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Gerrymandering: Quick, Draw!

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  • #31
    Re: Gerrymandering: Quick, Draw!

    Originally posted by dxmnkd316 View Post
    The easiest way to fix the electoral college for the legislative branch is to simply do a statewide primary for each party recording the same number of top vote getters as there are seats. Then hold a statewide popular vote and divy them up proportionally.

    Gerrymandering dies there. Never have to worry about city or rural. Never have to worry about racial packing and cracking. Don’t have to worry about a few hundred seats throwing an entire state.

    All my plan needs is an amendment to the constitution

    Actually, couldn’t each state decide how it wants to do this?
    Each state gets to pick how it determines its electors. It could do it by drawing lots, if it wanted to.

    The U.S. Constitution guarantees the people of each state "a Republican form of government." And since "one person, one vote" became a real thing, State senates have to be apportioned by population rather than land. Otherwise, your guess is as good as mine if voting for slates on a statewide basis would pass the "Republican form of government" Constitutional hurdle.

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    • #32
      Re: Gerrymandering: Quick, Draw!

      Originally posted by joecct View Post
      Each state decides on how its electors are chosen.

      Try this -- vote for each elector. In my case, I'd vote for 8 individuals. The individuals then vote for a candidate for president.
      No thanks. There are too many dorks on the ballot as it is, and a majority of voters are quite ignorant. By a show of posts, how many of us actually care who sits on the Board of Regents at our major public universities? I'll be the first to admit I don't bother to look them up, except to not vote for names I recognize and don't like, such as Mark Bernstein (son of a local ambulance chasing family) when he ran for UMich BoR. Spoiler alert - he won anyway.

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      • #33
        Re: Gerrymandering: Quick, Draw!

        Originally posted by FadeToBlack&Gold View Post
        No thanks. There are too many dorks on the ballot as it is, and a majority of voters are quite ignorant. By a show of posts, how many of us actually care who sits on the Board of Regents at our major public universities? I'll be the first to admit I don't bother to look them up, except to not vote for names I recognize and don't like, such as Mark Bernstein (son of a local ambulance chasing family) when he ran for UMich BoR.
        Ha. I was just thinking about that this weekend. I saw a list of them in the football program and thought, “I wish I could elect them. What a bunch of schmucks.” Then the immediate thought was, “Wait, then the rest of these schmucks get to vote for these schmucks and now it’s political.”

        To hell with that.
        Code:
        As of 9/21/10:         As of 9/13/10:
        College Hockey 6       College Football 0
        BTHC 4                 WCHA FC:  1
        Originally posted by SanTropez
        May your paint thinner run dry and the fleas of a thousand camels infest your dead deer.
        Originally posted by bigblue_dl
        I don't even know how to classify magic vagina smoke babies..
        Originally posted by Kepler
        When the giraffes start building radio telescopes they can join too.
        He's probably going to be a superstar but that man has more baggage than North West

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        • #34
          Re: Gerrymandering: Quick, Draw!

          Originally posted by Wisko McBadgerton View Post
          Thanks, I empathize, but my point wasn't that MI 11 is well drawn, it is that the shape of any given district is an arbitrary measure of whether it works or not. People don't live in geographical squares or any other shape. Presumably MI 11 is that shape as a result of gerrymandering it toward a specific goal. In this case, grouping voters in such a way as to give one party an advantage over another.

          My point is that Fade said we should start over, draw squares and adjust them for population. Why? Why draw shapes on a map? What is the goal of that? Suppose that randomly results in districts that give R's +100 house seats? Are we still good?

          What do these committees use as a goal when drawing district lines? That it looks nice on a map? That certain kinds of people are grouped together? What is the goal? Define that, then you can draw the lines.
          According to documents i've seen the goal is to have communities of interest together. The key is what is the definition of community of interest.
          MTU: Three time NCAA champions.

          It never get's easier, you just go faster. -Greg Lemond

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          • #35
            Re: Gerrymandering: Quick, Draw!

            Originally posted by manurespreader View Post
            According to documents i've seen the goal is to have communities of interest together. The key is what is the definition of community of interest.
            The only thing the communities of MI-8 have in common is a lot of 30+ year-old white people, and that Clarkston and Lake Orion both want to be Little Rochester.

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            • #36
              Re: Gerrymandering: Quick, Draw!

              Originally posted by FadeToBlack&Gold View Post
              That is a fair point. My "start with a grid" plan may very well be flawed. At the end of the day, what really I don't want is districts drawn so crookedly, as to clearly favor one party over the other, and in some cases put the offices of a Congresshuman in a fairly "dense" district an hour away from some of their constituents. IL-4 is among the most egregious examples. It's a ridiculous-looking jigsaw of Chicago neighborhoods that likely favor Democrats.

