[analog31]

By "awry" I mean that one party gets the popular vote, the other party wins the election, which didn't happen this time. I'm not contesting this election, though I think it's a disaster.

It's true that the Democrats gerrymander. I think it gives them an advantage in Illinois and Massachusetts. I'm personally willing to give that up, and let my party take its chances in an elective republic.

I agree that your preferred method makes sense. I can't think of another way.

I don't believe that the House represents the people. In my state, the House delegation, and the state legislature, are effectively chosen by the ruling party through gerrymandering. This could be found to be illegal, since the Constitution requires the states to have a republican form of government. But I'm not sure I'm willing to take my chances with letting the Supreme Court decide on this right now.

I think that eliminating gerrymandering might have an impact on policy, since both parties would have to change how they appeal to voters.

[big-green-man]

Yes, currently the house, and to a good degree everything else including state governments, represent the parties. Supposedly parties represent their members by proxy as an unofficial institution, but I think you and I would agree that that is naively optimistic to believe.

Requiring representatives to represent a maximum number of people wouldn't eliminate gerrymandering, but it would significantly reduce it's efficacy. I think, districting based on geography is the ultimate cause of the problem, the theory goes that people in close proximity share interests, but we see that that's not really optimal. It would be nice if something like, people can form groups together in a state that would function like districts, with a maximum number of members, and a maximum number of groups based on the number of representatives in the state (which is of course a function of the total population in the state), and elect theirs, basically let the people self organize and voluntarily associate so they can maximize their representation. I'm sure there are unforeseen consequences to that, like unions dominating many representative groups, or issues local to a small region going unaddressed, but it's interesting to think about and there is an optimal solution to the gerrymandering issue that requires us to change the way we think of a representative constituency.