Possible proposal: Replace current congressional districts with area (phone number) codes:

[Vice President Christian Man]

This would make congressional districts geographically based rather than population base, although it is probably unconstitutional and doesn't make a lot of sense, it is an idea I thought up of.

All are approximates (2020 election results; approx. 181 to win):
Biden: 198 EV
Trump: 164 EV


This would lower the E.C. down from 538 to around 364 (around 264 geographic area codes/representatives) while the senate count would remain the same. Our founding fathers argued for the current system because they didn't want large states to have excess power, but I didn't know how people would feel about this system.

[Tekken_Guy]

NJ representatives

201: Josh Gottheimer
609: Andy Kim
732: Frank Pallone
856: Donald Norcross
908: Tom Malinowski
973: Mikie Sherrill

201 and 973 are Safe Democratic. The others probably vote Democratic as well but some of them might be winnable for Republicans.

[Stuart98]

> NY having as many representatives as Michigan
> Florida having more than Texas

lollollol

[Kamala's side hoe]

Oregon actually has 2 area codes- one for Portland/Salem and one for the other 3/4ths of the state's area.

I wonder if the map would look different if you could somehow weigh area codes by population.

[OBD]

Disgusting disenfranchisement of Oregon voters. You should get more votes the less area codes you have.

[Antonio the Sixth]

lol

[Drew]

How would overlays work?  Would those areas be represented by 2 congresspeople, elected at large within the district?

[bagelman]

I had this idea, creating an alternate history of a US with less of a Democratic tradition still having some sort of imperfect Republican representation. https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=394383.0

As a serious idea applied to our US, it's not workable unless some districts with larger populations are apportioned more reps than others and are multi member districts. This would also imply the end of the VRA, as AL's area codes include a seat that's only about 40% black and still R leaning as the blackest seat.

[Vice President Christian Man]

How would overlays work?  Would those areas be represented by 2 congresspeople, elected at large within the district?

No they'd still only have one rep

[Utah Neolib]

There’s plenty of places I know of where these districts would not be contiguous. This would also be urban overrepresentation in many cases.

[jimrtex]

Probably not relevant, but the original definition of metropolitan areas included phone calls from outlying counties as a metric for determining economic links. You simply wouldn't call 10 miles away unless it was business related or you were calling someone on their birthday (but why wouldn't you send a card instead?).

[jimrtex]

How would overlays work?  Would those areas be represented by 2 congresspeople, elected at large within the district?

No they'd still only have one rep

People could vote based on their area code. This might make a difference for newer area codes. Old people could have the same code they had since 1970.

People with cell phones might not be permitted to vote. If you don't have a land line can you really be considered residing in an area?

[Del Tachi]

I think Mississippi's 601 and 662 area code regions would be pretty competitive, actually

[RI]

This is what the 2020 Presidential election looked like at the area code level:



124 Trump
113 Biden

(not accounting for some districts with two area codes)

[Kamala's side hoe]

This is what the 2020 Presidential election looked like at the area code level:



124 Trump
113 Biden

(not accounting for some districts with two area codes)

Nice to see the Driftless Area is still a contiguous zone of Atlas Red