gerrymandering
in a democracy, voters pick the politicians. gerrymandering is when politicians pick the voters.
here's a pretty good example. i'm pretty sure this particular shape came about so the party in power could gain a seat by redrawing the district lines to include just a few more friendly voters and a few less unfriendly voters. concentrate the unfriendlies in one district. this way you can lose the popular vote. but control the house. it seems just wrong. you end up with states with a north going governor and a south going legislature. sigh. so here's my plan. i'm realistic enough to know you can't completely eliminate gerrymandering. but you should be able to minimize it. the majority party would be excluded from redefining the districts. this should keep the government from tilting north then suddenly lurching way to the south until the next lurch north. this should put the government on a more centrist even course. more in line with the populace. more representative as it were. now the details. for each district, assign a gps coordinate. each voter belongs to whichever location is closest to them. you'll get much simpler maps. and yeah, there will still be opportunity to fudge things in your favor. but the opportunity should be a lot less than with the status quo. timmer for president.