Gerrymandering... it just is now.

[Jimmy Higgins]

I wonder if Illinois with have to redo its districts?

Funny, North Carolina and Pennsylvania were forced by courts to undo their gerrymandered maps. Florida, Texas, and Ohio are gerrymandered heavily but the GOP control all of the courts. Texas is also gerrymandering on top of the gerrymandering from 2003.

But we get to hear about Illinois... again and again and again. Why not Maryland too? They gerrymandered one or two seats.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander. If the dems do not want to be constantly reminded about Illinois then end that instance of gerrymandering and it will go away.

The right-wing be like:

It would be better to stop gerrymandering all together though. Have fun with that.

Yeah, it would.

Here is a great site that could be of interest to you. I mean, if you aren't just here to pretend to be some sort of Australian Norman Thomas regarding American politics.

Thank you for that site. There are too many red coloured states. You have your work cut out for you.

Work cut out for me? The game is effectively over and the liberals lost. It will take decades to dig out from the last 25 years.

If any of the red states are Democrat controlled then there is an ideal chance for the Dems to show their bona fides concerning the elimination of gerrymandering. I counted at least 5 marked as Democratic. That would reduce the number of reds. All voters/candidates will benefit in the long run.

Always amazes me how foreign conservatives want to be the Jiminy Cricket for the liberals in the US.

 

[Tigers!]

Yeah. I've proposed basically the same thing but from a different angle:

Get rid of most elections, they are a relic of the past that is no longer needed. Instead, "elections" are done by proxy voting.

For each office you indicate someone or something you want to serve in that office. For each office the computer makes a list of who/what got votes, sort by number of votes. Entities must be removed, their votes are forwarded to whoever they voted for--but this forwarding is retained as they may get more votes as it proceeds. Anyone who does not want to serve is treated likewise. Then the bottom vote-getter is removed, votes distributed the same as entities. Repeat until the list has been reduced to however many representatives you want in the body. Each person has a number of votes equal to however many votes the got in the most recent "election". Elections are done on a randomly determined basis (say, last two digits of the DJIA equals 00), the computer runs through the vote distribution again. If that ends up changing who serves there is say a 60 day delay before the switch. Voters are free to switch their proxy say on the first of every month.

Political parties would certainly be represented by entities, but since the bar is so much lower you would see advocacy groups and the like also.

Good concept; there are a couple of issues I see though. It suffers from much the same problem as Condorcet voting -- it's complicated and voters who don't understand it won't believe the announced results are legitimate. Also, it looks like it relies on the computers keeping track of who voted for whom, not just total vote counts.

What do you call a secret ballot? In Australia it means that my ballot papers have no identifying features. Once the voter sticks their paper in the ballot box it looks like all the others.
Why do you need to know for whom I voted? If you know that then my ballot is no longer secret.

So security and transparency conflict with each other. If the computer contents are visible then the secret ballot is gone and you have vote-buying and vote-coercion; but if the computer contents are invisible then there's no public way to verify that the computers' counts are honest. There's probably a way to patch it up but I'm not sure how.

 

[Tigers!]

I wonder if Illinois with have to redo its districts?

Funny, North Carolina and Pennsylvania were forced by courts to undo their gerrymandered maps. Florida, Texas, and Ohio are gerrymandered heavily but the GOP control all of the courts. Texas is also gerrymandering on top of the gerrymandering from 2003.

But we get to hear about Illinois... again and again and again. Why not Maryland too? They gerrymandered one or two seats.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander. If the dems do not want to be constantly reminded about Illinois then end that instance of gerrymandering and it will go away.
It would be better to stop gerrymandering all together though. Have fun with that.

The Dems tried to enact legislation to do just that, twice. The Republican blocked them both times.

That is unfortunate. But the Dems can try to grab the moral high ground.
Keep putting up the legislation reagrdless of what the Republicans do. Show them up.

These people pay absolutely no attention to morality.

Who are these people?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yeah. I've proposed basically the same thing but from a different angle:

Get rid of most elections, they are a relic of the past that is no longer needed. Instead, "elections" are done by proxy voting.

