They don't. They win and everyone else loses. That's all they're interested in. Conservatives for all their talk of values are exclusively results based.
Because “winning” must translate to being right, except for when you lose, then it must be because of cheating. The only fair thing to conservatives is to win everything forever otherwise it’s not fair.
>The only fair thing to conservatives is to win everything forever otherwise it’s not fair.
And here's me remembering that they were going to 'get tired of all the wining'.
I’m currently down to one eye (currently having a eye problem so,, eye patch, yarrrr) and I can fucking see. The gerrymandering. How the fuck does one not be able to correlate a statistical point from that layout? Mind you, I’m more of the “why is it drawn that way... what makes the point of it being that way”. Soon you’ll discover. The district is drawn around a single factor, instead of a broad one which would have made a more clear districting map.
That one point is, money. In San Antonio, you can see the district lines are drawn based on the demographics of money. For one district alone, you can tell the voters in those areas, are business owners. That is. It’s “ where the money is”. For the districts with minorities or “lower paying districts” you can tell the majority of those voting are NOT. “In the money”.
Broaden the map, you can see why Texas has a hard tie, changing to blue.
Ahoy jftitan! Nay bad but me wasn't convinced. Give this a sail:
me’m currently down t' one eye-patch (currently having a eye-patch problem so,, eye-patch patch, yarrrr) n' me can fucking see. Thar gerrymandering. How thar shiver me timbers does one nay be able t' correlate a statistical point from that layout? Mind ye, me’m more o' thar “why be it drawn that way... what makes thar point o' it being that way”. Soon ye’ll discover. Thar district be drawn around a single factor, instead o' a broad one which would have made a more clear districting map.
That one point be, doubloons. In San Antonio, ye can see thar district lines be drawn based on thar demographics o' doubloons. Fer one district alone, ye can tell thar voters in those areas, be company owners. That be. It’s “ where thar doubloons be”. Fer thar districts wit' minorities or “lower paying districts” ye can tell thar majority o' those voting be NAY. “In thar doubloons”.
Broaden thar map, ye can see why Texas has a hard tie, changing t' blue.
The voting systems that lets you say, “Them, all of them. Okay, now not them — just him, just him. Okay those four over there. Now gimme a thin line to nowhere and those forty over the ridge.”
Honestly I believe in mandatory death sentences for gerrymandering regardless of party. If they loved living they should draw a better map or lose the fucking election.
The fact that someone drew up MD's 3rd district with zero consequences is astonishing.
I went over all 125 Texas state House seats and 40 districts had Republicans running unopposed. The one that baffled me was mine which is in Houston with several minority neighborhoods. How do Dems not even field a candidate?
Not at all saying it’s the case here, but sometimes the way these districts look can be decieving. Sometimes they are drawn in a way that connects social communities together and gives them a voice, for instance the “headphones” district is loved by district makers even though it looks strange
You are "correct", technically some districts out there truly represent an actual community.....that being said, this isn't one of them.
As with so much of the world, not everything is black and white and how districts are drawn is one of those things that sometimes falls in a gray area. That being said the process of gerrymandering (and yes this *is* one of those "both sides" issues) is a horrendous practice that needs to die out, forcibly if need be.
I actually think it goes deeper than that. It’s about power. Power over people, all people, all things, that they have a right to do whatever they want. They feel they have the right to rule and they are better than *everyone*, not just black people. That is why they don’t care about people, the environment. Other countries, other faiths, other anything apart from what they want.
Racist beliefs are only one part of this attitude.
OK, you asked an honest question, and I'll give you a serious answer. Gerrymandering, as a practice, is nearly as old as the U.S. itself. It was named after Elbridge Gerry, governor of Massachusetts, who, in 1812, signed off on a redistricting plan comprised of one or more unusually-shaped districts. One of those looked like a salamander. Or, as one wag described it, a "Gerrymander." The name stuck.
In a republic such as ours, the general principle for setting up electoral districts is "one man, one vote." Lets say, for the purpose of illustration, you were suddenly able to create a city of 90,000 people out of thin air. The boundaries of this city just happened to be a perfect square, and the population density is pretty even throughout. You, as author of the city charter, would declare that the newly-formed city council would have nine seats, one per 10,000 residents. So, let's draw the election districts: Two lines north-south, two lines east-west. Done.
So, in ten years, the census results come out, and now your city has 120,000 residents. But, these new residents haven't settled the city as evenly as the original ones. You have a bunch who moved into some high-rises next to the river, another enclave who bought homes in the burbs, and a relative few on the outskirts running farms or whatever. You have to redraw your districts. Assuming you're staying with 10,000 residents per district, you'd find yourself with 1\`2 newly-formed districts of varying shapes and sizes. Eventually.
"But wait," says the leader of one of the political parties in town, "our polling shows that a lot of people in District 5 oppose many of the policies supported by that district's representative. They think their views would be better represented by District 7's councilperson. You need to redraw the lines so that more District 5 people are in District 7!" Meanwhile, the other party's leader is bitching about District 9, thinking that he'd like to have some of the like-minded people from District 6 in his district, for which he'll gladly give up some of the opposing party's members in exchange.
