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Hmm. That is actually an interesting argument. It's like when Žižek and Peterson were debating Capitalism and Peterson talked about how you have the separation

Hmm. That is actually an interesting argument. It's like when Žižek and Peterson were debating Capitalism and Peterson talked about how you have the separation between those with wealth and the workers, but what happens when you try to fix that? Trying to level out the field will eventually lead to other injustice based on your previous position in the system. Gerrymandering is a symptom of a broken system: badly proportionate representation due to First Past the Post elections. If we had order of preference voting with instance runoff, or Mixed-Member Proportional, policies would be much better at reflecting the opinions held by the people in the regions where politicians are elected. (I did a post on this a few years back: https://fightthefuture.org/videos/does-voting-make-a-difference/ https://fightthefuture.org/videos/does-voting-make-a-differe...) Maine has ranked voting now, and I hope we see it in more states. I think the solution to our broken political system is not fixing district lines, but to move to voting systems where those lines don't matter, where votes cannot be thrown away and where elected officials come into power representing many different viewpoints of their electorate.

moate 7y ago
Those two things (how to perform districting and how to count votes) are completely unrelated and separate problems. If you keep your heavily partisan districts, ranked choice isn't going to fix things if you've used data to ensure that the people in that districts are likely to vote the way you want. Ranked choice (or similar changes) doesn't create a more balanced partisan body in the district, it just changes the need for a Primary to decide who will be represented. Districts matter because they're baked into the system. You want to get rid of them, that's a whole other can of worms but you can't pretend that drawing 3 districts, one with a +20% conservative lean, the other with a +20% conservative lean and the 3rd with a +90% liberal lean isn't going to continue being a problem. Your plan is great at fracturing the parties, but that assumes that there's any value in that.
- bobthepanda 7y ago
  It's also worth noting that districts useful, just not when heavily partisan. For example, if you have a city that is 51+% white, and all your council elections are at large, it is entirely possible for white voters, as a bloc, to just overrule the other 49% all the time. This is less probable with districts because in general races are not well-mixed in American cities in terms of spatial distribution.
- olliej 7y ago
  The solution is to have proportional voting, not ranked voting. Ranked voting solves a specific issue: voting for a government position for which there is a single position: eg president, governor, etc

moate 7y ago

Those two things (how to perform districting and how to count votes) are completely unrelated and separate problems. If you keep your heavily partisan districts, ranked choice isn't going to fix things if you've used data to ensure that the people in that districts are likely to vote the way you want. Ranked choice (or similar changes) doesn't create a more balanced partisan body in the district, it just changes the need for a Primary to decide who will be represented. Districts matter because they're baked into the system. You want to get rid of them, that's a whole other can of worms but you can't pretend that drawing 3 districts, one with a +20% conservative lean, the other with a +20% conservative lean and the 3rd with a +90% liberal lean isn't going to continue being a problem. Your plan is great at fracturing the parties, but that assumes that there's any value in that.

bobthepanda 7y ago
It's also worth noting that districts useful, just not when heavily partisan. For example, if you have a city that is 51+% white, and all your council elections are at large, it is entirely possible for white voters, as a bloc, to just overrule the other 49% all the time. This is less probable with districts because in general races are not well-mixed in American cities in terms of spatial distribution.
olliej 7y ago
The solution is to have proportional voting, not ranked voting. Ranked voting solves a specific issue: voting for a government position for which there is a single position: eg president, governor, etc