              I live in the far eastern portion of MI-08 - that little panhandle right on the county line. Rep. Bishop is from my town, but his offices are in Brighton almost an hour away (with no traffic). Geographically, that is about the middle of his district, which also includes most (all?) of Michigan State's campus. MSU is about a 2-hour drive from me (slightly under that).

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michig...ince_2013).tif

              Is that fair? I don't feel it is, given that I'm in the most population-dense part of his district, but convince me that it is.
              Because you live in a densely populated area, I imagine you feel it would make more sense to group the nearest 700k or so folks around you together from as compact an area as possible, seeing as everyone in a smaller radius is likely to have similar challenges, and similar political issues of interest. I can see that, but you do have to keep in mind that all districts in the state have to be of equal population. So it's entirely likely that no matter how you do it, by necessity there will be some more urban areas connected to large suburban or rural areas in order to balance the numbers evenly. Folks on the borders of some of the districts are probably going to tend not to like it very much, one way or another.
              Is it fair? Consider that everyone in your district is an hour from your rep office. In Montana there are some folks 10 hours from their rep office, the Alaska congressional district spans roughly the distance from Gainesville FL to Sacramento CA. I knew a guy who lived in Nome for awhile, literally a 500 mile trip by dogsled to the congressional field office. I'd guess it's roughly a 500 mile drive across the entirety of MI-1 district. I don't know... it's not unfair.
              Originally posted by WiscTJK
              I'm with Wisko and Tim.
              Originally posted by Timothy A
              Other than Wisko McBadgerton and Badger Bob, who is universally loved by all?

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              • #37
                Originally posted by FadeToBlack&Gold View Post
                No thanks. There are too many dorks on the ballot as it is, and a majority of voters are quite ignorant. By a show of posts, how many of us actually care who sits on the Board of Regents at our major public universities? I'll be the first to admit I don't bother to look them up, except to not vote for names I recognize and don't like, such as Mark Bernstein (son of a local ambulance chasing family) when he ran for UMich BoR. Spoiler alert - he won anyway.
                The sad part of your (accurate) post is "...a majority of voters are quite ignorant..."

                How do we change it in > 280 characters and 30 second sound bytes?
                CCT '77 & '78
                4 kids
                5 grandsons (BCA 7/09, CJA 5/14, JDL 8/14, JFL 6/16, PJL 7/18)
                1 granddaughter (EML 4/18)

                ”Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”
                - Benjamin Franklin

                Banned from the St. Lawrence University Facebook page - March 2016 (But I got better).

                I want to live forever. So far, so good.

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                • #38
                  Re: Gerrymandering: Quick, Draw!

                  Originally posted by LynahFan View Post
                  Problem is if you DON'T intentionally bias the districts toward one party or the other and every district really does end up 50-50, then one party could easily get all of the seats with just a few hundred vote total advantage - an "electoral college" for the legislative branch. If the goal is to have the congressional delegation split match the total popular vote (say, 5-2 in a 7-seat state), then the surest way to do that is to make 5 and 2 "safe" districts.

                  New crazy idea: how about each party in that 7-seat state puts forward a slate of 7 candidates, in rank order of the party's preference for who gets to serve. People vote for the slate in a single state-wide election, and if the votes split 5-2, then the top 5 from the majority party are seated and the top 2 from the minority party are seated. If your state only has 2 representatives, then they'd always be split unless one party gets more than 75% of the vote; in a state with 3, you'd only have 3-0 if one party got more than 83% of the vote, and so on.
                  If you did make as many competitive districts as you can, while it is possible a small number of votes spread across the country could result in a landslide for one party or another, that party's grip on power would still be very tenuous. In a real 50/50 situation, no one could come to power without a vote from the other side. Seems like this would have the effect of moderating Federal government quite a bit. The Tea Party or the New, New Left, might have a much more difficult time gaining traction. And since we're talking about the House, having 400 R's or 400 D's in power for 2 years at a time is not a huge difference from having 250 of one or the other in practical terms. It could even result in voters looking more to character and credentials of the candidate, rather than Party affiliation. I don't know, I'm not convinced 50/50 is a terrible idea.

                  As to the slate of candidates, It occurrs to me that one of the things we do have right now is, generally speaking, we elect a rep from our own district. I could see how in states like MN, MI, WI, an "upstate" candidate never gets on the final roster, and the Iron Range, the UP, or the WI Northwoods never have the opportunity for a more local representative to be slated.
                  Originally posted by WiscTJK
                  I'm with Wisko and Tim.
                  Originally posted by Timothy A
                  Other than Wisko McBadgerton and Badger Bob, who is universally loved by all?

                  Comment


                  • #39
                    Re: Gerrymandering: Quick, Draw!