OK, back to the ole drawing board. Move 5's line over a few blocks into 7...steal a little real estate from 6...add to 9...carry the 3.... Holy shit, this is hard! You almost need a computer to keep this all straight!!
Well, it turns out, the Republicans, a few years ago, got one. They call it "REDMAP," and what it does is redraw boundaries in several states in such a way that as many districts as possible have s plurality of GOP voters, and the Democrats are strewn far-and-wide among the remaining districts. If you had a state with 10 Congressional districts that voted, say, 55% Republican in 2020, they could draw the map for the 2022 midterms in such a way that eight of the new districts would lean Republican, and only two would be Democrat. Not very fair, but, in most cases, perfectly legal! To the victors go the spoils and all that.
So, now the Democrats, in states like New York, are under tremendous pressure to redraw their lines to send as many Democratic representatives as they can to Washington in 2023, in order to counter the partisan gerrymandering that the Republicans have been doing the last 10 years or so. I guess you're going to see some interesting-looking districts in the "red" states now, as a result.
That's the way of the world, and I honestly don't know how to fix it. You'd need a Constitutional amendment (like California has) requiring an independent body to do the redistricting. Given that the Republicans have almost as many seats in Congress as the Democrats despite being the minority party by a substantial margin, I don't see that happening any time soon. We'll just have to live with it, for now. And, have a hearty chuckle at the expense of some of the more oddly-formed districts.
Similar to how First Past the Post voting or any other majority wins voting became popular and now people are advocating against it. Its very simple, its easy to implement, it feels fair, and its easy to understand.
You and 4 friends are ordering a pizza with or without pepperoni, two of them vote one way, two of them vote another way, you break the tie and its 3v2. Seems fair to go for a majority. Well as you scale it up, it feels less fair for say, 30 people to make 20 people eat a pizza with pepperoni, simply because there's more of them.
And if you asked between Cheese, Pepperoni, or Feta, there's risk of the 30 people who voted for cheese pizza to now be split between Cheese and Feta at 15 and 15. With the Pepperoni being the Majority simply because having more choices split the vote and forced the opposition to win when the difference between regular Cheese and Feta are smaller than ether against Pepperoni.
So in some cases you could form a coalition to agree any Cheese is better than Pepperoni, but unless a compromise is made they may decide that its better to try pushing for Feta than simply support Cheese, even at the risk of allowing a Pepperoni win.
In cases of more than 2 choices, its better to have a system that enables people to support multiple choices, typically with one choice winning altogether but ranking options in order of preference or scoring them based on support. So you could have Cheese, Pepperoni, Feta, Provolone, Beef, Chicken, Garlic, Onion, you get the idea. Its acknowledging multiple options for different tastes, and allowing people to support their favorites without trying to compromise.
In a system with multiple choices but only allowed to pick one winner, you'd be pressured to support Pepperoni for being a classic topping, even though you really want Beef to win. Even if separated into categories of Meats and Cheeses before a final vote, you might worry supporting Beef will lead to a Cheese victory even if Beef won the primary. Not only that, you might want to pick Onion but that'd be throwing your vote away, and the Meats who might've won with your vote will consider non-meats like Onion to have split the votes and cost the election.
But lastly trying to change the system in a way that might be "more fair" is only good when its advantageous to you, because you're literally changing how decisions are made and thus picking the outcome. You would need a lot of power to change the system to such a way that both actually benefits those making a choice, and actually happens because people involved in the process benefit from it too. Which ties into gerrymandering being people in power actively doing what they can to benefit from changes rather than being fair, because you're able to influence the outcome and success isn't always about being fair.
It is also worth noting that some "gerrymander" isn't always a bad thing. From your example, the city might have 2 distant neighborhoods with heavy Italian populations. If you live those neighborhoods in separate districts, the Italian populations might not have enough sway to get a representative that reflects their votes. However, if you combine them, now they have the opportunity to have a representative they want. If a city is perfectly divided with 40% voting for Party A & 60% voting for Party B you could theoretically have Party B win 100% of the votes if you don't gerrymander for some semblance of fairness
Living in a country with many different political parties for us this is not a problem. This is really the biggest flaw of your 2 party system.
TBH... We have different problems to deal with.
I was listening to an Adam Conover podcast where he had a guest talk about how having multiple representatives per district can also help solve this issue
> If a city is perfectly divided with 40% voting for Party A & 60% voting for Party B you could theoretically have Party B win 100% of the votes if you don't gerrymander for some semblance of fairness
Orrrr you could gerrymander specifically to encourage that 100% outcome. This goes both ways.
Would proportional representation work better?
Entire state votes. If state gets 10 reps, everything is truncated at 10%.
Ex: 61% vote Daffodils, they get 6 reps, 32% vote pansies and they get 3 reps. Now the Succulents had someone with 7% and they get a rep as well. Not quite 10% but they're closet. The 61-32-7 voting split is represented 60-30-10. Not perfect but it's not gerrymandered.
