States around the country are plunging into the famed "political thicket" of redistricting. States having to move the fastest are those like New Jersey that this year will hold state legislative elections in their new plan. With winner-take-all rules, the impact of how lines are drawn is enormously point - that's why FairVote suggests giving more power to voters and less power to mapmakers through adoption of forms of proportional voting. New Jersey's state legislative districts provide a good example.

New Jersey's Apportionment Commission is a bipartisan body which is responsible for appointing the state's 40 legislative districts following a census every ten years. Each state legislative district elects one state senator and two state assembly members. After the usual  impasse between the five Republican and five Democratic commission members, the tie-breaking member of the commission (one selected with the goal of being independent and representing the public interest) went with the democratic plan. Below is the final appointment plan they agreed upon.

With this new plan come many questions. 1. Has it created competitive districts for the State Assembly and the Senate? 2. Does it exhibit egregious cases of gerrymandering? 3. Does it give racial minorities fair opportunities to elect like-minded candidates?  The issue I focus on in this blog is the topic of the third question. Does this new appointment plan provide underrepresented racial minorities with sufficient opportunity to have a voice in their state legislature? Short Answer: no. Is there a way to solve this? Yes – and in a way that would create more opportunities for fairer representation for everyone.

According to NJ.com, (http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/04/nj_minority_groups_say_theyre.html) increasing minority representation, in particular the state’s fast growing Hispanic population, has been a top issue for both political parties throughout the redistricting process. Hispanics are underrepresented in the Legislature, making up almost 18 percent of the state’s population but filling only 6 percent of legislative seats.”

It is quite accurate to attribute this discrepancy to a distinct lack of minority-majority districts within the new NJ appointment plan. With a winner-take-all system, a lack of minority-majority districts effectively muffles their voice. As you can see from the data below, there currently exists only **one** district that holds over 50% African American population and only **one** district which holds over 50% Hispanic – with these racial minorities’ share of the voter eligible population likely even being smaller. Although racial minorities often have won in New Jersey legislative districts that are not majority-minority, if the proposed plan is adopted, it is more than likely that racial minorities will continue to be underrepresented within their state legislature. How do we solve this? Read on.

FairVote has a simple, proven solution: forming multi-seat districts and implementing equitable method of proportional voting like the cumulative voting system once used in Illinois state legislative elections and choice voting [ LINK to choicevoting.com], another candidate-based system used in many cities and countries around the word.

We didn’t have the ability to draw our own New Jersey districts from scratch, so we decided to do something simple; combing two adjoining districts into a single “super-district”, voting proportionally to elect 4 assembly members collectively, then combining two adjoining assembly super district to form a four-seat super district for the state senate.

Our plan for the Assembly districts has a remarkable impact on fair racial representation because, with a proportional voting in a four-seat “super-district”, the threshold of representation (meaning the share of the vote necessary to be sure of winning a seat) is just over20% (as compared to just over 50% in a winner-take-all system). If we look at the data below, by combining district 4 and 5 under the commission’s new plan and implementing an equitable proportional system, our plan would put African Americans  in an excellent position to elect at least five assembly seats – likely more, given the state’s history – and Latinos in a position to elect at least six members. . Our plan would grant racial minorities significantly more opportunities to win and more opportunities to increase representation over the course of the decades as demography continues to change. 

FairVote’s state senate proposal also gives racial minorities opportunities to elect like-minded State Senators after each “super-district” was then combined with another, adjacent “super-district” to form a  four-Senator multi-seat district. As we can see from the date below, this system (with a threshold of representation of 20%) would grant African Americans **three** clear opportunity districts and  Hispanics **four** opportunity districts.  See below

Here’s our updated map, showing both seats of “super districts.” And although we had no political data available in our maps, note that it’s almost certainly that every single district would elect representatives of both major parties, with an outside chance for independents and third parties. Such “shared representation” is far different from the likely outcome of the official plan, in which most districts will be swept by candidates of one party in classic winner-take-all fashion.