For each office you indicate someone or something you want to serve in that office. For each office the computer makes a list of who/what got votes, sort by number of votes. Entities must be removed, their votes are forwarded to whoever they voted for--but this forwarding is retained as they may get more votes as it proceeds. Anyone who does not want to serve is treated likewise. Then the bottom vote-getter is removed, votes distributed the same as entities. Repeat until the list has been reduced to however many representatives you want in the body. Each person has a number of votes equal to however many votes the got in the most recent "election". Elections are done on a randomly determined basis (say, last two digits of the DJIA equals 00), the computer runs through the vote distribution again. If that ends up changing who serves there is say a 60 day delay before the switch. Voters are free to switch their proxy say on the first of every month.

Political parties would certainly be represented by entities, but since the bar is so much lower you would see advocacy groups and the like also.

Good concept; there are a couple of issues I see though. It suffers from much the same problem as Condorcet voting -- it's complicated and voters who don't understand it won't believe the announced results are legitimate. Also, it looks like it relies on the computers keeping track of who voted for whom, not just total vote counts. So security and transparency conflict with each other. If the computer contents are visible then the secret ballot is gone and you have vote-buying and vote-coercion; but if the computer contents are invisible then there's no public way to verify that the computers' counts are honest. There's probably a way to patch it up but I'm not sure how.

Good point. Back when I devised this I didn't consider compromise of the data a substantial threat. And you don't actually need names unless you're being voted for. Only the entities and those who are willing to serve need to be exposed to the computer.

But note that there's no way to ensure the count is honest now, I'm not introducing insecurity.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Governments do this because "pack and crack" works. That's an easy problem to fix: instead of representatives getting one vote each in the governing body, they should get N votes each, where N is the number of voters who voted for them.

That seems less of an alternative for a plan than the underwear gnomes plan for profit. Was there something else for that you didn't add? What is the population pool of N votes coming from?

Same place the votes come from now -- the people living in each voting district. There's no change to the election procedure; we just stop throwing away the information of how much the winner won by. If you and I are legislators and you won your district by a landslide while in my district I squeaked in with 51% of the vote, then your vote counts more than mine when we're enacting legislation. If my party controls the redistricting process we can still gerrymander to our hearts' content if we want, but your higher-weight vote will neutralize most of the political payoff we'll get out of it, so our incentive to do it at all would go way down.

Aren't we needing a few constitutional amendments there? And it can be gamed. Gerrymander districts in your favor and spread out the opponents districts for 50/50s.

The issue isn't districting can't be done effectively and reasonably, it is that there is more to gain at this point by fixing the election results. The GOP knows NY is trouble for the next election and CA has a couple seats up for grabs. So in order to keep the majority in the House, they are gerrymandering mid-Census, which is pretty rare. If the motive of the political party doesn't change, and there are no legal restrictions, it doesn't matter how you game districting. They'll get a computer to fix it for them.

I do agree it needs a constitutional amendment. But you're wrong on gerrymandering--gerrymandering gets you more people in office but doesn't give them any more vote.

 

[ZiprHead]

I wonder if Illinois with have to redo its districts?

Funny, North Carolina and Pennsylvania were forced by courts to undo their gerrymandered maps. Florida, Texas, and Ohio are gerrymandered heavily but the GOP control all of the courts. Texas is also gerrymandering on top of the gerrymandering from 2003.

But we get to hear about Illinois... again and again and again. Why not Maryland too? They gerrymandered one or two seats.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander. If the dems do not want to be constantly reminded about Illinois then end that instance of gerrymandering and it will go away.
It would be better to stop gerrymandering all together though. Have fun with that.

The Dems tried to enact legislation to do just that, twice. The Republican blocked them both times.

That is unfortunate. But the Dems can try to grab the moral high ground.
Keep putting up the legislation reagrdless of what the Republicans do. Show them up.

These people pay absolutely no attention to morality.

Who are these people?

MAGAts. Especially the ones who would still vote for Trump even if he screwed kids.

 

[Politesse]

I wonder if Illinois with have to redo its districts?

Funny, North Carolina and Pennsylvania were forced by courts to undo their gerrymandered maps. Florida, Texas, and Ohio are gerrymandered heavily but the GOP control all of the courts. Texas is also gerrymandering on top of the gerrymandering from 2003.

But we get to hear about Illinois... again and again and again. Why not Maryland too? They gerrymandered one or two seats.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander. If the dems do not want to be constantly reminded about Illinois then end that instance of gerrymandering and it will go away.