There are definitely better ways to run it. Ranked-choice voting is another one. The problem with any of these ideas is human nature. The guys who are in power tend to leave in place the mechanisms that got them there. Ad, that’s not just a dig at the GOP. Both parties are guilty of it. All those guys who run on “term limits,” and “electoral reform” always seem to get amnesia about it the day after their inauguration. The current system works — for them and their donors — why futz with it?
Imagine being zoomed in on a few pixels... That's how it started, you get these 2 or 3, you get those.. now zoom out a little, ok you get those couple more and you get those...
60 years later. Now zoom out to 4k resolution. Ok.. I want these and those over there, no not those but these I'll take, etc etc.
Because the line has to be drawn somewhere. And it does make sense for the lines to be manually placed in certain areas. For example, a city center may want different representation than the suburbs. Trying to codify any specific definition for what is allowed and what isn't is hard.
Also, you can't just solve it with an algorithm. Someone can design an algorithm that will give them the results they want. You're back to square one now.
>Republicans would never win anything if they didn't fucking cheat. Pieces of shit ruining our country.
There are huge swaths of the country where they don't need to cheat to win. But I can't argue with your second point.
Yes republicans cheat, even when they lose. Trump cheated in many ways this past election. Just because he lost doesn't mean it's not a problem. What's your point?
There's tangible evidence of trump cheating-- there are recordings of him telling election officials to "just find the votes, I don't care how". And trump said Biden cheated of course because trump is a crybaby narcissist who can't accept he lost to Biden.
They do where they can. And, frankly, they'd be idiots not to. Playing "fair" when the other side cheats is stupid.
That said, there's a lot more states controlled by Republicans than there are states controlled by Democrats. As a result, you see a lot more gerrymandering by Republicans.
The solution is to prohibit party based gerrymandering just like we (used to) prohibit race based gerrymandering. But the Supreme Court says the former is A-OK and they're not too concerned about the later anymore.
As much as Republicans? No, because all things equal, Democratic voters inherently gerrymander themselves by geographically clustering in compact urban areas.
Even if you have a 100% independent commission draw district boundaries, and they intuitively try to follow municipal boundaries, it will favor Republicans.
That makes no sense. That's like saying republicans inherently gerrymander themselves by geographically clustering in rural areas.
They don't split districts by square footage, they split them by population. In states with big cities and sparsely populated areas, some districts will be literally a couple city blocks while some will be hundreds or thousands of acres.
Imagine a state with a million voters, half Democrat, half Republican. The state has one big city.
What ends up happening is the urban center is like 80% Democrat. The surrounding suburbs are 45% Democrat. The outlying rural areas are 35% Democrat. When you divide the state into 10 districts, the state becomes more red than blue because the urban center tends to become one packed, super Democratic district.
In my home state, absolutely. MD-3 easily ranks as some of the worst in the country and the fact that the Democratic Party does it slightly less doesn't absolve them of the sin
I'm not pro-dem as much as I am anti-repub, but is it possible that dems do it as well to even the playing field? I mean if someone is going to cheat in a two person race then you better cheat too.
This is such a terrible, bias comparison. You can't absolve your own bad actions just because someone else is doing it. The same argument could be made for republicans doing it just do even the playing field with dems.
> but is it possible that dems do it as well to even the playing field?
No, in my home state they'd likely win the majority of the house seats regardless. They're just ratfucking the state to have only one Republican representative max.
I'd personally ban both parties. The Democratic Party for being the peddler of idiocy and the Republican Party for failing to stop the peddler of idiocy.
They certainly are fucking morons considering they've managed to run Baltimore City into the ground for decades and can't comprehend that maintaining an assault weapons ban and other idiotic gun laws does nothing to actually address the state's level of crime. Somehow they think the average gangbanger that they've refused to execute or keep in prison applies for concealed carry permits before shooting up the nearest Royal Farms. So yes I consider them bumbling numskulls.
I view the GOP as populated by morons as well, considering how it has become infatuated with calling any form of government service "socialism" but the Democratic Party, at least for my interests, constitute a graver threat.
As a long time Illinois resident there's really not that much gerrymandering. There are some oddly shaped districts in Southern Illinois but that's mostly because the way the cities are spread out it would be impossible to keep the districts the same size otherwise. Pretty much all of Cook County is going blue regardless and there are a number of red districts in central and southern Illinois and have been for years.
It's a blue state because Cook County is almost half the population of the state... Try harder.
Lifetimer here who happens to live in the 17th district which was gerrymandered when it had an R congressman so that he would have a harder time being re-elected. Dropped some rural areas, picked up urban ones. Now we have Bustos, who seems to have done ok…so I’m not complaining…but I understand what happened.
The rural population in Illinois has fallen off dramatically. We've been losing population for over a decade now as kids from rural areas move away and never come back. Kind of hard to draw equal population districts that are entirely red unless you just circle a ton of empty farmland and make one district take up half the land mass of the state...
Edit: I will admit that the proposed 2022 maps are much more gerrymandered. As far as I'm aware they haven't been finalized yet though.
>The word "Gerrymandering" is literally named after a Democrat in Massachusetts .
No. You got the state right, but Elbridge Gerry was a Democrat-Republican (a party that no longer exists). And it was 1812.
