Nesting (voting districts)

File:Nesting example.svg. The city of Rock Springs is split into northern and southern state house districts, but they are both combined into a single state senate district.]]

{{Short description|Delimitation of voting districts}}

{{elections}}

Nesting is the delimitation of voting districts for one elected body in order to define the voting districts for another body.[https://books.google.com/books?id=bdBsm4YL9h4C&pg=PA30&lpg=PA30 Reapportionment and Redistricting in the West By Gary F. Moncrief p30]

The major concerns of nesting are that it may impede the creation of majority-minority districts, and that it may cause cities or other communities of interest to be split into different voting districts and therefore dilute their votes.

By country

=Fiji=

Under the 1970 constitution, Fiji had ten National constituencies. Each of them elected one indigenous Fijian member and one Indo-Fijian member on its own, but two national constituencies were nested into one for the election of General electors' representatives.{{Cite web|url=http://www.paclii.org/fj/legis/consol_act/fio1970acof403/|title=Fiji Independence Order 1970 and Constitution of Fiji}}

= Poland =

The voting districts for the Senate of the Republic of Poland have to be within the bounds of the voting districts of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland.{{Cite web |title=Dz.U. 2001 nr 46 poz. 499 - Art. 191 |url=https://isap.sejm.gov.pl/isap.nsf/DocDetails.xsp?id=WDU20010460499 |website=ISAP}}

=United Kingdom=

The Scottish Parliament and Senedd Cymru are elected using an Additional member system, combining single-member constituencies with a party-list component chosen to ensure overall proportional representation across the chamber. To elect this proportional component, single-member constituencies are nested together within larger multi-member regions. In addition, the single-member constituencies in the Senedd are identical to those used for the UK House of Commons; this was also the case in Scotland until the Fifth Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies.

=United States=

File:State legislatures which use nesting of districts.svg

The US states which have nesting in their state legislatures (with the ratio of lower house to upper):

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  • Alaska (2/1)[http://redistricting.lls.edu/states-AK.php All about Redistricting - Alaska]
  • Arizona (2/1)[http://redistricting.lls.edu/states-AZ.php All about Redistricting - Arizona] (districts are identical)
  • Illinois (2/1)Illinois Constitution Article IV, Section 2(b) http://www.ilga.gov/commission/lrb/con4.htm
  • Iowa (2/1)[http://redistricting.lls.edu/states-IA.php All about Redistricting - Iowa]
  • Maryland (3/1)[http://redistricting.lls.edu/states-MD.php All about Redistricting -Maryland] (29 of 47 districts are identical)
  • Minnesota (2/1)[http://redistricting.lls.edu/states-MN.php All about Redistricting - Minnesota]
  • Montana (2/1)[http://redistricting.lls.edu/states-MT.php All about Redistricting -Montana]
  • New Jersey (2/1)[http://redistricting.lls.edu/states-NJ.php All about Redistricting - New Jersey] (districts are identical)
  • North Dakota (2/1)[http://redistricting.lls.edu/states-ND.php All about Redistricting - North Dakota] (46 of 47 districts are identical)
  • Ohio (3/1)[http://redistricting.lls.edu/states-OH.php All about Redistricting - Ohio]
  • Oregon (2/1)[http://redistricting.lls.edu/states-OR.php All about Redistricting - Oregon]
  • South Dakota (2/1)[http://redistricting.lls.edu/states-SD.php All about Redistricting - South Dakota] (33 of 35 districts are identical)
  • Washington (2/1)[http://redistricting.lls.edu/states-WA.php All about Redistricting - Washington] (districts are identical)
  • Wisconsin (3/1)[http://redistricting.lls.edu/states-WI.php All about Redistricting -Wisconsin]

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In addition there are four states with exact ratios (California, Hawaii, New York, and Wyoming) that encourage, but do not require, nesting of legislative districts.[https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/analysis/4%20Where%20the%20Lines%20are%20Drawn.pdf Where the lines are drawn] by the Brennan Center for Justice Two other states with uneven lower-upper house ratios (Rhode Island and Utah) encourage nesting between legislative and congressional districts. Six other states (Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Nevada and Tennessee) have lower-to-upper house seat ratios ranging from 2/1 to 4/1, but do not feature nesting in their laws on redistricting.

References

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