can be easily changed. Make it 1000. It would then be much harder to game things so one party can wind up with 80% of the seats with 50% of the vote.