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Tom Monto
Mar 144 min read

U.S. uses Multi-Member Districts (MMDs) more than might be thought - federally in old days and in some states still today

Updated: Jul 23

Multi-member districts in the U.S.A.

Currently today, ten U.S. states have at least one legislative chamber that includes members elected in multi-member districts.


The reason why national House elections stopped using MMDs is explained in a footnote below.


There are two types of MMDs:

-those that cover the entire jurisdiction (at-large such as city-wide district used in a city election, where there are no wards), and

- those that do not cover the whole electorate, either two or more MM districts cover the whole jurisdiction, or MM districts are used in conjunction with single-member districts.


(There are also two types of single-member districts - some that cover a whole city or state (electing just one member) and those that cover just a part of a city or state (electing just one).)


At-large districts are used for the U.S. House of Representatives in states that are allotted one representative.

The majority of states use single-member districts at both the federal and state levels, but Arizona, New Jersey, South Dakota and Washington use MMDs to elect all state House members.

Six other states use MMD(s) to elect some of their state legislators. (They are listed below.)


Ten other states allow the use of MMDs by law even when not used.

Five states have no law prohibiting or permitting MMDs.


Of the 7,383 seats in the 50 state legislatures, about 14 percent (1015) are elected from districts with more than one member.


Here is the source document for that info:


See also Ballotpedia "State legislative chambers that use multi-member districts":


Multi-member districts (MMDs) are electoral districts that send two or more members to a legislative chamber. Nine U.S. states have at least one legislative chamber with MMDs.[1][2]

There are two other electoral systems employed in the United States, single member and at large.

At-large districts are used for the U.S. House of Representatives in states that are allotted one representative. [At-large usually means multi-member district because there are no divisions to break down the contest into single-member contests, but when only one is being elected, then at-large becomes a single-member district.]

The majority of states use single-member districts at both the federal and state levels.


Arizona, New Jersey, South Dakota, and Washington use MMDs to elect all state house members; 10 other states allow the use of MMDs by law even when not used; and five states have no law prohibiting or permitting MMDs.[3]


Of the 7,386 seats in the 50 state legislatures, 876 are elected from districts with more than one member, a total of 11.9%.

MMDs in elections of members of the U.S. House of Representatives


Such greater than one-member district magnitude was used to give more populous counties or established Congressional Districts fair representation without redistricting (specifically, dividing them). It was rare before 1805 but notably applied to many Congressional Districts of New York and Pennsylvania until federally (nationally) prohibited by the 1842 Apportionment Bill and consequent locally implementing legislation.

So MMDs were abolished in 1842 for federal elections.


Some states indeed used quite large DM to elect their members of House of Representatives (13 in  MA 1793-1795 for example)

but where large DM was used, it seems "general ticket" system was used so no possibility of minority representation. 


(Note: MA had four districts with 2 or 3 members each plus one at-large member, but it is reported that "general ticket" system at-large was used to fill the seats [so not clear whether votes in district alone filled district seats].


New York used MMDs

From 1813 to 1823, two seats were apportioned to the 15th district, elected at-large on a general ticket.

likely the other MMDs used same "general ticket" method.


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State level MMDs

As of 1998, 13 states still had multi-member districts in at least one of their legislative bodies.


`                               Largest DM used in lower house

                                1980s    1990s

West Virgina             12                7

New Hampshire*     10                36

Idaho                          6                  2

Georgia                      5                  1


* 2024: The House of Representatives consists of 400 members coming from 203 legislative districts across the state, created from divisions of the state's counties.

[But because in many of these districts, even if they have multiple members, the seats are filled by ticket voting, there is still no balanced representation]

...

Districts vary in number of seats based on their populations, with the least-populous districts electing only one member and the most populous electing 10.


Voters are allowed to cast as many votes as there are seats to be filled. for instance, in a two-member district, a voter can vote for up to two candidates. This system of block voting often results in one party winning all of the seats in the district.


Some municipalities are in multiple districts, including floterial districts, so as to achieve more equal apportionment by population


2022-2024  

Hillsborough district 2 has seven members (it covers city of Bedford)

Hillsborough district 12 has eight members (it covers city of Merrimack)

Rockingham district 13 has ten members (it covers city of Derry)

Rockingham district 25 has nine members (it covers city of Salem)




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State elections

As of 2021, ten U.S. states have at least one legislative chamber that uses multi-winner at-large districts (or potentially could use MMDs)



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(housekeeping

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