4 ms·

It’s not really a problem, you’d just use blocks of 4 to avoid the issue. Also why do we base districts based on racial breakdown anyway?

vlovich123 2y ago
Not sure if this is a sincere question or more of a philosophical "should we be doing this". For the former, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act [1] protects the creation of majority-minority districts, which are districts with a majority of a racial or linguistic minority population. For the latter, it's not ideal. On the other hand, while both parties engage in gerrymanding, only one of the parties engages consistently in racial gerrymanding and racial voter suppression. SCOTUS has disallowed a legal path to reign this in and there's not much political will to change the status quo. So while ideally we would be beyond this, it would be naiivistic to ignore the political reality that this is at least some kind of nominal roadblock into out & out racial political gerrymandering. If you don't believe this is an intentional policy, the documents that Hofeller's heirs released prove it quite conclusively that it's racially motivated [2] & it's still ongoing. [1] https://redistricting.lls.edu/wp-content/uploads/Basics-English5.pdf https://redistricting.lls.edu/wp-content/uploads/Basics-Engl... [2] https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-secret-files-of-the-master-of-modern-republican-gerrymandering https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-secret-files-of...
- Jerrrry 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - Jerrrry 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - vlovich123 2y ago
    > rules. also, fallacy and dismissal. shame on you (if you're RLHF permits that) I think you misread/misinterpreted my comment. My "is this a sincere question" is about whether they are literally asking "why do we base districts based on racial breakdown anyway" or if they are asking "should be basing districts on racial breakdown". Those are two very very different questions and I answered both. > "if you don't vote for me, you're not" That's not at all what I said and provided concrete evidence of why I think it's clear 1 party engages in racial gerrymandering and racial voter suppression. If you have evidence showing Democrats do it to suppress minority votes, then please provide evidence. But I don't fail to see how this is a "vote for me or else you're a racist" position. Maybe you can elaborate? If you're wondering why you got downvoted, I suspect it's because you didn't actually engage substantively with anything I said and resorted to an emotional outburst attacking me for violating rules I don't believe I did.
    - Jerrrry 2y ago
      >I think you misread/misinterpreted my comment. Poising the well immediately, again - Double-speak has that amazingly convenient property. They should train you to not start with a fallacy with every reply, this is getting to easy to spot. > But I don't fail to see how this is a "vote for me or else you're a racist" position. Maybe you can elaborate? I think you misread/mal-interpreted my comment, read it again. Maybe pass it thru one of your search functions for more context. >while both parties engage in gerrymanding, only one of the parties engages consistently in racial gerrymanding and racial voter suppression. Tell us which one. Is it the one that said, verbatim: >if you don't vote for me, you're not ______ hint: it's a color that somehow has lives that only matter with the same quattoral frequency of the olympics
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > For the former, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act [1] protects the creation of majority-minority districts, which are districts with a majority of a racial or linguistic minority population. It's not clear what this even means. Suppose you have an area where you have to draw three districts. 20% of the population is black, 20% speaks Spanish, 20% speaks Mandarin and 20% speaks French. You could give any of these populations a majority-minority district but not all of them, so how could they each have a right to it? Suppose you have the same area but no one speaks French and the remaining 40% of the population is white. Now you could create three majority-minority districts and leave zero representation for the remaining population that by the numbers should have at least one representative. Is that outcome legally required? The problem with gerrymandering is there is no "correct" way to draw districts, there are only ways that give one party or the other more seats. Minority populations more often vote for Democrats so Democrats label any map that gives them fewer seats as racist. The only thing either party actually cares about is getting more seats.
