Proportional representation would deliver fairer representation for voters countywide.
Can your voice be heard if you're in a small red bubble in a blue sea? Or if you see yourself as one of a handful of blue flowers in a field of red?
In most of Cascadia's governing bodies, the answer is no. In the region's prevailing winner-take-all elections, whichever side gets the most votes wins all the power. This system unfairly overrepresents the biggest group of voters, even if that group is just a hair larger than any others, and even if it makes up a plurality and not the majority of voters.
But Whatcom County might be headed for a better model - one that offers fairer representation for everyone.
Whatcom voters recently elected a charter commission to review the county government's founding document, which sets the basis for local laws, much like a constitution. One option the commission might consider--- proportional representation.
Proportional representation, where leaders are elected based on their proportion of votes, offers a slew of advantages over other methods of electing governing bodies. District lines disappear, so there's nothing for special interests to manipulate via gerrymandering. Elected leaders are more motivated to serve all their constituents, not just their base voters or those in their district. And voters enjoy a more stable government solving their problems from one term to the next, even as district-by-district views change and people move around.
Whatcom County currently has seven county councilors, five elected from single-member districts and two elected at large, county-wide. It's a system that has delivered a mix of representatives for now, balancing the often more conservative rural voices with the majority more liberal population based mostly around Bellingham.
Unfortunately, it's not likely to continue to deliver fair results over time, and it's not as responsive as proportional representation. Single-member districts rely on sensitive mapmaking decisions, and they tend to ace out voters from smaller groups in winner-take-all elections.
Why should Whatcom voters care? And why might the charter commission consider changes to the county's government and election systems? Below I take stock of the challenges that the current single-member districts and first-past-the-post voting system pose. As ideas progress, I'll chart out more specific opportunities the county may choose for fairer representation of all Whatcom voters, wherever they live.
With single-member districts, the mapping lines define the government
To craft a representative governing body, mapmakers had to draw Whatcom County's five district boundaries carefully. Very carefully.
Partisan vote distributions from the most recent presidential election illustrate this point. Across the county, 61 percent of voters chose Vice President Kamala Harris for President in 2024, and 36 percent chose Donald Trump.
To make the seven-seat county council mirror that partisan breakdown, mapmakers would want four or even five of the council seats to be held by Democrats and two or three by Republicans. The two at-large council seats can be assumed to be reliably liberal, because the county's majority voting bloc gets to select both of those seats. So, to balance the whole council, the five districts ideally would collectively elect two Democrats and three Republicans.
District mapmakers succeeded in achieving this breakdown - for now. In Whatcom County results from the November 2024 election, Districts 1 and 2 are solidly blue: the precincts in those areas voted mostly Democratic. Voters in District 4 mostly chose Trump, and Districts 3 and 5 are mixed: they lean blue in national elections but tend to elect Republican-aligned local candidates.
But the mapmaking team probably agonized a great deal over many options to get to these districts. Line drawing is important enough that three of the eight subsections in the elections article of the current Whatc...
