Beyond Gerrymandering: A Structural Crisis of the American Electoral System

Abstract

Two key threats facing American democracy today are gerrymandering and voter suppression. In this article, I argue that both of these threats are a direct consequence of the US using a single-member district (SMD) electoral system. This is because SMD creates significant asymmetrical disproportionality, which is a type of electoral bias that can benefit larger parties over smaller parties. This bias leads to the two largest parties in the US winning more seats than their popular vote, which in turn leads to these parties gaining significant resource advantages over smaller parties. This sets off a self-reinforcing system that keeps these larger parties in power and squeezes out the smaller parties, a process that is especially potent when this dynamic is not offset by public funding of electoral campaigns. The resource advantages that result from such bias include control over government policy, which makes it easier for the larger parties to manipulate election laws to their advantage, including through gerrymandering and voter suppression.