Was doing a google search on "redistricting competitive districts" and hit this book
http://www.routledgepolitics.com/books/Redistricting-and-Representation-isbn9780415964524 They argue that competitive districts are actually a bad thing. >From reading the summary their theory seems to be that in non competitive districts, a greater proportion of the voters will have voted for their Representative, so happiness is improved. This seems the poltical equivalent of Keynes' economic theory, it gives politicians a plausible reason to do what they want to do anyway. The question is, are homogeneous or heterogeneous districts better. With plurality, the answer is almost certainly No. However, I wonder if all districts were arranged so that 80% of the voters in each district supported one or other party, would that party run more than 1 candidate, or would you still have a situation where the party only runs 1 candidate? With plurality, if a district has more than 2/3 of the population from the same party, then a party can run 2 candidates in complete safety, as if each party supporter votes for one or other of them, their preferred candidate will get more than 1/3. The non-party members still get to influence which of the 2 party members wins. It is kinda like top-2 runoff without the first round. Likewise, under Range/Scorevoting, the party could run lots of candidates and the voters would be pretty sure that no matter how they voted, someone from their party would win. The reduces the Burr dilemma (if it is a problem at all). The main point being that with a competitive election method which has no spoiler effect, voters can remove incumbents no matter how the districts are gerrymandered. This may dull the incentive for politicians to gerrymander. At the moment, there is both a personal benefit and a party benefit. If heterogeneous districts were acceptable, the method could assign the number of districts to each party based on a party popularilty vote. For example, - break State into small election areas - each voter ranks the parties - least popular party is excluded until all parties have won a majority in each areas to make up at least 1 seat -- votes are gives to highest ranked party - assign seats/districts to remaing parties using d'Hondt - create election areas so as to maximise support of the party in its districts according to party votes -- Other rules would also apply This splits the districts between the parties using PR and results in heterogeneous districts. Tiny parties which don't have concentrated support wouldn't be assigned any districts though. This is true for districting methods based on geography. ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info