7 ms·

There are a ton of important issues, but, I believe that gerrymandering is a core issue in the United States because : Partisan gerrymandering allows for polit

• ouid 9y ago
  Gerrymandering is not the act of making seats "more secure". This is profound misinformation, gerrymandering is only ever about disenfranchising a voting block by packing them together.
  • ValG 9y ago
    You may have missed point three, where I literally say that. Also, they are not mutually exclusive, in fact they are quite causal. Also, there is more to gerrymandering that packing a voting block together; you can split voting blocks up do more sophisticated things to ensure your goals are met (the primary objectives generally being "get re-elected"). My email is in the comment and my profile, happy to chat more.
    • ouid 9y ago
      They aren't "mutually exclusive". If your voters have been packed into a district, making your seat more secure, then you are a victim of gerrymandering. It's not simply an alternative type of gerrymandering. The misunderstanding of who stands to benefit from redistricting has allowed republicans to propagate a narrative that "democrats do it too". In 2012, despite Republican house candidates receiving less of the popular vote they walked away with an extra 30 seats[1]. That's not a bipartisan effect. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2012 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Represe...
      • ValG 9y ago
        It seems like you're not reading what I'm writing at all. I literally said "they are not mutually exclusive. Also, you are misinformed, both parties 100% do this [1](or attempt to) - It just happens that Republicans are way better at it. Way better.[2] Either way, I don't care who does it, it must be stopped b/c it's not good for a democracy like ours. [1]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/06/republicans-and-democrats-both-try-to-gerrymander-but-only-one-of-them-is-any-good-at-it/?utm_term=.352dec1c0967 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/06/repub... [2]http://election.princeton.edu/2012/12/30/gerrymanders-part-1-busting-the-both-sides-do-it-myth/ http://election.princeton.edu/2012/12/30/gerrymanders-part-1...
        • ouid 9y ago
          You misunderstand my criticism. The reason they aren't "mutually exclusive" is because one of the things that you are calling gerrymandering isn't gerrymandering.
  • lacker 9y ago
    If you read the article, it says there are actually two types of gerrymandering. One is "packing" all of a voting block together, and the other is "cracking" a voting block into multiple districts so that it can't win in any of them.
    • ouid 9y ago
      and somehow, neither of these strategies are "making your own seats more secure"
      • thaumasiotes 9y ago
        The first one is.
        • ouid 9y ago
          no, it is making your opponent's seat more secure.
          • thaumasiotes 9y ago
            Think about it for more than half a second. Moving a Democrat into a Democratic district makes that district's Democratic seat more secure. At the same time, moving that Democrat out of your district makes your Republican seat more secure. You can't do one without the other.
            • ouid 9y ago
              Probability of victory is highly non-linear in the proportion of voters. It's so non-linear that it makes sense to treat it as a phase transition. A district is secure when the outcome is certain. There are two distinct phases where the outcome is "secure" and the border between these two phases is, because of the non-linearity, very small. That is what secure means to most people. The specific language that the OC, and almost all journalism uses to describe the strategy is "making districts more secure". The only way to interpret that, in the context of the phase definition of security, is adding voter proportion to a district which is already secure. This is never in the interest of the party that it is happening to, so yes, it is dishonest to describe it this way.
• aaron-lebo 9y ago
  One of my professors at UT Dallas has a book that argues that districts in fact should be partisan. It's been a few years but the logic is something like if you've got a 50-50 district, you're gonna end up with 50% of the people in the district unhappy. Where as if you intentionally designed districts to be like like 90-10 (or whatever possible), more people are happy. Not sure if I believe him, but it's interesting. Redistricting and Representation: Why Competitive Elections are Bad for America https://www.amazon.com/Redistricting-Representation-Competitive-Elections-Controversies/dp/0415964539 https://www.amazon.com/Redistricting-Representation-Competit...
  • nathancahill 9y ago
    That's assuming a polarizing representative (one that 50% like and 50% are unhappy with. Could more balanced districts lead to more centrist representatives?
    • ajmurmann 9y ago
      Maybe even having a system that makes more than two choices viable?
  • ValG 9y ago
    That's a super interesting concept. I will look into it; book ordered! From a quick think through - I think that this argument may fall flat on 2 related ideas. 1. Data shows that when seats are more secure like you say (90-10 instead of 50-50), representatives often go towards the extremes of the political spectrum (on both sides). this leads to issue 2... 2. Voters are generally not strictly partisan - that is to say (purely as an example), while I may have right leaning thoughts on how to run the economy, I may have left leaning thoughts on social issues. If I'm in a district with someone that is far right or far left, a portion of the time they're always going to vote against my wishes. Am I better off in general? Hard to tell without getting more in depth on my preferences.
    • Torwald 9y ago
      Could this be mitigated by having a system with more than two parties?
• yarg 9y ago
  The fact that gerrymandering is even possible is a symptom (albeit an severely exacerbating one) - not the cause - of the problems in the US electoral structure. It could be countered quite effectively by a system using larger jurisdictions each with multiple representitives.
  • jawbone3 9y ago
    Yeah, you can't really do anything like it in a proportional system. For gerrymandering to be possible It is crucial that there is a large number of parallell contests so that winning many contests is more important than winning overall support.
  • fivestar 9y ago
    I would say the biggest problem by far is voter education--people simply are not educated on issues. They listen to idiotic MSM sound bites and narratives and are influenced by identity politics rather than anything of substance.
