The Republican war on democracy in Wisconsin

[Underseer]

[YOUTUBE]izSQEIHogiU[/YOUTUBE]

https://isthmus.com/news/news/dems-...erms-but-remain-underrepresented-in-assembly/



Gerrymandering has always been a problem in America. Allowing politicians to choose their voters is simply a bad idea. But Republicans have taken a serious problem to new heights in their ongoing War On Democracy. Only 46% of Wisconsin voters voted for Republicans in the state assembly, and yet Republicans got 63% of the seats in the state assembly.

Can we admit that America is a failed state yet? There was a time not many decades ago when we made fun of banana republics for crap like this.

The US government simply does not represent the will of the people. We cannot claim to have representative government.

PS[ent]mdash[/ent]As someone from the Chicagoland area, I am regionally obligated to make fun of Wisconsin, but in this case I have to admit that this problem is hardly limited to Wisconsin.

 

[Harry Bosch]

[YOUTUBE]izSQEIHogiU[/YOUTUBE]

https://isthmus.com/news/news/dems-...erms-but-remain-underrepresented-in-assembly/

View attachment 18927

Gerrymandering has always been a problem in America. Allowing politicians to choose their voters is simply a bad idea. But Republicans have taken a serious problem to new heights in their ongoing War On Democracy. Only 46% of Wisconsin voters voted for Republicans in the state assembly, and yet Republicans got 63% of the seats in the state assembly.

Can we admit that America is a failed state yet? There was a time not many decades ago when we made fun of banana republics for crap like this.

The US government simply does not represent the will of the people. We cannot claim to have representative government.

PS[ent]mdash[/ent]As someone from the Chicagoland area, I am regionally obligated to make fun of Wisconsin, but in this case I have to admit that this problem is hardly limited to Wisconsin.

Yea, it really it outrageous. I heard on the radio that Iowa was even worse. Iowa had a higher dem turnout than Wisconsin but dems received less seats than Wisconsin. It's incredibly unfair. Democrats have won two elections in a row, and still just barely control only one branch of government.

 

[barbos]

just imagine if democrats were able to gerrymander with these numbers. Republicans would have 10% of the seats at most.

 

[Harry Bosch]

just imagine if democrats were able to gerrymander with these numbers. Republicans would have 10% of the seats at most.

I'm sure that the dems will try to gerrymand, but they will have to take the states first, and that isn't happening. But regardless, the dems just aren't as savy or sneaky as the republicans. Republicans know how to work the system and find weaknesses.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

just imagine if democrats were able to gerrymander with these numbers. Republicans would have 10% of the seats at most.

I'm sure that the dems will try to gerrymand, but they will have to take the states first, and that isn't happening. But regardless, the dems just aren't as savy or sneaky as the republicans. Republicans know how to work the system and find weaknesses.

Iow, they cheat.

 

[Axulus]

What is the source for the state assembly votes? There are several districts whose candidate ran unopposed, far more Democrat districts than republician ones, according to the state results here:

https://www.wisconsinvote.org/election-results

How did they count the votes for those districts?

 

[SimpleDon]

What is the source for the state assembly votes? There are several districts whose candidate ran unopposed, far more Democrat districts than Republican ones, according to the state results here:

https://www.wisconsinvote.org/election-results

How did they count the votes for those districts?

I am certain that they count them as votes for the candidates running unopposed.

Gerrymandering works by packing the out of favor party's supporters into a few districts, the Democrats in this case. Therefore it is more likely that in these districts that the Republicans wouldn't bother to run a candidate. I don't see how you think that this would undermine the fact that more people voted for Democrats in the election but more Republicans won.

In 2016 more people voted for the Democrats in all of the branches of the federal government than voted for the Republicans and yet we ended up with both houses of Congress with a Republican majority and a Republican president. I don't believe that any reasonable person would say that this is a desirable situation in what is suppose to be a representative democracy.

This is not even to mention that by providing so many safe districts for both the Democrats and the Republicans that the gerrymandering promotes the very thing that we are also suffering from now and that is the election of so many extremists of both the right and the left to represent the states and the districts in Congress and the state legislatures. If we had more evenly divided districts more moderates would be elected and more of the people's business would get done with much less drama.

 

[lpetrich]

Why doesn't anyone ever talk about proportional representation? What's so special about single-member districts?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Why doesn't anyone ever talk about proportional representation? What's so special about single-member districts?

They better funnel taxpayer money into those districts if you're lucky enough to have an important congress critter.

 

[Gun Nut]

Colorado just passed a law (that I voted for too) that now requires the state to hire a third party consulting firm with a team consisting of 1/3 unaffiliated, 1/3 democrat, and 1/3 republican members to use defensible statistical methods to draw all voting district lines.
No longer are the maps in the hands of elected officials, but in the hands of accountable... accountants.

 

[ZiprHead]

Colorado just passed a law (that I voted for too) that now requires the state to hire a third party consulting firm with a team consisting of 1/3 unaffiliated, 1/3 democrat, and 1/3 republican members to use defensible statistical methods to draw all voting district lines.
No longer are the maps in the hands of elected officials, but in the hands of accountable... accountants.

We did the same here in Michigan.

 

[Axulus]

Why doesn't anyone ever talk about proportional representation? What's so special about single-member districts?

Traditionally, people in the US have preferred to vote for individual candidates rather than voting for a party. It also seems like a good idea to have a particular congressperson to contact directly to address local issues.

However, each state is ultimately allowed to set up the system how they like so long as it doesn't violate federal law.

 

[lpetrich]

Why doesn't anyone ever talk about proportional representation? What's so special about single-member districts?

Traditionally, people in the US have preferred to vote for individual candidates rather than voting for a party. ...

However, the US isn't some nonpartisan utopia, and both parties have attempted to create districts that give them advantage: gerrymandering.

But one can still have local representation along with proportional representation: mixed-member PR. In that system, one has both district seats, with one member per district, and list seats, to make overall proportionality. Germany, New Zealand, Scotland, and Wales all use it.

A proportional system that does not use party lists is Single Transferable Vote, a multiseat extension of Instant Runoff Voting / Ranked Choice Voting. Each voter ranks the candidates by preferences, and the ballots are counted as follows. I will state both algorithms in pseudocode form.

IRV
Candidates in the count = all candidates
Repeat:
- Count the top preferences for candidates in the count
- Did a candidate get the majority of the votes?
- - If yes, then that candidate won, and the count is ended
- From the candidates in the count, drop the candidate that got the fewest votes

When counting, one ignores candidates that were dropped, even if those were top preferences. A counted candidate may be a lower-down candidate as the count proceeds.

STV
Candidates in the count = all candidates
For ballot weighting, give every ballot an initial weight of 1
Repeat:
- Count the top preferences for candidates in the count
- Did a candidate get more than the victory quota? That is, (total votes)/( (number of seats) + 1)
- - If yes, then that candidate is a winner and gets seated
- - Drop that candidate from the candidates in the count
- - Are all the seats filled?
- - - If yes, then the count is ended
- - One can do either of:
- - - Drop (victory quota) of the winner's ballots from further counting
- - - Multiply the weighting of all the winner's ballots by (number over victory quota) / (total number of them)
- - Go to the next round
- From the candidates in the count, drop the candidate that got the fewest votes

So one looks for winners as well as losers, and one drops winners from further counting as well as losers.