Electoral territories have to be defined in order to be studied from a legal point of view. An electoral territory is, thus, a territorial unit in which voting defines how congressional seats will be distributed among candidates or political parties.
The boundaries of electoral territories are not equally important for all electoral systems. For some of them, distributing congressional seats can be seen as a very important and debated political decision. In many countries turning votes into congressional seats can bring along very dramatic changes for the political balances of a nation.
A legal framework has to prevent any kind of manipulation or gerrymandering from being adopted within an electoral system’s design. Every single vote has to be as valuable as any other.
Legal frameworks have to organize the way in which electoral districts will be outlined and defined. Electoral districts have to be seen as supporting political representation and have to be modified once and again in order to match political and social realities. Legal frameworks have to answer some important questions, which can be put as follows: how often and under which circumstances electoral districts’ boundaries have to be redesigned; which will be the participation of both traditional branches of government and autonomous institutions in doing so; who will have the final word about it.
There are different ways to set boundaries between electoral districts. Since such an activity can be seen as very significant from a political point of view, many countries exclude non-independent electoral authorities from such a task. Usually the whole process is vested in an especial commission which is helped out by the electoral authorities from a technical point of view. Especial commissions are integrated in many different ways: they can include political parties, non-partisan citizens, experts such as demographists.
An electoral system will generally aim at turning the public will of voters into a representative government. Therefore, setting boundaries for each single electoral district can produce different results in different countries, even though basic principles always have to be followed. According to international standards, every single vote has to be as valuable as any other in order to elect an effective representation.
Now, setting boundaries is not solved in an identical way by all countries. However, there are three universal principles which guide such an activity everywhere. Such principles can be listed as follows: representation, equal consideration of votes, reciprocity and anti-discrimination.
Boundaries bringing apart electoral districts have to be set in a way in which, at the end, voters see elected candidates as legitimate winners of the race. Usually, such a requirement means that electoral districts have to match interest communities, i.e, governmental regions, ethnic communities, racial communities, geographic zones (such as islands) limited by natural borders.
From a structural point of view, setting boundaries for electoral districts is supported by a universal constitutional command: each person's vote is as valuable as any other’s. Such a constitutional command turns every single vote into a definitive one in order to compose representative organs. Such principles can not be constrained by territorial considerations; on the contrary, each single electoral district must be represented by as many representatives as its population makes it necessary (proportional representation) or by as many representatives as any other electoral district is represented (direct representation).
Boundaries for electoral districts must be set down using legal and clear procedures. Here the rules have to provide us with as much certainty as possible.
Setting down electoral districts will have managerial consequences as well. Such consequences will have to be met by electoral authorities in charge of electoral management because they will have to adapt their structures to match electoral territories.
It is also important to highlight that, once specific electoral districts have been implemented, such territorial units are not eternally fixated. Demographics will always demand a permanent revision of electoral districts.