The right-wing be like:

It would be better to stop gerrymandering all together though. Have fun with that.

Yeah, it would.

Here is a great site that could be of interest to you. I mean, if you aren't just here to pretend to be some sort of Australian Norman Thomas regarding American politics.

Thank you for that site. There are too many red coloured states. You have your work cut out for you.

Work cut out for me? The game is effectively over and the liberals lost. It will take decades to dig out from the last 25 years.

The electoral map isn't the reason this problem is intractable. The power and wealth centers of the country are still largely in "liberal" hands. But libersls can't agree on what liberalism is or should be, or even that they are liberals. They are incapable of substantial reforms to the voting process, because they cannot build a consensus even among themselves as to what those reforms would look like or result in.

If any of the red states are Democrat controlled then there is an ideal chance for the Dems to show their bona fides concerning the elimination of gerrymandering. I counted at least 5 marked as Democratic. That would reduce the number of reds. All voters/candidates will benefit in the long run.

Always amazes me how foreign conservatives want to be the Jiminy Cricket for the liberals in the US.

I think foreigners call him Jaimé El Grillo.

 

[Bomb#20]

Yeah. I've proposed basically the same thing but from a different angle:

Get rid of most elections, they are a relic of the past that is no longer needed. Instead, "elections" are done by proxy voting.

For each office you indicate someone or something you want to serve in that office. For each office the computer makes a list of who/what got votes, sort by number of votes. Entities must be removed, their votes are forwarded to whoever they voted for--but this forwarding is retained as they may get more votes as it proceeds. Anyone who does not want to serve is treated likewise. Then the bottom vote-getter is removed, votes distributed the same as entities. Repeat until the list has been reduced to however many representatives you want in the body. Each person has a number of votes equal to however many votes the got in the most recent "election". Elections are done on a randomly determined basis (say, last two digits of the DJIA equals 00), the computer runs through the vote distribution again. If that ends up changing who serves there is say a 60 day delay before the switch. Voters are free to switch their proxy say on the first of every month.

Political parties would certainly be represented by entities, but since the bar is so much lower you would see advocacy groups and the like also.

Good concept; there are a couple of issues I see though. It suffers from much the same problem as Condorcet voting -- it's complicated and voters who don't understand it won't believe the announced results are legitimate. Also, it looks like it relies on the computers keeping track of who voted for whom, not just total vote counts.

What do you call a secret ballot? In Australia it means that my ballot papers have no identifying features. Once the voter sticks their paper in the ballot box it looks like all the others.

Exactly. For the first hundred-odd years after our revolution, how everyone voted was public information. When we switched to secret balloting in the late 1800s we called it "the Australian ballot".

Why do you need to know for whom I voted? If you know that then my ballot is no longer secret.

So security and transparency conflict with each other. If the computer contents are visible then the secret ballot is gone and you have vote-buying and vote-coercion; but if the computer contents are invisible then there's no public way to verify that the computers' counts are honest. There's probably a way to patch it up but I'm not sure how.

We don't need to know, and currently we don't. My point was that if we adopted Loren's proposed system then we would need to know. If you're free to switch your proxy on the first of the month and I'm free not to, then recomputing the totals requires the computer to either do it all from scratch, remembering who had my proxy, or else add a delta to the old totals, remembering who had your proxy.

 

[steve_bank]

Both republicans and democrats do it.

The issue is the timing in Texas.

AI Overview
While there isn't a specific, uniform federal law dictating the exact timing of redistricting for all states, the process is primarily governed by the U.S. Constitution, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and subsequent Supreme Court interpretations. States are generally required to redraw congressional and legislative districts after each 10-year census, but the timing of this process can vary within that framework

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Work cut out for me? The game is effectively over and the liberals lost. It will take decades to dig out from the last 25 years.

The electoral map isn't the reason this problem is intractable. The power and wealth centers of the country are still largely in "liberal" hands. But libersls can't agree on what liberalism is or should be, or even that they are liberals. They are incapable of substantial reforms to the voting process, because they cannot build a consensus even among themselves as to what those reforms would look like or result in.

