  American democracy is currently heavily reliant on plurality in single-member
districts, or PSMD, as a system of election. But public perceptions of fairness
are often keyed to partisan proportionality, or the degree of congruence
between each party's share of the the vote and its share of representation.
PSMD has not tended to secure proportional outcomes historically, partially due
to gerrymandering, where line-drawers intentionally extract more advantage for
their side. But it is now increasingly clear that even blind PSMD is frequently
disproportional, and in unpredictable ways that depend on local political
geography. In this paper we consider whether it is feasible to bring PSMD into
alignment with a proportionality norm by targeting proportional outcomes in the
design and selection of districts. We do this mainly through a close
examination of the "Freedom to Vote Test," a redistricting reform proposed in
draft legislation in 2021. We find that applying the test with a
proportionality target makes for sound policy: it performs well in legal
battleground states and has a workable exception to handle edge cases where
proportionality is out of reach.