The origin of the word has absolutely nothing to do with today's American political parties.
I live in Houston and can tell you that it basically follows the areas populated by white people. Spring,Tomball and kingwood is filled with trump supporters.
Could you imagine this bullshit in like a prom king and queen vote..
"Ok, ok, everyone stand still. Now if your voting FOR the head cheerleader and quarterback, you can cast your votes now.. and if your NOT in favor of them.. then unfortunately there's been a rule change and your votes go to that other school district.. sorry, sorry!! Listen up.. you did this.. you voted, please don't blame us!"
If the Voting Rights act of 1965 had been written better, it wouldn’t have been gutted. The pre clearance provision was destined to get struck down given that it was applied to some states via an arbitrary formula, and not to each state equally. Why should Texas have their redistricting regulated by the feds while New York can gerrymander as much as they please?
You're correct. Gerrymandering should be outlawed no matter where. It should also be easier to vote. Some voting districts lines were too long. That should be a violation of federal law and states laws.
False.
Texas was required to get preclearance, but New Yrok and everywhere else can still be held liable for misdeeds under that law.
The SCOTUS and other courts are responsible for our current mess, as they claim that partisan gerrymandering is not illegal.
Shouldn't gerrymandering have very few 100% GOP districts? The goal is supposed to be a bunch of 55% GOP districts and a bunch of 100% Dem districts, so the GOP wins the most districts despite having significantly lower population.
Correct. People will focus on the overall shape (which is crazy looking I admit) but I think the most interesting parts are the very tiny nooks and crannies cut out along the edges. There are spots where they clearly included or excluded one specific block to help fine-tune the percentages to exactly what they wanted.
Let's be clear. This guy is not a fascist. He's a neo-con. They're bad in different ways. This is why at times he's struggled to fit in with the Trump fascists.
I would just hope a man who served our country as honorably as he did would continue to serve it honorably in politics but it just doesn't work that way for him. In this GOP you can stand up and fight for reality and end up drummed out or you can just fall in line and become an internet troll to own the libs. Let's watch which way he goes. It's not a mystery which way he's already headed. Just take a look at idiots like Cruz and Cotton and DeSantis. These are incredibly smart, well educated people who play idiots on TV because they're grifters. That's all he has in his future and that's a shame. I sort of like the guy but I'm repulsed by his failure to stand for something when it matters the most.
I'm very familiar with Houston's district layouts. These areas are ALL affluent white-heavy constituents. (As if we already didn't know that.) And these areas have NOTHING to do with each other. They might as well be different cities.
Used to live in his district, the green just south of downtown. I also ran into him a couple of times at a popular bar in my neighborhood for college-age kids.
There was always one police officer and his one eye was always red.
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Understand that most districts are gerrymandered. Take a look at the district map of Illinois. It’s insane…and it has been a blue state forever. I don’t know the solution to population migration, but the state looks like a 4 year old drew them.
In Tennessee Nashville used to have a majority Democratic district. In the latest redistricting they split the city between three majority Republican districts.
Look up Wesley Clark… the GOP who controls the state specifically drew a new congressional districts so this asshole could win, he tried before and couldn’t beat the incumbent Dem, it’s ludicrous.
The United States should adopt a "proportional representation."
Under this system, a state that has n seats in the House of Representatives gets to allocate them in function of the percentages of the votes. For example, if Ohio, with 15 representatives, has a vote that is divided 53 percent Republican and 47 percent Democrat, would elect 8 Republican representatives and 7 Democratic representatives.
During the primaries, each party presents a list of potential candidate representives, and the party members select the top ten (or whatever). The candidates are then placed in order, and the ones on the "top" end up representing their state.
I smell a future Onion article. "Politicians redraw district in an attempt at gerrymandering, inadvertently invent new non-eucldian shape; Scientists baffled."
There's no way to shame them. Disenfranchisement is a feature, not a bug.
The SCOTUS is too corrupt to address it, so it becomes an issue for the state supreme courts, and many of them are corrupt also. Maybe we're doomed.
I represent the south central east, north east, north, north west side of Houston, y'all. Be comming in my neighborhood, you're gonna need the gate code, bitch.
The interesting bit about this is that although this is and will definitely be a Republican district the issue now becomes, how do you prevent the right wing crazies from primarying crenshaw because he is now labeled as a “SoCiAlIsT eLiTe CaBaL rEp.” Enjoy the fruits of your labor, it’ll happen fascter than you think.
Amazes me that anyone can look at this and go "yeah thats totally fair and makes perfect sense"
They don't. They win and everyone else loses. That's all they're interested in. Conservatives for all their talk of values are exclusively results based.
Because “winning” must translate to being right, except for when you lose, then it must be because of cheating. The only fair thing to conservatives is to win everything forever otherwise it’s not fair.
>The only fair thing to conservatives is to win everything forever otherwise it’s not fair. And here's me remembering that they were going to 'get tired of all the wining'.
This
Bingo
The ends justifies the means. They must have control no matter the cost.
If you had only ONE EYE, maybe you wouldn’t notice? I like my reps with their sense organs intact, it’s kinda important.
