Perhaps there is hope for the Voting Rights cases that are being heard this term after all?

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/02/us-supr...toral-map/

Quote:The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to block a lower court ruling requiring Republican-drawn congressional districts in Pennsylvania to be reworked immediately, boosting Democratic hopes of winning control this year of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Justice Samuel Alito denied an emergency application filed by Republicans to stop the immediate reworking of the electoral district boundaries, preserving a ruling by the state’s top court that they had unlawfully sought partisan advantage over the Democrats in drawing the maps.

Alito?  Alito??  I mean if your scam is so obvious that even a conservatard fuck like Alito can't buy it you must have fucked up bigly.

I always thought they could fix the problem by allowing district lines to have only a few squiggles, but I remember reading an article somewhere that said "blocky" districts wouldn't solve the problem. I wonder why though. Gerrymandering stifles the democratic process so much. Something ought to be done to prevent it.

We need proportional representation, rather than districts. Dividing things up geographically is outdated.

The population is not equally spread across the landscape.

(February 6, 2018 at 1:27 am)Cecelia Wrote: We need proportional representation, rather than districts.  Dividing things up geographically is outdated.

Don't know if it's possible, unfortunately, because whoever is elected in a given system obviously benefits from that system and doesn't want to change it. In Canada we elected Trudeau with one of his main platforms being electoral reform. He promised to implement proportional representation, but once elected with a majority government but only 40% of the popular vote, he decided not to do it. Surprise, surprise.

(February 6, 2018 at 12:02 am)vulcanlogician Wrote:  I wonder why though. 

You can pack and crack with any shape.  The squiggles are super good at it, but not required.

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(February 6, 2018 at 1:27 am)Cecelia Wrote: We need proportional representation, rather than districts.  Dividing things up geographically is outdated.

(February 6, 2018 at 1:28 am)Minimalist Wrote: The population is not equally spread across the landscape.

If we're married to the district and electoral systems, then perhaps the vote and electorals should be doled out based on percentages of the dem in each district and state.  So winning a district by 70% gets you 70% of a vote, and winning a state by 7 units out of 10 (for purposes of simplicity) gets you 7 out of 10 electoral votes. There would still be room for the mapfuckers of the world to operate, but it would be closer to proportional representation. Errybody wins*

*except republicans, ofc, they would lose fucking horribly...and that's why we can't have nice things. Not for nothing, their ability to maintain minority control through superior gamesmanship factors prominently in voter apathy, which would make their minority even smaller had it not been so thoroughly effected.

Oh give me a home where the orange asshole does not roam.

(February 6, 2018 at 10:16 am)Khemikal Wrote:

(February 6, 2018 at 12:02 am)vulcanlogician Wrote:  I wonder why though. 

You can pack and crack with any shape.  The squiggles are super good at it, but not required.

It really does seem there is a fair and practicable solution to be found to the problem. I mean, for one thing we have the wolves guarding the hen house. Maybe district maps shouldn't be drawn and voted on by legislative bodies. Perhaps some group which is free of bias. Maybe even a computer program into which you feed population density information and out pops a state map with its districts already drawn.

It seems to me that if someone wants to go gerrymandering, they will use a specific set of tactics.

Squiggles are one way to tip the scales. See the picture below:



Obviously we can stop such blatant attempts at gerrymandering by making district drawers work within a ratio between the perimeter and area of a district. (Like if the perimeter is X the area must be within Y of X2). Anyway, according to that article I mentioned in my previous post, which didn't go into much detail, that wouldn't solve the problem. But I don't see how it couldn't at least help.

Another idea just occurred to me. You've heard of Rawls' veil of ignorance, right? Instead of legislators voting on a map directly, they would only get to see the discrepancy between registered party voters--but they wouldn't know who the discrepancy favored.. It would take some serious plotting to to form this process, but I think it could be done.

This article had some basic ideas: https://www.policymap.com/2017/08/soluti...mandering/

Anyway, I was in a thinky mood this morning and felt like directing some energy toward the problem.

(February 6, 2018 at 1:15 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote: You've heard of Rawls' veil of ignorance, right?

Take my kudos, lol.

Quote:Instead of legislators voting on a map directly, they would only get to see the discrepancy between registered party voters--but they wouldn't know who the discrepancy favored.. It would take some serious plotting to to form this process, but I think it could be done.

Well, ofc it could be, the trouble is that no one actually wants it to be.  When one party sees the effectiveness of some fucked up tool used against them..they immediately dream about what they will use it to achieve when the balance of power shifts.  

I'm sure your links touch on it, but it wouldn't be difficult.  You have them assess a randomized sampling from some state that may or may not be their own, or may be a conglomerate of different states..with some completely manufactured examples which correlate to no state at all thrown in to spoof whatever common (or specific) knowledge they have regarding the overall disparities nationwide.

Simply eliminate party registration. All voters would simply be listed as registered voters and all elections would be opened to all voters. Only the candidates would carry the party label so if there was a party primary anyone in the district could vote for any of the candidates. After all, the politician is supposed to represent all of the people and not just those of one party.