Missouri’s locked in a gerrymandering war. Here’s how math can end it | Opinion

Currently, the American people are threatened with disenfranchisement as both parties race to use extreme gerrymandering to preclude the election of opposing candidates in every state they control. This political war began when President Donald Trump commanded the Texas GOP to redistrict the state to wipe out Democratic representation. In response, the Democrats employed their dominance of California and Virginia to try to rig every congressional district in those states for themselves. Now, with the energetic support of Vice President JD Vance, Republicans moved to nullify Democrat votes in Missouri, and the nation is in a sprint to the bottom, where anyone in either party who opposes such naked abuse of power is being viewed as a hopeless idealist, or even, as recently occurred in Indiana, denounced by their party’s leaders as a heretic and run out of office accordingly.

The upshot of all this will not only be the disenfranchisement of the voters, but the elimination of all principled individuals from public life. Instead, the price of admission to politics will be the willing acceptance of systemic corruption. Furthermore, by eliminating the relevance of the general election in favor of the parties’ primaries as a means of choosing federal and state lawmakers, the new process will shift control of each party to its most radical elements. This will render our political system ever more dysfunctional, as any semblance of democratic deliberation to solve the nation’s problems becomes supplanted by intractable battles between opposing gangs of unprincipled extremists.

In short, the unrestricted gerrymandering war now underway represents an existential threat to America’s future. It needs to be ended. How can this be done?

The old-school political boss’s solution of dividing the spoils of gerrymandering within each state between the parties was never any good. The alternative of having the courts or nonpartisan commissions try to determine a fair districting plan has now broken down, as the putative neutrality of such arbitrators lacks credibility. Furthermore, there is no generally accepted standard for fairness. Does fair districting require that certain select minority groups get a number of districts rigged for themselves? Or does it require that these sorts of particular favors be prevented?

The problem is that any system which allows politicians to contrive the shape of their districts to pick their voters is inherently corrupt. What’s needed is a way to remove the power to delineate district boundaries not only from politicians, but from anyone who might be allied with them.

Less contrived electoral maps

There is a way. Instead of allowing corruptible humans to draw election maps, we should let math decide. Highly contrived systems of electoral mapping require shaping districts into irregular, organic-looking forms — thus, the name “gerrymander,” from 19th century Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry, who approved a manipulated map likened to a salamander by a political cartoonist. The least contrived electoral boundary system in any state will be the one based on the most regular shapes. This could be found by a computer. But rather than ask people to trust such oracles to find the right answer, I propose the following process:

Once per decade, each party with ballot status in the most recent general election in each state should be allowed to propose its favored electoral map. Each district in these maps must be contiguous, and all would need to have equal populations. Within those limits, they can propose any map they like. But here’s the thing: The map whose total electoral district boundaries are the shortest will be the one that prevails.

That last bit is the most important part. Irregular, salamander-like shapes use very long boundaries to enclose a given area. Compact, regular shapes like squares and circles enclose a given area with the shortest boundaries. By awarding the districting selection to the map with the minimum total district perimeters, the system will force the parties to choose the most regular shapes, driving the map toward its least contrived form.

It is quite true that if such a system were employed there would be some safe districts for each party, just as there are some safe states for each party today. But these outcomes would be determined by the facts of demography and the laws of mathematics, not by political conspiracy. Certainly, however, there would be many more swing districts, as none could be rigged in advance. Instead of being able to choose those voters who agree with them already, parties would be forced to try to appeal to the voters they are stuck with. This would drive candidates toward reasoned discourse to attempt to win over the minds of the political center. With such a change the nation could escape from madness.

We are on the road to disaster. With each major party engaged in total gerrymandering war, it is unreasonable to expect either to stand down unilaterally. The only way to save our democracy is to change the system to make gerrymandering impossible. We need to make minimum perimeter districting the law of the land.

Are there any men or women of principle left in politics? If so, it is time for them to step up and do what is right.

Robert Zubrin, an aerospace engineer, is president of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Mars Society and author of 13 books, including most recently, “The New World on Mars: What We can Create on the Red Planet.”