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The NY Times has been discussing gerrymandering for years. (Here's an opinion piece back from 2009: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/opinion/12thu1.html http:/
by mtberatwork 10y ago
The NY Times has been discussing gerrymandering for years. (Here's an opinion piece back from 2009: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/opinion/12thu1.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/opinion/12thu1.html) The topic has also been routinely discussed in all kinds of political rags for years as well.
The problem with the topic of gerrymandering is that it's always been a discussion relegated to the political rags, wonks and Sunday morning policy discussion shows. Your average voter flipping through the channels looking for sports and weather isn't going to stop and listen in on an in-depth conversation about gerrymandering. Even if they do, they most likely will say "well, what can I do about it?" and move on with their day.
- mikeash 10y agoThat last bit is truly unfortunate, because the answer is mostly easy: vote in every election you can, not just the ones that come up every four years. For an example I'm familiar with, here in Virginia we have 5.5 million registered voters, and 3.9 million of them voted in the 2016 election. Yay! However, in the 2015 election, when the entire state legislature was chosen, as well as many local offices, only 1.5 million people voted. And then people are shocked, shocked, when the state government doesn't represent them very well. If people would stop thinking that President is the only office that really matters and start voting at every opportunity, a lot of these problems would just go away.