3 ms·

But if every district is 75-25, neither party is gaining a net advantage. If you have 10 districts and split them into 5 that are 51-49 and 5 that are 49-51 or

by smeyer 9y ago

But if every district is 75-25, neither party is gaining a net advantage. If you have 10 districts and split them into 5 that are 51-49 and 5 that are 49-51 or if you split them into 5 that are 75-25 and 5 that are 25-75, you have 5 representatives from each party either way. The point of the gap is to distinguish between cases like this (where districts are designed to lump together people of a similar part) from examples of packing and cracking used to give one party an advantage.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> But if every district is 75-25, neither party is gaining a net advantage. Partisan advantage is far from the only reason for gerrymandering; protecting incumbents and dividing particular communities of interest (whether ethnic or otherwise) that don't necessarily align more with either party to effectively silence them are among two of the more common uses. A recent wave of extreme partisan gerrymandering by Republicans is what has made it a national discussion right now, but it's not the only (or even historically the main) problem with gerrymandering. Which is simple to solve: stop having single-member, first-past-the-post districts for legislative bodies.
phailhaus 9y ago
If every district is 75-25, then the issue is that one party is getting 25% of the votes but 0% of the seats. All of their votes have been split across all districts, keeping them from winning any one.
- mjw1007 9y ago
  One way for that to happen is if party support is evenly spread throughout the region; then however you draw the districts the result will be the same. In that sort of situation it doesn't seem to be reasonable to call what's going on "gerrymandering"; I think the finger of blame should be pointed (if anywhere) at the system of single-member-constituency plurality voting.
  - phailhaus 9y ago
    Our voting system is definitely an issue, but if we want to use the efficiency gap as a metric of gerrymandering then I think this is a big problem. As it stands, the efficiency gap treats a 75-25 split as a "perfect election", which means that it's actually a measure of how far elections are from this ideal. So if we start using the efficiency gap, then there will be a huge incentive for states to draw lines to be as close to 75-25 as possible, which is obviously not what we want. It could even further polarize the country.
- smeyer 9y ago
  Sorry I was a bit unclear. If every district is decided by 50% but some are 75-25 one way and some are 25-75 the other way, the efficiency gap is 0. If all of them are 75-25 the same way, there will be a large efficiency gap.

by smeyer 9y ago

dragonwriter 9y ago

> But if every district is 75-25, neither party is gaining a net advantage. Partisan advantage is far from the only reason for gerrymandering; protecting incumbents and dividing particular communities of interest (whether ethnic or otherwise) that don't necessarily align more with either party to effectively silence them are among two of the more common uses. A recent wave of extreme partisan gerrymandering by Republicans is what has made it a national discussion right now, but it's not the only (or even historically the main) problem with gerrymandering. Which is simple to solve: stop having single-member, first-past-the-post districts for legislative bodies.

phailhaus 9y ago

If every district is 75-25, then the issue is that one party is getting 25% of the votes but 0% of the seats. All of their votes have been split across all districts, keeping them from winning any one.

mjw1007 9y ago
One way for that to happen is if party support is evenly spread throughout the region; then however you draw the districts the result will be the same. In that sort of situation it doesn't seem to be reasonable to call what's going on "gerrymandering"; I think the finger of blame should be pointed (if anywhere) at the system of single-member-constituency plurality voting.
- phailhaus 9y ago
  Our voting system is definitely an issue, but if we want to use the efficiency gap as a metric of gerrymandering then I think this is a big problem. As it stands, the efficiency gap treats a 75-25 split as a "perfect election", which means that it's actually a measure of how far elections are from this ideal. So if we start using the efficiency gap, then there will be a huge incentive for states to draw lines to be as close to 75-25 as possible, which is obviously not what we want. It could even further polarize the country.
smeyer 9y ago
Sorry I was a bit unclear. If every district is decided by 50% but some are 75-25 one way and some are 25-75 the other way, the efficiency gap is 0. If all of them are 75-25 the same way, there will be a large efficiency gap.