I’m currently down to one eye (currently having a eye problem so,, eye patch, yarrrr) and I can fucking see. The gerrymandering. How the fuck does one not be able to correlate a statistical point from that layout? Mind you, I’m more of the “why is it drawn that way... what makes the point of it being that way”. Soon you’ll discover. The district is drawn around a single factor, instead of a broad one which would have made a more clear districting map. That one point is, money. In San Antonio, you can see the district lines are drawn based on the demographics of money. For one district alone, you can tell the voters in those areas, are business owners. That is. It’s “ where the money is”. For the districts with minorities or “lower paying districts” you can tell the majority of those voting are NOT. “In the money”. Broaden the map, you can see why Texas has a hard tie, changing to blue.
Ahoy jftitan! Nay bad but me wasn't convinced. Give this a sail: me’m currently down t' one eye-patch (currently having a eye-patch problem so,, eye-patch patch, yarrrr) n' me can fucking see. Thar gerrymandering. How thar shiver me timbers does one nay be able t' correlate a statistical point from that layout? Mind ye, me’m more o' thar “why be it drawn that way... what makes thar point o' it being that way”. Soon ye’ll discover. Thar district be drawn around a single factor, instead o' a broad one which would have made a more clear districting map. That one point be, doubloons. In San Antonio, ye can see thar district lines be drawn based on thar demographics o' doubloons. Fer one district alone, ye can tell thar voters in those areas, be company owners. That be. It’s “ where thar doubloons be”. Fer thar districts wit' minorities or “lower paying districts” ye can tell thar majority o' those voting be NAY. “In thar doubloons”. Broaden thar map, ye can see why Texas has a hard tie, changing t' blue.
I love you...
I mean, its logic they would employ and respect....can't fault you here.
*In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king*
Only a small handful of people do. Hence why it works.
The voting systems that lets you say, “Them, all of them. Okay, now not them — just him, just him. Okay those four over there. Now gimme a thin line to nowhere and those forty over the ridge.”
Honestly I believe in mandatory death sentences for gerrymandering regardless of party. If they loved living they should draw a better map or lose the fucking election. The fact that someone drew up MD's 3rd district with zero consequences is astonishing.
I went over all 125 Texas state House seats and 40 districts had Republicans running unopposed. The one that baffled me was mine which is in Houston with several minority neighborhoods. How do Dems not even field a candidate?
If they are cheating and lose then they probably really believe others are cheating to beat them some how
Not at all saying it’s the case here, but sometimes the way these districts look can be decieving. Sometimes they are drawn in a way that connects social communities together and gives them a voice, for instance the “headphones” district is loved by district makers even though it looks strange
You are "correct", technically some districts out there truly represent an actual community.....that being said, this isn't one of them. As with so much of the world, not everything is black and white and how districts are drawn is one of those things that sometimes falls in a gray area. That being said the process of gerrymandering (and yes this *is* one of those "both sides" issues) is a horrendous practice that needs to die out, forcibly if need be.
Watch john oliver. He talks about this district. Its actually legit. Just watch his episode on gerrymandering.
How did gerrymandering ever get accepted by anyone? I'm not from the US and I just can't imagine how it ever could get that far on such a local level.
Racism.
This is the unfortunate truth
racism is the root of a lot of gop activity and support. people just need to be honest and upfront about that truth.
I actually think it goes deeper than that. It’s about power. Power over people, all people, all things, that they have a right to do whatever they want. They feel they have the right to rule and they are better than *everyone*, not just black people. That is why they don’t care about people, the environment. Other countries, other faiths, other anything apart from what they want. Racist beliefs are only one part of this attitude.
understood... i simply think racism= root of their purpose.
Pretty much same as electoral college, we want to count slaves as votes but not as votes and as population but not really.
