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A plural district or multi-member district refers to an electoral district in the United States of America which can send multiple individuals to represent the same district. Currently, these districts exist only at the level of state and local governments; there were such districts in the United States House of Representatives until federally (nationally) prohibited by the 1842 Apportionment Bill and consequent locally implementing legislation. States using this method elected multiple members from some of their geographically defined districts. They did so on a single ballot (block voting) or on separate concurrent ballots for each seat (conducting multiple plurality elections).
Multi-member districts give more populous counties or established Congressional Districts fair representation without redistricting (specifically, dividing them). Multi-member districts exist in other countries and bodies.
There are several states which allow one district to elect more than one representative to the state legislature. Some states which employ this system appear below. [1] [2] [3]
The states below always use multi-member districts. [2]
This is a table of every instance of the use of plural districts in the United States Congress.
Congress | State:plural district(s) (#detailed) |
---|---|
3rd | MA:13 (#1, 2, 3, 4) |
4th | PA:2 (#4) |
5th | |
6th | |
7th | |
8th | MD:2 (#5), PA:8 (#1, 2, 3, 4) |
9th | MD:2 (#5), NY:2 (#2 combined with 3), PA:8 (#1, 2, 3, 4) |
10th | |
11th | MD:2 (#5), NY:4 (#2, 6), PA:8 (#1, 2, 3, 4) |
12th | |
13th | MD:2 (#5), NY:12 (#1, 2, 12, 15, 20, 21), PA:14 (#1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10), NJ:6 (#1, 2, 3) |
14th | MD:2 (#5), NY:12 (#1, 2, 12, 15, 20, 21), PA:14 (#1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10) |
15th | |
16th | |
17th | MD:2 (#5), NY:10 (#1, 2, 12, 15, 20), PA:14 (#1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10) |
18th | MD:2 (#5), NY:7 (#3, 20, 26), PA:14 (#4, 7, 8, 9, 11, 16) |
19th | |
20th | |
21st | |
22nd | |
23rd | NY:12 (#3, 8, 17, 22, 23), PA:5 (#2, 4) |
24th | MD:2 (#4), NY:12 (#3, 8, 17, 22, 23), PA:5 (#2, 4) |
25th | |
26th | |
27th |
The House of Representatives is the lower house of Congress, the bicameral legislature of the Philippines, with the Senate of the Philippines as the upper house. The lower house is commonly referred to as Congress, although the term collectively refers to both houses.
An electoraldistrict, sometimes called a constituency, riding, or ward, is a subdivision of a larger state created to provide its population with representation in the larger state's legislature. That body, or the state's constitution or a body established for that purpose, determines each district's boundaries and whether each will be represented by a single member or multiple members. Generally, only voters (constituents) who reside within the district are permitted to vote in an election held there. District representatives may be elected by a first-past-the-post system, a proportional representative system, or another voting method. They may be selected by a direct election under universal suffrage, an indirect election, or another form of suffrage.
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Apportionment is the process by which seats in a legislative body are distributed among administrative divisions, such as states or parties, entitled to representation. This page presents the general principles and issues related to apportionment. The page apportionment by country describes the specific practices used around the world. The page Mathematics of apportionment describes mathematical formulations and properties of apportionment rules.
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Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30 (1986), was a United States Supreme Court case in which a unanimous Court found that "the legacy of official discrimination ... acted in concert with the multimember districting scheme to impair the ability of "cohesive groups of black voters to participate equally in the political process and to elect candidates of their choice." The ruling resulted in the invalidation of districts in the North Carolina General Assembly and led to more single-member districts in state legislatures.
Gerrymandering is the practice of setting boundaries of electoral districts to favor specific political interests within legislative bodies, often resulting in districts with convoluted, winding boundaries rather than compact areas. The term "gerrymandering" was coined after a review of Massachusetts's redistricting maps of 1812 set by Governor Elbridge Gerry noted that one of the districts looked like a mythical salamander.
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Apportionment by country describes the practices used in various democratic countries around the world for partitioning seats in the parliament among districts or parties. See apportionment (politics) for the general principles and issues related to apportionment.
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Smiley v. Holm, 285 U.S. 355 (1932), was a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States involving a governor's power to veto a congressional redistricting proposal passed by a state's legislature. In an opinion by Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, the Court unanimously held that the U.S. Constitution did not prohibit Minnesota's governor from vetoing that state's redistricting map.