SCOTUS is re-writing constitutional law right now, and partisanly so. Loper Bright's impact will be bigger than Dobbs... and Dobbs was pretty big. SCOTUS is defanging regulatory control of the Executive branch, all the while giving the GOP in the Exec Branch just short of a blank check for how it can violate the limits of the office. This is etched in stone for at least a couple decades. And with Thomas and Alito having replacements with possibly even more partisan asshats, we're fucked. The Trump Administration is quietly and not so quietly, decentralizing the Exec Branch as well, selling properties, and limiting the capacity to expand the levels of employment back to where they were because we won't have the space. And Social Security is officially fucked. The GOP is letting it die.

The liberals don't control much any more.

 

[Politesse]

Work cut out for me? The game is effectively over and the liberals lost. It will take decades to dig out from the last 25 years.

The electoral map isn't the reason this problem is intractable. The power and wealth centers of the country are still largely in "liberal" hands. But libersls can't agree on what liberalism is or should be, or even that they are liberals. They are incapable of substantial reforms to the voting process, because they cannot build a consensus even among themselves as to what those reforms would look like or result in.

SCOTUS is re-writing constitutional law right now, and partisanly so. Loper Bright's impact will be bigger than Dobbs... and Dobbs was pretty big. SCOTUS is defanging regulatory control of the Executive branch, all the while giving the GOP in the Exec Branch just short of a blank check for how it can violate the limits of the office. This is etched in stone for at least a couple decades. And with Thomas and Alito having replacements with possibly even more partisan asshats, we're fucked. The Trump Administration is quietly and not so quietly, decentralizing the Exec Branch as well, selling properties, and limiting the capacity to expand the levels of employment back to where they were because we won't have the space. And Social Security is officially fucked. The GOP is letting it die.

The liberals don't control much any more.

We are most certainly fucked. But the liberals aren't doing anything about that fact, and winning a few more seats in contested, "purple" districts would not change that fact, only change the contours of the problem a bit.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Work cut out for me? The game is effectively over and the liberals lost. It will take decades to dig out from the last 25 years.

The electoral map isn't the reason this problem is intractable. The power and wealth centers of the country are still largely in "liberal" hands. But libersls can't agree on what liberalism is or should be, or even that they are liberals. They are incapable of substantial reforms to the voting process, because they cannot build a consensus even among themselves as to what those reforms would look like or result in.

SCOTUS is re-writing constitutional law right now, and partisanly so. Loper Bright's impact will be bigger than Dobbs... and Dobbs was pretty big. SCOTUS is defanging regulatory control of the Executive branch, all the while giving the GOP in the Exec Branch just short of a blank check for how it can violate the limits of the office. This is etched in stone for at least a couple decades. And with Thomas and Alito having replacements with possibly even more partisan asshats, we're fucked. The Trump Administration is quietly and not so quietly, decentralizing the Exec Branch as well, selling properties, and limiting the capacity to expand the levels of employment back to where they were because we won't have the space. And Social Security is officially fucked. The GOP is letting it die.

The liberals don't control much any more.

We are most certainly fucked. But the liberals aren't doing anything about that fact, and winning a few more seats in contested, "purple" districts would not change that fact.

Holding the Senate helps manage larger things, but holding the House isn't without reward.

 

[Politesse]

Whatever a "fair" redistricting would do, it would not give the Democrats an unbreakable majority in both chambers, control of the White House, the replacement of the Supreme Court, and all the others things they claim they must have in order to begin to oppose Trump.

 

[steve_bank]

Who says what is fair, the question is fundamental to democratic systems.

We are a democrat republic not a direct democracy. Even in a direct democracy going by majority vote there will be people who do not get what they think is fair.

In our democratic republic we elect people who make decisions, and we are supposed to abide by decisions unless there a violations of laws and COTUS.

In a pluralistic society nobody gets things exactly like they want.

The left and right use the same tactics, and both cry foul when they are on the loosing side.

Preventing Texas from redistricting just ahead of mid terms would require a federal law allowing redistricting only coincident with the census. Good luck with that, neither side would want it.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Who says what is fair, the question is fundamental to democratic systems.

The intent was for regional representation. Ohio wise, having Youngstown, Ohio being included with sparsely populated SE Ohio makes little sense. Toledo is drowned out as well with rural areas.

We have computers that provide reasonable districting, that could help keep those representing the districts honest. The trouble is, many states have districts that prioritize the haul for a party than demographics or geography.

In a pluralistic society nobody gets things exactly like they want.