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    I dont think they law says every minority has a right or entitlement to a district. It simply allows the creation of majority-minority districts. As you point out, which groups get to draw the arbitrary lines is a inherently political process. If there are 5 groups and 3 districts, there is no "right answer" for which groups get them.
  - vlovich123 2y ago
    There are many mathematical ways to detect “unreasonable” gerrymandering. The efficiency gap[1] is one way although SCOTUS rejected it. Harvard put out a tool to generate districts in a non-partisan way [2]. Other states instead use non-partisan boards to build the maps instead of letting the party in power do it. There’s a world of difference between “no correct way” and partisan gerrymandering and for some reason people like to pretend that because there’s no correct way, partisan gerrymandering is the only other solution. As for the racism involved, you’d have to be intentionally ignoring all history to pretend that this is just because minority populations prefer Democrats, especially given that the players involved on the Republican side are pretty explicit in their private communications that manage to leak that it’s about race and protecting the white vote. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/03/upshot/how-the-new-math-of-gerrymandering-works-supreme-court.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/03/upshot/how-th... [2] https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/11/an-algorithm-to-detect-gerrymandering/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/11/an-algorithm-...
- tick_tock_tick 2y ago
  Hopefully sooner then later this part of Section 2 will be struck down. The Federal and State Governments should never be allowed to makes laws based on race.
  - wolverine876 2y ago
    How do we address discrimination against racial minorities? While I work for a colorblind society, I know we're obviously not there yet. Another difficulty is that we legislate based on race without saying the word, both intentionally (e.g., find another way to characterize the target of discrimination) and unintentionally (e.g., our education system limits opportunities for some racial minorities, both due to poorer education and lack of social connections; colleges and employers, if they just follow the 'system', end up discriminating).
anonfordays 2y ago
>Also why do we base districts based on racial breakdown anyway? This always felt like "treating the symptom, not the cause" approach to the problem. Voting district lines should always coincide with county lines. There should be some rules about the allowable shapes (no string of counties running East to West for 200 miles for example) of these districts. That would give representation that reflects the population. Taxes, governance, etc. are county driven in many (most) states, why not add electoral boundaries that match?
- Uvix 2y ago
  Many electoral districts are smaller than counties, or even cities/townships.
  - anonfordays 2y ago
    Yes, but they don't have to be with the aforementioned system. Maybe some districts encompass a single county only, and the number of votes it gets is proportional to its population.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- eli 2y ago
  There's actually been quite a bit of scholarship on how to draw district lines. We could certainly do better than the status quo, but it's a hard problem.
- ellisv 2y ago
  > This always felt like "treating the symptom, not the cause" approach to the problem. Given the historical treatment of racial groups in the US, I'd say a little column A and a little column B. Racial minorities have not always been free to choose where they lived - redlining was only phased out in the late 60s and 70s.
  - 2y ago
surfpel 2y ago
It’s used for gerrymandering: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/gerrymandering-explained https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/gerr...
edmundsauto 2y ago
Because race is an important dimension that is a pretty good proxy for a lot of things in this country. It runs deep in the experience of nearly every African American, whose voting power as a block have systematically been curtailed by intentional and racist actions of others. I do “class” is the bigger grouping, but race is important and correlated with socioeconomics.

