Endogenous Voting Weights for Elected Representatives and Redistricting

This paper analyzes the merits of a novel method of eliminating the power of a gerrymanderer that involves an endogenous weighting system for elected representatives. This endogenous weighting system ties the voting weight of elected representatives in the legislature to the share of the voters who voted for that representative's party and to the share of representatives elected from that party. If the weights are set correctly, it can be shown in simple voting models like Gilligan and Matsusaka (1999) that redistricting has no influence on the policy passed by the legislature. This benefit, though, is out-weighed by the fact that, in more realistic voting models, the gerrymanderer can manipulate the redistricting process to achieve greater policy bias than under the status quo.