Hi, I'm Megan, and this is your civic minute.
Here's a question.
If you live in a district where 60% of voters lean one way,
what happens to the other 40%?
Under our current system, nothing.
They lose every election.
Their representative has no reason to listen to them.
In district after district, a huge chunk of voters
effectively have no voice.
Multi-member districts work differently.
Instead of one representative per district,
a larger district elects four or five.
If 60% of voters support one party,
they might elect three representatives.
The other 40% elect too.
Nearly everyone helps choose someone who represents them.
Now, Congress actually banned multi-member districts
back in 1967 and for good reason.
Southern states were using them with winner-take-all rules
to drown out newly-enfranchised black voters.
But multi-member districts with proportional ranked choice
voting do the opposite.
They give more representation to communities
that the current system shuts out entirely.
That's your civic minute.
Find more at civicmedia.us.
