6 ms·

It will only survive if its lawmakers restore the robustness of the electoral process. Seriously, why is gerrymandering even a thing right now? How is that norm

It will only survive if its lawmakers restore the robustness of the electoral process. Seriously, why is gerrymandering even a thing right now? How is that normal? Not to mention the highly manipulable first-past-the-post voting system. It's no wonder that primitive AI was so able to obliterate the last election. Our human collective decision making processes are thoroughly busted and nobody seems to care to fix them. Amazon and Netflix get score voting for their products, yet we can't even get measly, pathetic IRV? Imagine if Amazon had to use IRV or FPTP to determine "the best products"... It'd go out of business pretty quick!

benevol 10y ago
> How is that normal? Lately, normal seems to have become the exception.
- macawfish 10y ago
  normalized is the normal I was going for, like a fish in the water. I.e. the water is polluted with active levels of synthetic estrogens and the fish know nothing different.
maxerickson 10y ago
Don't they use sales numbers as one of their primary sorting factors? That's popularity, just like FPTP.
- macawfish 10y ago
  Sales numbers are more like approval voting, because you can buy more than one thing in the same category, but you can't vote for two people for president. Say I'm a photographer, but due to Alt-Amazon's draconian policies, I can choose one and only one camera. And not only that, I can purchase one and only one lens! What do I pick? Compact or fullblown setup? That's FPTP. But most photographers have at least a couple options to shoot with, depending on the needs of the situation. And the star rating system is classic score voting.
pkkim 10y ago
(US centric response) I'm not sure if this was a rhetorical question...but the answer is that districts are drawn by the ruling party in order to assure its continued dominance. The incentives for these legislators are totally different from Amazon's. A very interesting example happened in Georgia in the 1990s. The Republicans and the Black Caucus (who are mostly Democrats) worked together to pack black voters into a few concentrated districts. This resulted in both more black Democratic legislators and more Republican legislators.
- raverbashing 10y ago
  Hence districts should be determined not manually, but through a certain rule that is agreed by both parties Nationally
  - pkkim 10y ago
    I completely agree! But it is a very difficult problem because the job security of so many individual members of Congress depends on gerrymandering. Obama and former attorney general Eric Holder are working on an initiative related to this, though.
  - empath75 10y ago
    It's interesting that in a thread about how ai's are a threat to democracy people are suggesting replacing a human process with an algorithm.
    - daveguy 10y ago
      Not necessarily replacing, but restricting. Algorithms would be difficult to implement perfectly, but putting geometric restrictions on district boundaries would be fairly easy and still allow human flexibility in specifying the lines. Also independent third party commissions do a better job than state legislatures.
  - Symbiote 10y ago
    Minimising the ratio of area to perimeter, ideally with some allowance for naturally 'crinkly' boundaries like coastlines, would be a great start. [1] says there is already software to do this, and [2] gives a terrible example of a district in Pennsylvania. [1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/gerrymandering/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/gerrym... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/03/01/this-is-the-best-explanation-of-gerrymandering-you-will-ever-see/?utm_term=.b6fb1b6357de https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/03/01/this-...
bhauer 10y ago
I would love score voting. But given the potentially higher cost of implementation, I would be very happy with approval voting (score of 0 or 1), which would be compatible with most existing ballots. "You may vote for zero or more of the following candidates." Approval voting, as with score, breaks the stranglehold of two-party rule, allows for rather than discourages policy overlap among parties (breaking down polarization), and increases voter satisfaction.
- Houshalter 10y ago
  Approval voting seems to be the best system if you have tactical voting. In simulations, the improvement from plurality voting to approval voting, is about the same as the improvement from monarchy to plurality voting: http://rangevoting.org/ http://rangevoting.org/ It's also so simple. It's incredible we don't have this already.
  - ClayShentrup 10y ago
    It's good, but Score Voting is better.
- redahs 10y ago
  The problem with approval voting is that it does not give voters a mechanism by which to indicate partial approval. If there is a centrist candidate which many voters only slightly support, there would still be a media horse race over whether or not voters will interpret partial approval to mean 'do not approve' or 'approve' on election day, with a final result that may be unnecessarily surprising to participants. There are also examples on the wikipedia page of some organizations trying range-2 approval voting and abandoning it. Range-3 seems like the minimum range desirable. It would allow voters to indicate whether they disapprove, were neutral toward, or approve of a candidate. The only historical adoption of range-3 I am aware of is the electoral council of the Republic of Venice, and I believed they used it as a constant component in their electoral process for selecting the Doge without abandoning it. The costs of switching to something even better like range-5 may also be over-estimated. Range-5 seems like it would work with existing optical scan ballots. The cost of acquisition for range voting tabulatation code on the state level would also ideally be fairly low due to the simplicity of the preference aggregation method in range voting in comparison to IRV, and Maine is already undertaking a switch to the later.
JumpCrisscross 10y ago
> why is gerrymandering even a thing right now Until recently, we haven't had a precise way to define it: "The challenge for reformers, however, is that the courts need a judicial standard, which is different from a mere scientific standard. A judicial standard must be judicially discernible — it has to be derived from a specific right given in the Constitution. It also has to be judicially manageable — it needs to provide courts with clear guidance on how to rule." [1] This judicial standard is what is being proposed to the Court in an ongoing case concerning Washington. (It derives from Equal Protection and the First Amendment.) [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/02/02/we-have-a-standard-for-judging-partisan-gerrymandering-the-supreme-court-should-use-it/?utm_term=.ff1bb4cb8dc7 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/02/0...

