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No, they complement each other. What do you do with the 'excess' vote after creating a 51/49 district? You combine the excess from N 51/49 districts into a sing

by morei 6y ago

No, they complement each other. What do you do with the 'excess' vote after creating a 51/49 district? You combine the excess from N 51/49 districts into a single district that is 20/80. That way you have N districts that fairly reliably vote for you, and a single districts that extremely reliably votes against you.

thaumasiotes 6y ago
They oppose each other. You're doing a better job the more of the vote you have in a district of type 1, and you're doing a better job the less of the vote you have in a district of type 2. Contradictions don't get any more direct than that. To the extent that a politician is benefiting himself in style #1, he's hurting himself in style #2, and vice versa.
- pessimizer 6y ago
  The people you're replying to aren't realizing your mistake, and you're not reading their replies. You're doing a worse job the more of your vote you have in a district of Type 1. You're creating districts of Type 1 for the other side. Every vote over 51% is a wasted vote, and there's never a reason you would shove all of your voters into one district if you were in control of districting. > To the extent that a politician is benefiting himself in style #1 There's no possible benefit to a politician in winning a district 80/20 rather than 60/40. edit: If 6 people want to vote for me, and 6 want to vote for you, I want to put 3 of your voters in one district, and have three more identical districts each with 2 of my voters and 1 of yours. The first district is what you're referring to as Type 1, and the other three are what you're referring to as Type 2. If you can find a more ideal districting arrangement for my party, I'd like to hear it.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    > The people you're replying to aren't realizing your mistake, and you're not reading their replies. No, you're just not bothering to read my comment. I'll repeat it. There are two (2) arguments commonly advanced toward the idea that gerrymandering is bad. In summary, they are: 1. Creating safe seats; 2. Nullifying opposition votes. More of one means less of the other.
    - arcticfox 6y ago
      Can you give examples of informed people arguing that (1) is a problem? 99% of the criticism that I have seen, and what I feel, is that the issue is only (2). The handful of ultra-secure opposition seats created by (1) are more like an unfortunate byproduct of the truly foul (2).
    - roywiggins 6y ago
      Old-fashioned gerrymandering sometimes worked that way. You'd have incumbents- in both parties- try and use the gerrymander to keep their individual seats, for personal political reasons. Party bosses made sure that their own seats were uncontestable, because they had power over the process. Sometimes this would cross party lines (you, party A boss, give me a safe seat, I'll vote to give you a safe seat, we'll both be happy). The way it works now is that you create a perfectly safe seat for the other party in exchange for many more fairly comfortable seats for your own party. The maps are not drawn up to make individual incumbents happy, but to maximize party power. The fairly comfortable seats may still be "safe" in normal elections- they're not 100% a sure thing, but they're not particularly competitive and elections can be reliably fought and won cycle after cycle. You can't just not campaign, but the other side has one hand tied behind their backs, so as long as you have a competent campaign and no sex scandals, you're fine. Whether that's the sort of "safe seat" people are talking about I couldn't say.
    - function_seven 6y ago
      Well in that case, #1 is a misinformed argument. #2 is the reason districts are gerrymandered. The party in charge of drawing the lines will—as a side effect–create some safe seats for the minority party. And in doing so, will retain control of the legislative body, by having a larger number of districts they can win.
    - sbierwagen 6y ago
      Does anyone actually complain about #1? In practice, congress members in very safe districts then get primaried from the left: Ocasio-Cortez knocked out Joe Crowley in NY-14, and Pelosi is currently fighting a primary election. The people disadvantaged in a democratic district in a gerrymandered republican state are... republican voters in that district. But they own the state, so what?

by morei 6y ago

thaumasiotes 6y ago

They oppose each other. You're doing a better job the more of the vote you have in a district of type 1, and you're doing a better job the less of the vote you have in a district of type 2. Contradictions don't get any more direct than that. To the extent that a politician is benefiting himself in style #1, he's hurting himself in style #2, and vice versa.

pessimizer 6y ago
The people you're replying to aren't realizing your mistake, and you're not reading their replies. You're doing a worse job the more of your vote you have in a district of Type 1. You're creating districts of Type 1 for the other side. Every vote over 51% is a wasted vote, and there's never a reason you would shove all of your voters into one district if you were in control of districting. > To the extent that a politician is benefiting himself in style #1 There's no possible benefit to a politician in winning a district 80/20 rather than 60/40. edit: If 6 people want to vote for me, and 6 want to vote for you, I want to put 3 of your voters in one district, and have three more identical districts each with 2 of my voters and 1 of yours. The first district is what you're referring to as Type 1, and the other three are what you're referring to as Type 2. If you can find a more ideal districting arrangement for my party, I'd like to hear it.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  > The people you're replying to aren't realizing your mistake, and you're not reading their replies. No, you're just not bothering to read my comment. I'll repeat it. There are two (2) arguments commonly advanced toward the idea that gerrymandering is bad. In summary, they are: 1. Creating safe seats; 2. Nullifying opposition votes. More of one means less of the other.
  - arcticfox 6y ago
    Can you give examples of informed people arguing that (1) is a problem? 99% of the criticism that I have seen, and what I feel, is that the issue is only (2). The handful of ultra-secure opposition seats created by (1) are more like an unfortunate byproduct of the truly foul (2).
  - roywiggins 6y ago
    Old-fashioned gerrymandering sometimes worked that way. You'd have incumbents- in both parties- try and use the gerrymander to keep their individual seats, for personal political reasons. Party bosses made sure that their own seats were uncontestable, because they had power over the process. Sometimes this would cross party lines (you, party A boss, give me a safe seat, I'll vote to give you a safe seat, we'll both be happy). The way it works now is that you create a perfectly safe seat for the other party in exchange for many more fairly comfortable seats for your own party. The maps are not drawn up to make individual incumbents happy, but to maximize party power. The fairly comfortable seats may still be "safe" in normal elections- they're not 100% a sure thing, but they're not particularly competitive and elections can be reliably fought and won cycle after cycle. You can't just not campaign, but the other side has one hand tied behind their backs, so as long as you have a competent campaign and no sex scandals, you're fine. Whether that's the sort of "safe seat" people are talking about I couldn't say.
  - function_seven 6y ago
    Well in that case, #1 is a misinformed argument. #2 is the reason districts are gerrymandered. The party in charge of drawing the lines will—as a side effect–create some safe seats for the minority party. And in doing so, will retain control of the legislative body, by having a larger number of districts they can win.
  - sbierwagen 6y ago
    Does anyone actually complain about #1? In practice, congress members in very safe districts then get primaried from the left: Ocasio-Cortez knocked out Joe Crowley in NY-14, and Pelosi is currently fighting a primary election. The people disadvantaged in a democratic district in a gerrymandered republican state are... republican voters in that district. But they own the state, so what?