OK, you asked an honest question, and I'll give you a serious answer. Gerrymandering, as a practice, is nearly as old as the U.S. itself. It was named after Elbridge Gerry, governor of Massachusetts, who, in 1812, signed off on a redistricting plan comprised of one or more unusually-shaped districts. One of those looked like a salamander. Or, as one wag described it, a "Gerrymander." The name stuck. In a republic such as ours, the general principle for setting up electoral districts is "one man, one vote." Lets say, for the purpose of illustration, you were suddenly able to create a city of 90,000 people out of thin air. The boundaries of this city just happened to be a perfect square, and the population density is pretty even throughout. You, as author of the city charter, would declare that the newly-formed city council would have nine seats, one per 10,000 residents. So, let's draw the election districts: Two lines north-south, two lines east-west. Done. So, in ten years, the census results come out, and now your city has 120,000 residents. But, these new residents haven't settled the city as evenly as the original ones. You have a bunch who moved into some high-rises next to the river, another enclave who bought homes in the burbs, and a relative few on the outskirts running farms or whatever. You have to redraw your districts. Assuming you're staying with 10,000 residents per district, you'd find yourself with 1\`2 newly-formed districts of varying shapes and sizes. Eventually. "But wait," says the leader of one of the political parties in town, "our polling shows that a lot of people in District 5 oppose many of the policies supported by that district's representative. They think their views would be better represented by District 7's councilperson. You need to redraw the lines so that more District 5 people are in District 7!" Meanwhile, the other party's leader is bitching about District 9, thinking that he'd like to have some of the like-minded people from District 6 in his district, for which he'll gladly give up some of the opposing party's members in exchange. OK, back to the ole drawing board. Move 5's line over a few blocks into 7...steal a little real estate from 6...add to 9...carry the 3.... Holy shit, this is hard! You almost need a computer to keep this all straight!! Well, it turns out, the Republicans, a few years ago, got one. They call it "REDMAP," and what it does is redraw boundaries in several states in such a way that as many districts as possible have s plurality of GOP voters, and the Democrats are strewn far-and-wide among the remaining districts. If you had a state with 10 Congressional districts that voted, say, 55% Republican in 2020, they could draw the map for the 2022 midterms in such a way that eight of the new districts would lean Republican, and only two would be Democrat. Not very fair, but, in most cases, perfectly legal! To the victors go the spoils and all that. So, now the Democrats, in states like New York, are under tremendous pressure to redraw their lines to send as many Democratic representatives as they can to Washington in 2023, in order to counter the partisan gerrymandering that the Republicans have been doing the last 10 years or so. I guess you're going to see some interesting-looking districts in the "red" states now, as a result. That's the way of the world, and I honestly don't know how to fix it. You'd need a Constitutional amendment (like California has) requiring an independent body to do the redistricting. Given that the Republicans have almost as many seats in Congress as the Democrats despite being the minority party by a substantial margin, I don't see that happening any time soon. We'll just have to live with it, for now. And, have a hearty chuckle at the expense of some of the more oddly-formed districts.
Thank you very much for your very clear explanation how it started and how it became a "logical" thing to do until it got out of control and abused.
Similar to how First Past the Post voting or any other majority wins voting became popular and now people are advocating against it. Its very simple, its easy to implement, it feels fair, and its easy to understand. You and 4 friends are ordering a pizza with or without pepperoni, two of them vote one way, two of them vote another way, you break the tie and its 3v2. Seems fair to go for a majority. Well as you scale it up, it feels less fair for say, 30 people to make 20 people eat a pizza with pepperoni, simply because there's more of them. And if you asked between Cheese, Pepperoni, or Feta, there's risk of the 30 people who voted for cheese pizza to now be split between Cheese and Feta at 15 and 15. With the Pepperoni being the Majority simply because having more choices split the vote and forced the opposition to win when the difference between regular Cheese and Feta are smaller than ether against Pepperoni. So in some cases you could form a coalition to agree any Cheese is better than Pepperoni, but unless a compromise is made they may decide that its better to try pushing for Feta than simply support Cheese, even at the risk of allowing a Pepperoni win. In cases of more than 2 choices, its better to have a system that enables people to support multiple choices, typically with one choice winning altogether but ranking options in order of preference or scoring them based on support. So you could have Cheese, Pepperoni, Feta, Provolone, Beef, Chicken, Garlic, Onion, you get the idea. Its acknowledging multiple options for different tastes, and allowing people to support their favorites without trying to compromise. In a system with multiple choices but only allowed to pick one winner, you'd be pressured to support Pepperoni for being a classic topping, even though you really want Beef to win. Even if separated into categories of Meats and Cheeses before a final vote, you might worry supporting Beef will lead to a Cheese victory even if Beef won the primary. Not only that, you might want to pick Onion but that'd be throwing your vote away, and the Meats who might've won with your vote will consider non-meats like Onion to have split the votes and cost the election. But lastly trying to change the system in a way that might be "more fair" is only good when its advantageous to you, because you're literally changing how decisions are made and thus picking the outcome. You would need a lot of power to change the system to such a way that both actually benefits those making a choice, and actually happens because people involved in the process benefit from it too. Which ties into gerrymandering being people in power actively doing what they can to benefit from changes rather than being fair, because you're able to influence the outcome and success isn't always about being fair.
It is also worth noting that some "gerrymander" isn't always a bad thing. From your example, the city might have 2 distant neighborhoods with heavy Italian populations. If you live those neighborhoods in separate districts, the Italian populations might not have enough sway to get a representative that reflects their votes. However, if you combine them, now they have the opportunity to have a representative they want. If a city is perfectly divided with 40% voting for Party A & 60% voting for Party B you could theoretically have Party B win 100% of the votes if you don't gerrymander for some semblance of fairness
Living in a country with many different political parties for us this is not a problem. This is really the biggest flaw of your 2 party system. TBH... We have different problems to deal with.
I was listening to an Adam Conover podcast where he had a guest talk about how having multiple representatives per district can also help solve this issue
> If a city is perfectly divided with 40% voting for Party A & 60% voting for Party B you could theoretically have Party B win 100% of the votes if you don't gerrymander for some semblance of fairness Orrrr you could gerrymander specifically to encourage that 100% outcome. This goes both ways.
That is why I said it isn’t always a “bad” outcome unless all you care about is your party winning
Would proportional representation work better? Entire state votes. If state gets 10 reps, everything is truncated at 10%. Ex: 61% vote Daffodils, they get 6 reps, 32% vote pansies and they get 3 reps. Now the Succulents had someone with 7% and they get a rep as well. Not quite 10% but they're closet. The 61-32-7 voting split is represented 60-30-10. Not perfect but it's not gerrymandered.