benevol 10y ago

> How is that normal? Lately, normal seems to have become the exception.

macawfish 10y ago
normalized is the normal I was going for, like a fish in the water. I.e. the water is polluted with active levels of synthetic estrogens and the fish know nothing different.

maxerickson 10y ago

Don't they use sales numbers as one of their primary sorting factors? That's popularity, just like FPTP.

macawfish 10y ago
Sales numbers are more like approval voting, because you can buy more than one thing in the same category, but you can't vote for two people for president. Say I'm a photographer, but due to Alt-Amazon's draconian policies, I can choose one and only one camera. And not only that, I can purchase one and only one lens! What do I pick? Compact or fullblown setup? That's FPTP. But most photographers have at least a couple options to shoot with, depending on the needs of the situation. And the star rating system is classic score voting.

pkkim 10y ago

(US centric response) I'm not sure if this was a rhetorical question...but the answer is that districts are drawn by the ruling party in order to assure its continued dominance. The incentives for these legislators are totally different from Amazon's. A very interesting example happened in Georgia in the 1990s. The Republicans and the Black Caucus (who are mostly Democrats) worked together to pack black voters into a few concentrated districts. This resulted in both more black Democratic legislators and more Republican legislators.

raverbashing 10y ago
Hence districts should be determined not manually, but through a certain rule that is agreed by both parties Nationally
- pkkim 10y ago
  I completely agree! But it is a very difficult problem because the job security of so many individual members of Congress depends on gerrymandering. Obama and former attorney general Eric Holder are working on an initiative related to this, though.
- empath75 10y ago
  It's interesting that in a thread about how ai's are a threat to democracy people are suggesting replacing a human process with an algorithm.
  - daveguy 10y ago
    Not necessarily replacing, but restricting. Algorithms would be difficult to implement perfectly, but putting geometric restrictions on district boundaries would be fairly easy and still allow human flexibility in specifying the lines. Also independent third party commissions do a better job than state legislatures.
- Symbiote 10y ago
  Minimising the ratio of area to perimeter, ideally with some allowance for naturally 'crinkly' boundaries like coastlines, would be a great start. [1] says there is already software to do this, and [2] gives a terrible example of a district in Pennsylvania. [1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/gerrymandering/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/gerrym... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/03/01/this-is-the-best-explanation-of-gerrymandering-you-will-ever-see/?utm_term=.b6fb1b6357de https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/03/01/this-...

bhauer 10y ago

I would love score voting. But given the potentially higher cost of implementation, I would be very happy with approval voting (score of 0 or 1), which would be compatible with most existing ballots. "You may vote for zero or more of the following candidates." Approval voting, as with score, breaks the stranglehold of two-party rule, allows for rather than discourages policy overlap among parties (breaking down polarization), and increases voter satisfaction.

Houshalter 10y ago
Approval voting seems to be the best system if you have tactical voting. In simulations, the improvement from plurality voting to approval voting, is about the same as the improvement from monarchy to plurality voting: http://rangevoting.org/ http://rangevoting.org/ It's also so simple. It's incredible we don't have this already.
- ClayShentrup 10y ago
  It's good, but Score Voting is better.
redahs 10y ago
The problem with approval voting is that it does not give voters a mechanism by which to indicate partial approval. If there is a centrist candidate which many voters only slightly support, there would still be a media horse race over whether or not voters will interpret partial approval to mean 'do not approve' or 'approve' on election day, with a final result that may be unnecessarily surprising to participants. There are also examples on the wikipedia page of some organizations trying range-2 approval voting and abandoning it. Range-3 seems like the minimum range desirable. It would allow voters to indicate whether they disapprove, were neutral toward, or approve of a candidate. The only historical adoption of range-3 I am aware of is the electoral council of the Republic of Venice, and I believed they used it as a constant component in their electoral process for selecting the Doge without abandoning it. The costs of switching to something even better like range-5 may also be over-estimated. Range-5 seems like it would work with existing optical scan ballots. The cost of acquisition for range voting tabulatation code on the state level would also ideally be fairly low due to the simplicity of the preference aggregation method in range voting in comparison to IRV, and Maine is already undertaking a switch to the later.

JumpCrisscross 10y ago

> why is gerrymandering even a thing right now Until recently, we haven't had a precise way to define it: "The challenge for reformers, however, is that the courts need a judicial standard, which is different from a mere scientific standard. A judicial standard must be judicially discernible — it has to be derived from a specific right given in the Constitution. It also has to be judicially manageable — it needs to provide courts with clear guidance on how to rule." [1] This judicial standard is what is being proposed to the Court in an ongoing case concerning Washington. (It derives from Equal Protection and the First Amendment.) [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/02/02/we-have-a-standard-for-judging-partisan-gerrymandering-the-supreme-court-should-use-it/?utm_term=.ff1bb4cb8dc7 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/02/0...