                    Originally posted by LynahFan View Post
                    If the goal is to have the congressional delegation split match the total popular vote (say, 5-2 in a 7-seat state), then the surest way to do that is to make 5 and 2 "safe" districts.
                    Why should that ever be the goal?

                    There should be one goal, and one goal alone. The districts should be created to create, as near as possible, identical population totals in each district, and to do so in the most geometrically normal way. Anything else should automatically be deemed unconstitutional. This idea that we need two "safe" minority districts because we have five "safe" white districts or some such thing is crazy.
                    That community is already in the process of dissolution where each man begins to eye his neighbor as a possible enemy, where non-conformity with the accepted creed, political as well as religious, is a mark of disaffection; where denunciation, without specification or backing, takes the place of evidence; where orthodoxy chokes freedom of dissent; where faith in the eventual supremacy of reason has become so timid that we dare not enter our convictions in the open lists, to win or lose.

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                    • #40
                      Originally posted by joecct View Post
                      The sad part of your (accurate) post is "...a majority of voters are quite ignorant..."

                      How do we change it in > 280 characters and 30 second sound bytes?
                      So sayeth the guy who constantly links to 280 character statements and 30 second sound bytes (and yeah, Handy does too, and I don't like it anymore coming from him).

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                      • #41
                        Originally posted by unofan View Post
                        So sayeth the guy who constantly links to 280 character statements and 30 second sound bytes (and yeah, Handy does too, and I don't like it anymore coming from him).
                        If you're using Handy's and my posts to make decisions, egad!!
                        CCT '77 & '78
                        4 kids
                        5 grandsons (BCA 7/09, CJA 5/14, JDL 8/14, JFL 6/16, PJL 7/18)
                        1 granddaughter (EML 4/18)

                        ”Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”
                        - Benjamin Franklin

                        Banned from the St. Lawrence University Facebook page - March 2016 (But I got better).

                        I want to live forever. So far, so good.

                        Comment


                        • #42
                          Re: Gerrymandering: Quick, Draw!

                          Independent nonpartison commission. Districts of approximately equal population size. Shapes must be reasonable. Only data they see is population data. No demographics. You get what you get.

                          For the electoral college, make it winner take all per congressional district. The two votes that "represent the senate" go to the top vote getter in the state, and split if the margin of victory is within 5 points (or any other agreed upon number).
                          Jordan Kawaguchi for Hobey!!
                          Originally posted by Quizmire
                          mns, this is why i love you.

                          Originally posted by Markt
                          MNS - forking genius.

                          Originally posted by asterisk hat
                          MNS - sometimes you gotta answer your true calling. I think yours is being a pimp.

                          Originally posted by hockeybando
                          I am a fan of MNS.

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                          • #43
                            Originally posted by MinnesotaNorthStar View Post
                            Independent nonpartison commission. Districts of approximately equal population size. Shapes must be reasonable. Only data they see is population data. No demographics. You get what you get.

                            For the electoral college, make it winner take all per congressional district. The two votes that "represent the senate" go to the top vote getter in the state, and split if the margin of victory is within 5 points (or any other agreed upon number).
                            Wouldn't that fail the Voting Rights Act?
                            CCT '77 & '78
                            4 kids
                            5 grandsons (BCA 7/09, CJA 5/14, JDL 8/14, JFL 6/16, PJL 7/18)
                            1 granddaughter (EML 4/18)

                            ”Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”
                            - Benjamin Franklin

                            Banned from the St. Lawrence University Facebook page - March 2016 (But I got better).

                            I want to live forever. So far, so good.

                            Comment


                            • #44
                              Re: Gerrymandering: Quick, Draw!

                              Your party wrecked that already.
                              Code:
                              As of 9/21/10:         As of 9/13/10:
                              College Hockey 6       College Football 0
                              BTHC 4                 WCHA FC:  1
                              Originally posted by SanTropez
                              May your paint thinner run dry and the fleas of a thousand camels infest your dead deer.
                              Originally posted by bigblue_dl
                              I don't even know how to classify magic vagina smoke babies..
                              Originally posted by Kepler
                              When the giraffes start building radio telescopes they can join too.
                              He's probably going to be a superstar but that man has more baggage than North West

                              Comment


                              • #45
                                Re: Gerrymandering: Quick, Draw!

                                Originally posted by joecct View Post
                                Wouldn't that fail the Voting Rights Act?
                                No idea.

                                EDIT: Out of curiosity, what part would?
                                Jordan Kawaguchi for Hobey!!
                                Originally posted by Quizmire
                                mns, this is why i love you.

                                Originally posted by Markt
                                MNS - forking genius.

                                Originally posted by asterisk hat
                                MNS - sometimes you gotta answer your true calling. I think yours is being a pimp.

                                Originally posted by hockeybando
                                I am a fan of MNS.

                                Comment

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