Gerrymandering

[LittlePinky82]

One issue that has come up in the recent past is gerrymandering and the republicans trying to redistrict areas in the states where they can fully have state power whether it be in terms of state-level politics or federal with senate and congress. It even affects the electoral college in the census and how many votes you get.

What do people here think about this? I've only been more self-aware of it since the last few years.

Link- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering

 

[Lyndon]

Gerrymandering is not just a Republican problem, here in California, the Democrats do the gerrymandering. I lived in a Republican congressional district and it was gerrymandered by the state legislature to include more poor Hispanics in the next town over and bingo we now have a Democratic congressman.

 

[Underhill]

I recently wrote a paper on this and the conclusion I came to is that yes, both parties do it. But the Republicans are much better at it. I looked at the percentage of voters voting republican vs democrat and compared it to the number of representatives. Republicans picked up nearly 3 times as many seats as democrats.

In fairness, part of this is due to the southern states where racial differences mean neighborhoods tend to be more divided than the national average and the voting rolls line up closely to racial lines.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

It's one of those "original intent" things we can and should do without.

 

[Flankerl]

I am so glad that its a thing of the Anglophone world.

 

[Augustus]

Districts like this look perfectly natural to me, nothing to see here, move along...

 

[The Emperor of Mankind]

It's something we have here in the UK as well. The Conservative Party are trying to redraw constituency lines to make it harder to vote them out. I'm pretty sure the Labour Party did it when they were last in; just goes to show it doesn't always work.

 

[LittlePinky82]

It's something we have here in the UK as well. The Conservative Party are trying to redraw constituency lines to make it harder to vote them out. I'm pretty sure the Labour Party did it when they were last in; just goes to show it doesn't always work.

I'm glad it doesn't always work.

And yes I'm sure people on both sides do it just it seems republicans do it more and, as pointed out, are better at it.

What about a law banning it?

Has anyone tried?

I recently wrote a paper on this and the conclusion I came to is that yes, both parties do it. But the Republicans are much better at it. I looked at the percentage of voters voting republican vs democrat and compared it to the number of representatives. Republicans picked up nearly 3 times as many seats as democrats.

In fairness, part of this is due to the southern states where racial differences mean neighborhoods tend to be more divided than the national average and the voting rolls line up closely to racial lines.

It'd be nice if you want to share your paper. I think it would be appropriate.

 

[Revoltingest]

A way to beat gerrymandering is to move to "at large" voting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-large
Of course, you run the risk of having some crazy 3rd party gain representation.

 

[Underhill]

I'm glad it doesn't always work.

And yes I'm sure people on both sides do it just it seems republicans do it more and, as pointed out, are better at it.

What about a law banning it?

Has anyone tried?



It'd be nice if you want to share your paper. I think it would be appropriate.

It was for a class last year. When I went back and looked at it, it was actually written on Voter ID but I spent some time on gerrymandering. Unfortunately all the formatting was lost when I paste it here...

""There is another symptom of our election problems that cannot be dismissed in any discussion
about election policies and that is redistricting to benefit a particular party or candidate, or
gerrymandering.The image below is a prime example.
The red areas are republican districts and blue are democratic districts.

How does gerrymandering work?Sam Wang wrote an excellent piece on the subject in 2013.
“Through artful drawing of district boundaries, it is possible to put large groups of voters on the losing
side of every election.”He gives a prime example. “In North Carolina, where the two-party House
vote was 51 percent Democratic, 49 percent Republican, the average simulated delegation was seven
Democrats and six Republicans. The actual outcome? Four Democrats, nine Republicans — a split that
occurred in less than 1 percent of simulations. If districts were drawn fairly, this lopsided discrepancy
would hardly ever occur.”So democrats hold a 2% lead over republicans but win only 4 of 13
districts.They do this by putting as many democrats as possible in those 4 districts.Making it
virtually impossible for democrats to win in districts designed for republicans to have the majority.
This is possible because republicans control the state legislature which is in charge of redistricting.
But, you may say, Democrats do it too!And you would be right, in part.“Confounding
conventional wisdom, partisan redistricting is not symmetrical between the political parties. By my
seat-discrepancy criterion, 10 states are out of whack: the five I have mentioned, plus Virginia, Ohio,
Florida, Illinois and Texas. Arizona was redistricted by an independent commission, Texas was a
combination of Republican and federal court efforts, and Illinois was controlled by Democrats.
Republicans designed the other seven maps. Both sides may do it, but one side does it more often.”"