    • sqeaky 9y ago
      I must disagree. As person with an education and half a wit it doesn't matter how I vote in Omaha Nebraska. We will always vote republican and because of gerrymandering my local reps won't change. No amount of education can be accepted by this crowd that doesn't amount to propaganda or brainwashing.
  • maxxxxx 9y ago
    Totally agree. The winner takes it all system is the real problem. You can start a third party and get 30 percent of the vote and still end up with zero representation.
  • edko 9y ago
    Large jusrisdictions with multiple representatives has its own set of problems too. In the current system, people, at least, know who their representative is, and there is more accountability.
  • 9y ago
• cryptonector 9y ago
  Gerrymandering is self-limited. The party in power (in a State government) can either maximize the number of seats it has, or make seats safe. It cannot do both at once! Maximizing seats -> minimizing the margin of victory in each district -> increasing likelihood of losing its majority in a future election! Making seats safe -> maximizing margin of victory in each district and minimizing the number of seats by concentrating the majority's voters -> minimizing margin of victory in the popular houses (of the State legislature and Congress) -> increasing likelihood of losing its majority in a future election! That is, no matter how you redraw district borders, as long as population per-district is roughly even (in each State), then you cannot get a long-lasting advantage. This will probably be surprising to some here, but it's clearly true. This means that Gerrymandering is a much smaller evil than one might think. I would further argue that Gerrymandering is not an evil at all. It is part and parcel of the Republican system of government in the U.S.: - the Senate, especially when Senators were selected by State governments, and still now due to its 6-year terms and staggered elections, modulates the popular House - first past the post leads to a small number of parties and reduces party power (you vote for a person, not just a party as in the case of proportional representation systems) - gerrymandering also modulates popular will - juries modulate law and prosecutors - the president is selected by the Electoral College, which also modulates popular will - the States have police power, which modulates Federal power - the Courts modulate Congress and the Executive branch These things were well thought out by the Founders! They were arrived at by compromise. They weren't accidents born of ignorance of mathematics or science. This system has served us well. Changing it requires broad consensus, which requires strong arguments. So far I've yet to see any decent arguments against this structure.
  • dwaltrip 9y ago
    I thought gerrymandering is the art of creatively drawing the lines such that all of the opposing constituents are squeezed into one or a few "throwaway districts", thus preserving comfortable majorities in the remaining districts. How is this self-limiting? Also, I don't quite see how it maps to the rather abstract phenomenon you are talking about? Edit -- wikipedia seems to match up with what I was remembering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering
• Shivetya 9y ago
  Partisan gerrymandering takes on many forms. There are also the convoluted voting blocs created to insure minority representation that can actually increase one parties representation over another based on how convoluted it is just so they don't run afoul of the courts; as in you don't make sure the selected group wins you are in court. then the anecdotal bit, got a cousin who is in politics in a mid Western state following in her dad's foot steps. here is the dirty part, at county and city levels and even to state levels the parties negotiate who runs. sometimes they get a wild card but both pretty much work to stop that. she wanted a county seat moving up from her city district, one she got because the guy in both sides hated and no one else wanted it. to get the county seat requires finding a way for the person in it to retire or get into state level politics. she cannot simply go up against this person because she won't have her parties help. politics gets dirty at the earliest possible moment. gerrymandering only seems to be an issue to most when the wrong party manages to overcome it and take power. yet sometimes we need this type of distracting for the same reason how the House is set up. To prevent cities from overpowering the counties and other areas in the state.
• fivestar 9y ago
  I'm not tracking. Are we not a representative democracy? How are less (the word you seek is 'fewer') voters being represented? I need to know if you're one of the many millions of disaffected socialists who is still whining about the election last fall or if there is something of substance here. The "I'm currently fundraising" is kind of a giveaway that you're one of them. While gerrymandering is strongly disliked, I doubt there is much that is going to be done about it. The Constitution allows the creation of districts like this. Much like the electoral college, it is what it is and I don't see how it matters whether districts follow neat lines or whether they are all crazy and chopped up like they are today. This sounds like another feeble attempt at grasping at straws by people whose priorities are completely out of whack.
  • sp332 9y ago
    Gerrymandering is already illegal. It can be fixed relatively easily by redrawing the districts, which is done routinely. And it's not like the electoral college is written in stone either. Since you can't see why it matters, here are some examples. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering#Effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering#Effects
    • taejo 9y ago
      Gerrymandering is not in general illegal. As you say, districts are routinely redrawn - but in a way which results in gerrymandering! To fix it requires that the districts be redrawn fairly, and that's a tougher fix (but a significant number of states already have non-partisan districting procedures).
      • sp332 9y ago
        It might be nearly impossible to litigate, but it is illegal. https://www.wired.com/2017/04/gerrymandering-illegal-mathematicians-can-prove/ https://www.wired.com/2017/04/gerrymandering-illegal-mathema...
  • deleted 9y ago
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• tmaly 9y ago
  To solve this, I think some more universal mathematical truths would have to be employed. If you have 30 different definitions of compactness, the party in power will tend to choose the definition that will benefit them the most. If however, you choose some construct in mathematics where there is only a single option, you may avoid this particular problem. This may not be the perfect example, but something like this http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3201424/A-new-way-tile-floor-Scientists-discover-strange-new-shape-trying-solve-one-maths-complex-problems.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3201424/A-new...