One distinction between countries with redistricting commissions and countries where legislatures or government agencies conduct redistricting is public access to the process. Many countries that have adopted neutral redistricting commissions have incorporated public access provisions as part of the reforms to limit the influence of legislators and political parties in the redistricting process.
One of the aims of Canada's Electoral Boundaries Redistribution Act of 1964 was to increase the public's awareness of and involvement in the redistribution process. The Act, modelled on Australia's redistribution process, borrowed Australia's practice of granting the public an opportunity to present suggestions or objections to commission proposals. In Canada today, once an independent electoral commission has completed its proposal and published the map in the local newspapers, the general public is invited to present written briefs or oral representations at public hearings held by the commission. Commissions have received thousands of comments from a wide variety of sources. Local jurisdictions, political parties, members of Parliament (MPs), candidates for Parliament, political activists and other interested citizens have all offered comments on proposed federal redistribution plans. Redistribution plans have often been revised after these hearings.
Although Australia's redistribution process has been modified since Canada borrowed major portions of it, public involvement is still an important part of the process. In 1983, for example, the process was changed to give the public two opportunities to offer comments on proposed redistricting plans. Australia's four-member Redistribution Committee receives suggestions from the public, political parties, candidates, and MPs before beginning to draft a plan. Once the Redistribution Committee has completed a plan, the augmented Electoral Commission hears public objections to the proposed plan, if there are any, and produces a final map. The only avenue for legislators in Australia to comment on a federal redistribution plan is through the public hearing process. See the case study on Australia, Federal Redistribution in Australia, for more details on the public inquiry process in this country.
In the United Kingdom, the process of public consultation is similar, although a public inquiry is held only if local authorities or at least one hundred electors object to the proposed map. Despite this caveat, the public consultation process takes much longer to complete in the United Kingdom than in other countries. One reason is that second inquiries may be held if a proposed plan is modified and new objections are raised. The public consultation process is described in detail in the case study of the United Kingdom, The United Kingdom Redistribution Process.
In countries without standard procedures for public access, litigation may be the only avenue for the public to challenge a redistricting plan. In the United States, civil rights organisations, public interest groups, and interested citizens frequently file lawsuits if they deem a redistricting plan unfair. One consequence is that the number of redistricting lawsuits filed in the United States is enormous, far greater than in any other country. Increased public access to the redistricting process may or may not reduce the number of court challenges to redistricting plans in the United States since there are other reasons as well for the proliferation of lawsuits. But greater public access to the process would certainly make the process appear more open and democratic.
Conclusion
The primary advantage to granting public access to the redistricting process is that the outcome is more likely to be viewed as fair if the process is perceived as open and accessible. In countries with plurality or majority electoral systems, granting the public access to the process may be especially important because of the tendency of single-member districts to distort the relationship between the percentage of votes a political party receives and the number of seats the party wins.