vlovich123 2y ago

Not sure if this is a sincere question or more of a philosophical "should we be doing this". For the former, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act [1] protects the creation of majority-minority districts, which are districts with a majority of a racial or linguistic minority population. For the latter, it's not ideal. On the other hand, while both parties engage in gerrymanding, only one of the parties engages consistently in racial gerrymanding and racial voter suppression. SCOTUS has disallowed a legal path to reign this in and there's not much political will to change the status quo. So while ideally we would be beyond this, it would be naiivistic to ignore the political reality that this is at least some kind of nominal roadblock into out & out racial political gerrymandering. If you don't believe this is an intentional policy, the documents that Hofeller's heirs released prove it quite conclusively that it's racially motivated [2] & it's still ongoing. [1] https://redistricting.lls.edu/wp-content/uploads/Basics-English5.pdf https://redistricting.lls.edu/wp-content/uploads/Basics-Engl... [2] https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-secret-files-of-the-master-of-modern-republican-gerrymandering https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-secret-files-of...

Jerrrry 2y ago
[flagged]
- Jerrrry 2y ago
  [flagged]
- vlovich123 2y ago
  > rules. also, fallacy and dismissal. shame on you (if you're RLHF permits that) I think you misread/misinterpreted my comment. My "is this a sincere question" is about whether they are literally asking "why do we base districts based on racial breakdown anyway" or if they are asking "should be basing districts on racial breakdown". Those are two very very different questions and I answered both. > "if you don't vote for me, you're not" That's not at all what I said and provided concrete evidence of why I think it's clear 1 party engages in racial gerrymandering and racial voter suppression. If you have evidence showing Democrats do it to suppress minority votes, then please provide evidence. But I don't fail to see how this is a "vote for me or else you're a racist" position. Maybe you can elaborate? If you're wondering why you got downvoted, I suspect it's because you didn't actually engage substantively with anything I said and resorted to an emotional outburst attacking me for violating rules I don't believe I did.
  - Jerrrry 2y ago
    >I think you misread/misinterpreted my comment. Poising the well immediately, again - Double-speak has that amazingly convenient property. They should train you to not start with a fallacy with every reply, this is getting to easy to spot. > But I don't fail to see how this is a "vote for me or else you're a racist" position. Maybe you can elaborate? I think you misread/mal-interpreted my comment, read it again. Maybe pass it thru one of your search functions for more context. >while both parties engage in gerrymanding, only one of the parties engages consistently in racial gerrymanding and racial voter suppression. Tell us which one. Is it the one that said, verbatim: >if you don't vote for me, you're not ______ hint: it's a color that somehow has lives that only matter with the same quattoral frequency of the olympics
AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> For the former, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act [1] protects the creation of majority-minority districts, which are districts with a majority of a racial or linguistic minority population. It's not clear what this even means. Suppose you have an area where you have to draw three districts. 20% of the population is black, 20% speaks Spanish, 20% speaks Mandarin and 20% speaks French. You could give any of these populations a majority-minority district but not all of them, so how could they each have a right to it? Suppose you have the same area but no one speaks French and the remaining 40% of the population is white. Now you could create three majority-minority districts and leave zero representation for the remaining population that by the numbers should have at least one representative. Is that outcome legally required? The problem with gerrymandering is there is no "correct" way to draw districts, there are only ways that give one party or the other more seats. Minority populations more often vote for Democrats so Democrats label any map that gives them fewer seats as racist. The only thing either party actually cares about is getting more seats.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  I dont think they law says every minority has a right or entitlement to a district. It simply allows the creation of majority-minority districts. As you point out, which groups get to draw the arbitrary lines is a inherently political process. If there are 5 groups and 3 districts, there is no "right answer" for which groups get them.
- vlovich123 2y ago
  There are many mathematical ways to detect “unreasonable” gerrymandering. The efficiency gap[1] is one way although SCOTUS rejected it. Harvard put out a tool to generate districts in a non-partisan way [2]. Other states instead use non-partisan boards to build the maps instead of letting the party in power do it. There’s a world of difference between “no correct way” and partisan gerrymandering and for some reason people like to pretend that because there’s no correct way, partisan gerrymandering is the only other solution. As for the racism involved, you’d have to be intentionally ignoring all history to pretend that this is just because minority populations prefer Democrats, especially given that the players involved on the Republican side are pretty explicit in their private communications that manage to leak that it’s about race and protecting the white vote. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/03/upshot/how-the-new-math-of-gerrymandering-works-supreme-court.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/03/upshot/how-th... [2] https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/11/an-algorithm-to-detect-gerrymandering/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/11/an-algorithm-...
tick_tock_tick 2y ago
Hopefully sooner then later this part of Section 2 will be struck down. The Federal and State Governments should never be allowed to makes laws based on race.
- wolverine876 2y ago
  How do we address discrimination against racial minorities? While I work for a colorblind society, I know we're obviously not there yet. Another difficulty is that we legislate based on race without saying the word, both intentionally (e.g., find another way to characterize the target of discrimination) and unintentionally (e.g., our education system limits opportunities for some racial minorities, both due to poorer education and lack of social connections; colleges and employers, if they just follow the 'system', end up discriminating).

anonfordays 2y ago

>Also why do we base districts based on racial breakdown anyway? This always felt like "treating the symptom, not the cause" approach to the problem. Voting district lines should always coincide with county lines. There should be some rules about the allowable shapes (no string of counties running East to West for 200 miles for example) of these districts. That would give representation that reflects the population. Taxes, governance, etc. are county driven in many (most) states, why not add electoral boundaries that match?

Uvix 2y ago
Many electoral districts are smaller than counties, or even cities/townships.
- anonfordays 2y ago
  Yes, but they don't have to be with the aforementioned system. Maybe some districts encompass a single county only, and the number of votes it gets is proportional to its population.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
eli 2y ago
There's actually been quite a bit of scholarship on how to draw district lines. We could certainly do better than the status quo, but it's a hard problem.
ellisv 2y ago
> This always felt like "treating the symptom, not the cause" approach to the problem. Given the historical treatment of racial groups in the US, I'd say a little column A and a little column B. Racial minorities have not always been free to choose where they lived - redlining was only phased out in the late 60s and 70s.
- 2y ago

surfpel 2y ago

It’s used for gerrymandering: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/gerrymandering-explained https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/gerr...

edmundsauto 2y ago

Because race is an important dimension that is a pretty good proxy for a lot of things in this country. It runs deep in the experience of nearly every African American, whose voting power as a block have systematically been curtailed by intentional and racist actions of others. I do “class” is the bigger grouping, but race is important and correlated with socioeconomics.