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>Oh please vote... just remember that we can make your congressional distracts meaningless by overloading it with one side Perhaps candidates should start appe

by j_m_b 7y ago

>Oh please vote... just remember that we can make your congressional distracts meaningless by overloading it with one side Perhaps candidates should start appealing to more people and winning elections instead of pandering to particular blocks of people.

moate 7y ago
But that doesn't make sense. If the gerrymander is strong enough, running as a centrist in a heavily partisan district means you lose to the partisan (most of the time). For that singular district the answer might mean color yourself purple, but if done correctly this allows for a party that represents a minority of voters to control things on a state or national level. It's the same problem people have with the electoral collage. You can win a majority of the votes (either by being a partisan or by being a centrist) and lose because maps.
munificent 7y ago
Vote either way. Yes, the rules of the game suck and should be changed. As a citizen, there are many ways you can work towards that end. Regardless, the game is still being played and not voting is a move in the game that almost never benefits your own interests. Do you know who got the most votes in the 2016 presidential election? It wasn't Trump. It wasn't Hillary, either. It was no one. The number of people who could have voted outnumbers the votes either candidate got. People who stayed home chose to affect that election more than any other group of people.
- lordCarbonFiber 7y ago
  Im not a fan of this line of thinking. This ignores the systemic reasons people might not be able to vote. Can you get time off of work, are the poll lines unreasonably long, are the polls close enough to you (you don't necessarily have a car), was your registration purged for reasons unknown (bigger than nonvoters is the population of people eligible to vote, but unregistered), did you just not register because of identification issues or bureaucratic nonsense? Claiming that "people that choose to stay at home" are all independent of the system that effectively disenfranchises them is problematic.
  - germinalphrase 7y ago
    I agree with you. The answer should be to eliminate those barriers. Sadly, we probably will not do so because those barriers (and the resulting suppression of votes) is politically beneficial to some.
    - munificent 7y ago
      We will do so if people show up and vote for candidates that care about that. People like to claim both parties are the same, but look at how often Democratic politicians try to increase voting access and how often Republicans try to limit it. Their actions are telling you something.
  - munificent 7y ago
    > This ignores the systemic reasons people might not be able to vote. It does not. Like I said, work to fix the systemic problems. Also, go vote. These are not mutually exclusive actions. There is a pernicious idea that not voting is a viable strategy to register your discontent or stick it to the man. This a nonsense belief perpetrated by people in power — especially Republicans — who want you to not vote. The fewer people who vote, the cheaper it is to influence enough people to swing an election. Anyone who suggests its OK to not vote doesn't have your best interests at heart. That doesn't mean there aren't legitimate things making it difficult to vote. Those are problems that should be fixed. In the meantime, vote.
- jadell 7y ago
  When a party can use their gerrymandered position to block eligible voters from getting to the polls, then "Vote either way" is especially useful advice. In North Carolina, the GOP used their ability to draw the districts in ways that allowed them to get a veto-proof super-majority in the state General Assembly. Then, they passed law after law restricting people's ability to get out and vote. Closing polling stations, requiring ID that many disadvantaged people don't have easy access to, restricting early voting. They even tried to make the state Election Board a completely partisan office by making it appointed solely by the General Assembly (which they controlled) rather than the Governor's office (who is a Democrat.) All of that stopped once they lost their veto-proof majority, and they only lost it because the courts determined they had illegally drawn the districts. It wasn't people finally deciding to get out and vote. It was that people who had always been eligible to vote had their districts redrawn in a way that allowed their vote to actually count (albeit, barely.)

by j_m_b 7y ago

moate 7y ago

But that doesn't make sense. If the gerrymander is strong enough, running as a centrist in a heavily partisan district means you lose to the partisan (most of the time). For that singular district the answer might mean color yourself purple, but if done correctly this allows for a party that represents a minority of voters to control things on a state or national level. It's the same problem people have with the electoral collage. You can win a majority of the votes (either by being a partisan or by being a centrist) and lose because maps.

munificent 7y ago

Vote either way. Yes, the rules of the game suck and should be changed. As a citizen, there are many ways you can work towards that end. Regardless, the game is still being played and not voting is a move in the game that almost never benefits your own interests. Do you know who got the most votes in the 2016 presidential election? It wasn't Trump. It wasn't Hillary, either. It was no one. The number of people who could have voted outnumbers the votes either candidate got. People who stayed home chose to affect that election more than any other group of people.

lordCarbonFiber 7y ago
Im not a fan of this line of thinking. This ignores the systemic reasons people might not be able to vote. Can you get time off of work, are the poll lines unreasonably long, are the polls close enough to you (you don't necessarily have a car), was your registration purged for reasons unknown (bigger than nonvoters is the population of people eligible to vote, but unregistered), did you just not register because of identification issues or bureaucratic nonsense? Claiming that "people that choose to stay at home" are all independent of the system that effectively disenfranchises them is problematic.
- germinalphrase 7y ago
  I agree with you. The answer should be to eliminate those barriers. Sadly, we probably will not do so because those barriers (and the resulting suppression of votes) is politically beneficial to some.
  - munificent 7y ago
    We will do so if people show up and vote for candidates that care about that. People like to claim both parties are the same, but look at how often Democratic politicians try to increase voting access and how often Republicans try to limit it. Their actions are telling you something.
- munificent 7y ago
  > This ignores the systemic reasons people might not be able to vote. It does not. Like I said, work to fix the systemic problems. Also, go vote. These are not mutually exclusive actions. There is a pernicious idea that not voting is a viable strategy to register your discontent or stick it to the man. This a nonsense belief perpetrated by people in power — especially Republicans — who want you to not vote. The fewer people who vote, the cheaper it is to influence enough people to swing an election. Anyone who suggests its OK to not vote doesn't have your best interests at heart. That doesn't mean there aren't legitimate things making it difficult to vote. Those are problems that should be fixed. In the meantime, vote.
jadell 7y ago
When a party can use their gerrymandered position to block eligible voters from getting to the polls, then "Vote either way" is especially useful advice. In North Carolina, the GOP used their ability to draw the districts in ways that allowed them to get a veto-proof super-majority in the state General Assembly. Then, they passed law after law restricting people's ability to get out and vote. Closing polling stations, requiring ID that many disadvantaged people don't have easy access to, restricting early voting. They even tried to make the state Election Board a completely partisan office by making it appointed solely by the General Assembly (which they controlled) rather than the Governor's office (who is a Democrat.) All of that stopped once they lost their veto-proof majority, and they only lost it because the courts determined they had illegally drawn the districts. It wasn't people finally deciding to get out and vote. It was that people who had always been eligible to vote had their districts redrawn in a way that allowed their vote to actually count (albeit, barely.)