I really don’t understand this example. It seems to make assumptions about people and what motivates them that I’m not willing to accept.
How about party 3, 4, 5, 6, etc? Who gets to pick the pickers?
I think you are talking about a list system here rather than PR. PR usually doesn’t elect a single winner per constituency but does have constituencies. So they elect 3 or 5 candidates meaning that, say, three parties and independents can get elected from the same constituency/district. But much of your argument can be applied to how candidates are selected anyway, which in most countries is by votes of party members, mixed in with entrenched concerns - whether superdelegates or the already elected party members or something like that.
More detailed version of example:
You have two kids and one piece of cake you want them to split. You want to cut the cake as evenly as possible. If Child 1 cuts AND is the first to choose, they will cut the cake unevenly and choose the bigger piece. Same for letting Child 2 cut and choose.
So…let Child 1 cut the cake, but first tell them that Child 2 will get to pick first. Child 1 will cut the cake as evenly as possible.
I am not sure what assumption I am making that you refuse to accept. The only assumption is that the kids want as much cake as they can get. I believe that that is directly analogous to the motivations behind gerrymandering, no? If you don’t accept that political operatives will be greedy given the opportunity, I don’t know what to say. It is the very thing we trying to fight back against.
So, moving to gerrymandering, you let Political Party 1 (PP1) draw district lines for the entire area. For example, assuming a sate with 10 seats to elect, you PP1 draws 10 districts. But the rule is that PP2 will get to pick one of those 10 districts to “lock in” meaning that that one district can no longer be changed.
Then, PP2 gets to re-draw the remaining nine districts. PP1 then chooses a district to “lock in.” Back and forth it goes until there are 10 districts drawn.
Under this system, if you game it out, each drawing will break the districts up as evenly as possible. They may still look like the infamous salamander shape that contributed the “mander” portion to the “gerrymander” moniker, but they will be evenly distributed.
Regarding your question about more than two parties, I addressed that above. Each party that meets a size threshold (collect X signatures, have X people registered in that party in the voting region, etc.) can participate in the process. You randomly select one party to draw the first set of districts. Then, after they are drawn, you randomly select which party picks and redraws. You would likely weight the odds of who gets picked to be representative of the # of voters in the party.
For example, assume a state with 40% Dems, 40% Repubs, and 20% Greens and 10 voting districts. Create a pot with 10 balls in it: 4 for Dem; 4 for Repub; and 2 for Green. Draw a ball and that PP draws the first set of districts. Then, draw the next ball. The chosen PP picks one district to lock and redraws the remaining 9 districts. Then choose another ball. that PP chooses a second district to lock and redraws. Etc. Etc.
You could modify it to ensure that each party has at least one chance to pick and one chance to draw to ensure the Greens don’t have an unlucky placement of having their balls chosen first and last.
While I am sure there are many tweaks needed to fix edge cases, I believe this system would go a long way to solving the gerrymandering issue in the U.S. once and for all.
Then perhaps democracy is not a practical goal for civilization.
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