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I have personally come to the conclusion that all geographic representation maps are gerrymandering. There doesn't seem to be a consistent enough definition of "fix" here that could satisfy everyone. And some of the seemingly-absolutely-fair mechanisms for doing so (assign voters to districts by valid dice roll) are in fact the worst. It's never a fight against gerrymandering, just whose map is better, and of course everyone likes their own map.
Although I'm taking suggestions for what an un-gerrymandered districting algorithm could look like, even if I don't think it exists.
I mean, other countries manage to pull it off. Like, I'm sure people in the UK have some issues, but there's not the widespread open complaining that happens in the US and nowhere the amount of obviously gerrymandered districts. I'll even say, if the GOP gets 49.5% of the vote and get 52.5% of the seats, that's not something as a partisan Democrat I think is the end of the world.
The issue is places like the recent Wisconsin state legislature, where the Republicans won 44% of the vote and got 66% of the seats. By the same measure, in 2022 in the Nevada legislature, the Democrat's won 41% of the vote but have a 2/3 majority as well.
I don't think there's a "perfect" fix, but there's ways to do it better than we do.
Generally when I see "other countries" brought into a discussion of gerrymandering, it's comparing to a proportional representation scheme, which I think would be interesting to try for the House. The only other country I can think of with geographic districting is the UK and there is plenty of complaining about district maps there too.
I think PR is preferable, but people are weird about having their own congressperson, so it'd be a tough sell.
From what I've seen, there's complaining in the UK and Canada, but nothing to the level of the wacky districts on both sides here.
The UK is particularly notable because it's famous for rotten and pocket boroughs, where entire MPs were dedicated to districts with a handful of voters. Granted, those were largely resolved by reforms more than a century ago, but it seems to me the allocation of roughly equal population districts in the US was a reaction to that. And people still complain about the FPTP system in the UK, because the presence of more third parties changes the representation dynamics.
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