The county I live in has a bizarre rule. County Commissioners must live in the district they are elected to represent. The residency requirement is effective after the election results are certified. However, all voters in the county get to vote for every commissioner. There are five districts in the county. The county's eastern end is rural with some small farms and is one of the districts. Another district on the western end borders the Gulf, a typical waterfront community. The other three districts are in the middle of the county, where most of the people live in bedroom communities. These are three very distinct regions.

Compare this voting methodology with the process used the elect U.S. Representatives, which is the exact opposite. Members of Congress must be residents of the State they represent, but only voters in the district they represent elect them. This means voters in Key West can elect someone from Jacksonville to represent them. This system makes no more sense than the one used in my county for commissioners.

I believe that single-district voting is the appropriate compromise. This means that voters in a single district vote for candidates that reside in that district. In a recent election, a candidate living in the waterfront district received the majority of the votes in that district. However, she lost because voters in the rest of the county voted for her opponent. She would have been a stronger representative for that district and would have won with single-district voting.

The current Board of County Commissioners prefers the county-wide system of voting because they have large blocks of favorable voters, mostly from gated communities, that determine all five district races. State law authorizes the county government to select either of the voting methods. Don’t bet that the local group will be changing any time soon.

If you want to change the Board of County Commissioners, the first step is to change to single-district voting. It is easier to flip one district at a time rather than the whole county.

Here are some additional benefits from a single-district system. You will get more local candidates knowing that they will only have to campaign in their neighborhood. Since it will involve a smaller voting base, fewer petitions or a smaller fee will be required to get on the ballot. The overall cost of the campaign would also be lower, making candidacy more attractive.