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>Democracy depends on voters getting what they voted for. That only works if each vote has the same worth in the election and governing. Otherwise the whole po

>Democracy depends on voters getting what they voted for. That only works if each vote has the same worth in the election and governing. Otherwise the whole population might be getting something that only a small number voted. Do you think that is the case today in the United States? Or are you unaware of all of the gerrymandering currently going on throughout the country?

lapcat 1y ago
Of course I'm aware of gerrymandering. Do you think that I'm somehow in favor of it? Or perhaps you were thinking that I was presenting a sufficient condition for democracy rather than a necessary condition for democracy?
rayiner 1y ago
I don’t know how “gerrymandering” became such a meme. Currently, Democrats have 6 more seats than their two-party share of the House popular vote. That’s only 1.3% off. The differences have been pretty small since the 1990s: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Popular_vote_vs_actual_seats_gained.png https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Popular_vote_vs_actual_...
- gs17 1y ago
  You can't look at gerrymandering at that scale. It exists on the scale of individual states. I'm in Tennessee, and Republicans gerrymandered the districts so that Nashville is divided across three, leading to the state only having one blue district instead of the two or three it should have (by votes, it should have two with a third competitive district). They were forced to keep Memphis' district around only as the minority-majority one (a federal court even ruled that it was a clear political gerrymander, but not a racial one, so it was upheld).
  - rayiner 1y ago
    > You can't look at gerrymandering at that scale. It exists on the scale of individual states. But Congress is a national body. Maryland is almost the exact flip of Tennessee (2:1 democrat) and democrats have gerrymandered the state so there's only 1 GOP district. Republicans have 35% of the vote, but only 12% of the representatives. At the end of the day, Congressional votes aren't taken state-by-state, and the delta between each party's share of the two-party popular vote and their share of seats typically is small. There's no fair way to do districting. "Independent" redistricting commissions don't work. In California, which has an independent redistricting commission, republicans have just 17% of the seats despite getting 39% of the vote. It's not that much better than Illinois's extreme gerrymander, where the GOP got only 17% of seats with 46% of the popular vote. If we mandated districts be drawn by independent commissions in every state, they'd get taken over by democrats, just like every other non-elected institution (everything from NPR to the ABA). At least the adversarial political process we have now results in relatively small, non-permanent advantages to either side. The only solution would be to ban districts all together and have a statewide vote for a party slate of candidates.

lapcat 1y ago

Of course I'm aware of gerrymandering. Do you think that I'm somehow in favor of it? Or perhaps you were thinking that I was presenting a sufficient condition for democracy rather than a necessary condition for democracy?

rayiner 1y ago

I don’t know how “gerrymandering” became such a meme. Currently, Democrats have 6 more seats than their two-party share of the House popular vote. That’s only 1.3% off. The differences have been pretty small since the 1990s: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Popular_vote_vs_actual_seats_gained.png https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Popular_vote_vs_actual_...

gs17 1y ago
You can't look at gerrymandering at that scale. It exists on the scale of individual states. I'm in Tennessee, and Republicans gerrymandered the districts so that Nashville is divided across three, leading to the state only having one blue district instead of the two or three it should have (by votes, it should have two with a third competitive district). They were forced to keep Memphis' district around only as the minority-majority one (a federal court even ruled that it was a clear political gerrymander, but not a racial one, so it was upheld).
- rayiner 1y ago
  > You can't look at gerrymandering at that scale. It exists on the scale of individual states. But Congress is a national body. Maryland is almost the exact flip of Tennessee (2:1 democrat) and democrats have gerrymandered the state so there's only 1 GOP district. Republicans have 35% of the vote, but only 12% of the representatives. At the end of the day, Congressional votes aren't taken state-by-state, and the delta between each party's share of the two-party popular vote and their share of seats typically is small. There's no fair way to do districting. "Independent" redistricting commissions don't work. In California, which has an independent redistricting commission, republicans have just 17% of the seats despite getting 39% of the vote. It's not that much better than Illinois's extreme gerrymander, where the GOP got only 17% of seats with 46% of the popular vote. If we mandated districts be drawn by independent commissions in every state, they'd get taken over by democrats, just like every other non-elected institution (everything from NPR to the ABA). At least the adversarial political process we have now results in relatively small, non-permanent advantages to either side. The only solution would be to ban districts all together and have a statewide vote for a party slate of candidates.