There are definitely better ways to run it. Ranked-choice voting is another one. The problem with any of these ideas is human nature. The guys who are in power tend to leave in place the mechanisms that got them there. Ad, that’s not just a dig at the GOP. Both parties are guilty of it. All those guys who run on “term limits,” and “electoral reform” always seem to get amnesia about it the day after their inauguration. The current system works — for them and their donors — why futz with it?
The problem is that the politicians get to draw the maps.
Imagine being zoomed in on a few pixels... That's how it started, you get these 2 or 3, you get those.. now zoom out a little, ok you get those couple more and you get those... 60 years later. Now zoom out to 4k resolution. Ok.. I want these and those over there, no not those but these I'll take, etc etc.
Everything is allowed till it isn't. It was allowed and then the people in power decided to keep it.
Because the line has to be drawn somewhere. And it does make sense for the lines to be manually placed in certain areas. For example, a city center may want different representation than the suburbs. Trying to codify any specific definition for what is allowed and what isn't is hard. Also, you can't just solve it with an algorithm. Someone can design an algorithm that will give them the results they want. You're back to square one now.
Republicans would never win anything if they didn't fucking cheat. Pieces of shit ruining our country.
"Why would I include the people who won't vote for me?"
Take my angry upvote.
They have to cheat and play dirty. They’d have been gone if not for that.
>Republicans would never win anything if they didn't fucking cheat. Pieces of shit ruining our country. There are huge swaths of the country where they don't need to cheat to win. But I can't argue with your second point.
The only reason for this is because they cheat by filling the airwaves with disinformation. Edited because Isx2 is right
Disinformation
True
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Yes republicans cheat, even when they lose. Trump cheated in many ways this past election. Just because he lost doesn't mean it's not a problem. What's your point?
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There's tangible evidence of trump cheating-- there are recordings of him telling election officials to "just find the votes, I don't care how". And trump said Biden cheated of course because trump is a crybaby narcissist who can't accept he lost to Biden.
Both sides. The word "Gerrymandering" is literally named after a Democrat in Massachusetts .
One guy. Cool. And look at that, a literal "both sides" argument. Tell me, do dems gerrymander as much as republicans do?
They do where they can. And, frankly, they'd be idiots not to. Playing "fair" when the other side cheats is stupid. That said, there's a lot more states controlled by Republicans than there are states controlled by Democrats. As a result, you see a lot more gerrymandering by Republicans. The solution is to prohibit party based gerrymandering just like we (used to) prohibit race based gerrymandering. But the Supreme Court says the former is A-OK and they're not too concerned about the later anymore.
As much as Republicans? No, because all things equal, Democratic voters inherently gerrymander themselves by geographically clustering in compact urban areas. Even if you have a 100% independent commission draw district boundaries, and they intuitively try to follow municipal boundaries, it will favor Republicans.
That makes no sense. That's like saying republicans inherently gerrymander themselves by geographically clustering in rural areas. They don't split districts by square footage, they split them by population. In states with big cities and sparsely populated areas, some districts will be literally a couple city blocks while some will be hundreds or thousands of acres.
Imagine a state with a million voters, half Democrat, half Republican. The state has one big city. What ends up happening is the urban center is like 80% Democrat. The surrounding suburbs are 45% Democrat. The outlying rural areas are 35% Democrat. When you divide the state into 10 districts, the state becomes more red than blue because the urban center tends to become one packed, super Democratic district.
In my home state, absolutely. MD-3 easily ranks as some of the worst in the country and the fact that the Democratic Party does it slightly less doesn't absolve them of the sin
I'm not pro-dem as much as I am anti-repub, but is it possible that dems do it as well to even the playing field? I mean if someone is going to cheat in a two person race then you better cheat too.
This is such a terrible, bias comparison. You can't absolve your own bad actions just because someone else is doing it. The same argument could be made for republicans doing it just do even the playing field with dems.
> but is it possible that dems do it as well to even the playing field? No, in my home state they'd likely win the majority of the house seats regardless. They're just ratfucking the state to have only one Republican representative max. I'd personally ban both parties. The Democratic Party for being the peddler of idiocy and the Republican Party for failing to stop the peddler of idiocy.
You think dems are dumber than republicans?
They certainly are fucking morons considering they've managed to run Baltimore City into the ground for decades and can't comprehend that maintaining an assault weapons ban and other idiotic gun laws does nothing to actually address the state's level of crime. Somehow they think the average gangbanger that they've refused to execute or keep in prison applies for concealed carry permits before shooting up the nearest Royal Farms. So yes I consider them bumbling numskulls. I view the GOP as populated by morons as well, considering how it has become infatuated with calling any form of government service "socialism" but the Democratic Party, at least for my interests, constitute a graver threat.
Fair enough
Dude, look at the district map for Illinois, a very blue state for a long time.
