Last week, a coworker of mine wrote a column about his concerns with the supermajority that exists in both houses of North Carolina’s state legislature.

He argues that the supermajority is unrepresentative by virtue of its being a supermajority. His claim that those in the political minority has no voice is as unproductive and disheartening as his claims that a supermajority of any party has unfaltering, undebated, predetermined political results.

While the issue of gerrymandering is a serious concern that no doubt had an influence on our state’s politics, and it can and should be remedied, the entitlement he feels this state should have to a General Assembly that is a representative sample of the party identification of the people of this state is wrong.

Our state uses a single-member district plurality election system. It is the job of the individual representatives to represent the citizens of their district. Our assembly is not designed to be representative statewide of the voters’ party identifications, but to be a collection of elected individuals who represent the wants and needs of a group of people in an area where they come from.

Individuals can be held accountable this way, and representatives are closer to the people that they serve. This is especially important because of the diversity in our state. The needs of the people of Charlotte differ from those in the Research Triangle just as much as the needs of our rural mountain counties differ from the needs of our heavy farming counties in the eastern part of the state.

Where my coworker and I differ is that I believe that the incredible array of people in our state need to be represented, where he believes that only their party preference needs to be represented. He would like the party splits in our legislature to exist as a proxy of the results of a Pew Research Study. We could find a way to build an assembly that matches the leanings of the state and voila! the people are represented, right?

In practice, however, redrawing the district lines such that they would produce the desired result of a 50-50 party legislature would be gerrymandering, too.

There are political systems that exist which use a proportional representation model, such as the one in Germany. Political parties receive seats proportional to the part of the vote that their party received in the election. This system makes it easier for smaller parties to gain some leverage and earn seats, while also creating a legislative body that proportionally represents the party identification of the voters.

While party lists are public and the voters know who will be the chancellor if their party gains enough control, the people have little say over more than half of the individuals who get to represent them in the legislature.

The resulting body is “representative” in the way that one would draw a representative sample for a scientific study, but also creates a group of individuals who voters can’t point to and say “it is your job to represent me.” It is difficult to hold those members responsible for their actions without switching to another party whose members may not even be better.

The voters of North Carolina excellently showed the benefits of not having to vote for a party as 53,474 of those who sent our state’s electoral votes to Donald Trump in the 2016 election did not vote for Pat McCrory in the gubernatorial race, despite the two sharing a party. These options are valuable, particularly considering the mold that many politicians in this country seem to fit.

In a North Carolina with proportional representation, the individuals who end up being the ones “representing” a certain unidentifiable portion of the whole state would tend to be from and live in larger population centers and have backgrounds different from those in rural and farming areas. “Representing” a group of people who a member may have nothing in common with — other than party identification — is a tall task.

Further, potential legislative seat-holders could focus their efforts on the population centers to maximize the effects of their campaigning efforts. On the way to garnering the most votes, they can take up the concerns and interests of the city dwellers and be on their merry way to the state capitol, ignoring the less populated areas as they go. This trend is what the electoral college works to avoid on the federal level. Even President Trump acknowledges this, as he has stated how much easier it would be to campaign if it wasn’t for the electoral college.

While my coworker did not propose we change the structure of our government, this is an example of a system that is built on the principles that he supports, and those principles are not right for our state.

Perhaps if North Carolina was smaller and more homogenous, this would work out great, but at present, all a switch to an “equal” and “representative” system would do is trample over rural interests and turn that disfavored part of our population into one that is also underrepresented.

We use the system that we do for a reason. So long as we can ensure it stays free from the specter of gerrymandering and the enticing charms of false equality, I am confident and optimistic about the condition of our state’s democracy.

My coworker would have all his problems solved if everyone in the state just agreed with him and voted for Democrats. But many of the people in this state don’t, and their vote is equal to the rest of ours. Until the pendulum swings to the other side, we each still have a person in the legislature whose job it is to represent us, even if we don’t identify with his or her party.

If North Carolina really is so awful, though, at least we can find solace in knowing that we are free to move to California any time we like. Democracy stings.