But we are supposed to have Equal Protection, equal representation (in the House).

The left and right use the same tactics, and both cry foul when they are on the loosing side.

The GOP is a few levels ahead on gerrymandering. They did it to egregious levels in NC, PA, TX, OH. Courts stopped them OH (GOP controlled it was that bad of a gerrymander!) and PA. NC is on the line right now.

IL, MD have gerrymandering. CA is redistricted not by the Democrat party.

Preventing Texas from redistricting just ahead of mid terms would require a federal law allowing redistricting only coincident with the census. Good luck with that, neither side would want it.

Redistricting is typically only during the Census, which is why the redistricting is needed in the first place. Texas is pushing an envelope that is going to fuck redistricting possibly forever in the US.

 

[steve_bank]

As the cliche in movies and TV says the system is about laws not fairness.

The question in Texas is if they are violating state or federal law, a matter for the courts.

If it shown to be race biased that a federal violation. From wht I read it i amer of intertaion.

A recent SCOTUS case was ruled a matter for states.

In Texas Latinos are the majority and whites are around 40%.

The legislature is majority white. The redistricting is undoubtedly race based.

 

[Swammerdami]

Yeah. I've proposed basically the same thing but from a different angle:
... "elections" are done by proxy voting.

For each office you indicate someone or something you want to serve in that office. For each office the computer makes a list of who/what got votes, sort by number of votes. Entities must be removed, their votes are forwarded to whoever they voted for--but this forwarding is retained as they may get more votes as it proceeds....
Political parties would certainly be represented by entities, but since the bar is so much lower you would see advocacy groups and the like also.

My approach would be for people to vote for parties (or "party lists") with coalitions allowed BEFORE the elections are finalized. Small parties or advocacy groups could give their votes to another party. A party then entitled to 1½ seats could try to "buy" or "sell" a ½ seat to another party. Or perhaps they'd be allowed to seat one person whose vote would be counted 1½ times.

... So security and transparency conflict with each other. If the computer contents are visible then the secret ballot is gone and you have vote-buying and vote-coercion; but if the computer contents are invisible then there's no public way to verify that the computers' counts are honest. There's probably a way to patch it up but I'm not sure how.

There are complicated protocols that would allow an individual voter to confirm that his vote was counted correctly.

Secrecy is already a problem, most especially I think for people whose spouse wants to coerce their vote.

In Thailand vote-buying is rampant, at least in rural areas; and various practices operate to help vote buyer ensure he wasn't cheated! One approach is not to buy votes unless almost the entire village sells to the same candidate. The village headman suffers consequences if he accepts money without delivering most of his village.

Village-by-village vote totals are posted at district headquarters after an election and I thought of copying down the results for statistical confirmation that villages were being purchased wholesale. But for a foreigner to spend time doing that seemed too likely to attract adverse attention!

 

[ZiprHead]

So the Texas Republicans are blocking the payment of required payments to the Democrats who refuse to assemble for a quorum to take away representation from blue districts in Texas.

 

[steve_bank]

If there are no valid legal options to block the vote the ddemocrats are putting off the invertible.

Eventually they have to return.

In a company someone who refused to come to work to do what he or she is paid for as a protest would be fired.

The democrats are being silly.

 

[bilby]

In a company someone who refused to come to work to do what he or she is paid for as a protest would be fired.

Not in the civilised world they wouldn't. Here in Queensland, for example, strike action is protected industrial action, as long as the union has polled the members and recieved a majority vote in favour of a strike. Retaliation against workers for participating in protected industrial action is a serious offence.

We in the RTBU recently had a six hour strike in support of our pay and conditions claim; And @gmbteach participated in a 24 hour strike as part of the Teachers Union on Wednesday.

The right to withhold your labour as a protest against unreasonable or unfair demands, conditions, or pay, is a fundamental of industrial relations in the developed world.

I am once again wondering why US workers still haven't risen up in bloody revolution against their uniquely harsh and unbalanced employment conditions.

Your apparently unthinking acceptance of the truly vile idea that "someone who refused to come to work to do what he or she is paid for as a protest would be fired", goes some way towards explaining this.

Try firing someone for that in Queensland, and you would have no workers at all within the hour, and a very noisy picket line outside your business. You would also be explaining your illegal action to the Industrial Relations Commission.