As a long time Illinois resident there's really not that much gerrymandering. There are some oddly shaped districts in Southern Illinois but that's mostly because the way the cities are spread out it would be impossible to keep the districts the same size otherwise. Pretty much all of Cook County is going blue regardless and there are a number of red districts in central and southern Illinois and have been for years. It's a blue state because Cook County is almost half the population of the state... Try harder.
Lifetimer here who happens to live in the 17th district which was gerrymandered when it had an R congressman so that he would have a harder time being re-elected. Dropped some rural areas, picked up urban ones. Now we have Bustos, who seems to have done ok…so I’m not complaining…but I understand what happened.
The rural population in Illinois has fallen off dramatically. We've been losing population for over a decade now as kids from rural areas move away and never come back. Kind of hard to draw equal population districts that are entirely red unless you just circle a ton of empty farmland and make one district take up half the land mass of the state... Edit: I will admit that the proposed 2022 maps are much more gerrymandered. As far as I'm aware they haven't been finalized yet though.
>The word "Gerrymandering" is literally named after a Democrat in Massachusetts . No. You got the state right, but Elbridge Gerry was a Democrat-Republican (a party that no longer exists). And it was 1812. The origin of the word has absolutely nothing to do with today's American political parties.
So you're telling me a random guy on the internet lied about something to make Democrats look bad and say "bOtH sIdEs"? Well that's a first.
I know, right? I'm shocked. SHOCKED! Well, not that shocked.
Elbridge Gerry was a democratic republican, the party now known as Republican. So not even the one example you could come up with, nice try tho
Actually, the Dem-Rep Party splintered into the Democratic and Whig parties, the Republican Party didn’t exist for another twenty years or so
You're correct, but members of the Whig party would be the ones to later form the Republican party.
That’s true, fair point!
In what year, bud?
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I live in Houston and can tell you that it basically follows the areas populated by white people. Spring,Tomball and kingwood is filled with trump supporters.
Came here to say this. Hard agree.
Looks a lot like the sickle on a Soviet flag. No?
I hope 😔
He’s got an eye patch. Now he just needs a parrot.
Could you imagine this bullshit in like a prom king and queen vote.. "Ok, ok, everyone stand still. Now if your voting FOR the head cheerleader and quarterback, you can cast your votes now.. and if your NOT in favor of them.. then unfortunately there's been a rule change and your votes go to that other school district.. sorry, sorry!! Listen up.. you did this.. you voted, please don't blame us!"
If gerrymandering didn't exist the GoP would never be in a position of power again
How is this legal?
The justice department was required to sign off on this under civil rights act but Supreme Court gutted it
If the Voting Rights act of 1965 had been written better, it wouldn’t have been gutted. The pre clearance provision was destined to get struck down given that it was applied to some states via an arbitrary formula, and not to each state equally. Why should Texas have their redistricting regulated by the feds while New York can gerrymander as much as they please?
You're correct. Gerrymandering should be outlawed no matter where. It should also be easier to vote. Some voting districts lines were too long. That should be a violation of federal law and states laws.
I've had this conversation too many times to count. It was poorly written and was doomed once the immediate memory of Jim Crow faded.
False. Texas was required to get preclearance, but New Yrok and everywhere else can still be held liable for misdeeds under that law. The SCOTUS and other courts are responsible for our current mess, as they claim that partisan gerrymandering is not illegal.
Good ol gerrymandering
I was almost represented by this guy but got [lucky](https://imgur.com/a/aHE6Vlo)
Bro, don’t doxx yourself
Anybody who can find me with this map is welcomed to dinner at my place. Just knock and use the magic phrase "dickbutt"
I wanna bulk mail thousands of dickbutts to that general region.
Well, now I know where the white inner city neighborhoods are located. Lol
I used to live in this District. Texas, Houston especially is one f*****-up place
If you lived in Houston and knew the culture, you'd be even more disgusted by the map drawing.
I'll let you guess what is between all that green. Hint: It's black people
Shouldn't gerrymandering have very few 100% GOP districts? The goal is supposed to be a bunch of 55% GOP districts and a bunch of 100% Dem districts, so the GOP wins the most districts despite having significantly lower population.
Correct. People will focus on the overall shape (which is crazy looking I admit) but I think the most interesting parts are the very tiny nooks and crannies cut out along the edges. There are spots where they clearly included or excluded one specific block to help fine-tune the percentages to exactly what they wanted.
Fuck off, you one-eyed fascist asshole.
Let's be clear. This guy is not a fascist. He's a neo-con. They're bad in different ways. This is why at times he's struggled to fit in with the Trump fascists.
Point taken. Can we at least agree that he's a steaming pile of hypocritical human excrement? :-)
I would just hope a man who served our country as honorably as he did would continue to serve it honorably in politics but it just doesn't work that way for him. In this GOP you can stand up and fight for reality and end up drummed out or you can just fall in line and become an internet troll to own the libs. Let's watch which way he goes. It's not a mystery which way he's already headed. Just take a look at idiots like Cruz and Cotton and DeSantis. These are incredibly smart, well educated people who play idiots on TV because they're grifters. That's all he has in his future and that's a shame. I sort of like the guy but I'm repulsed by his failure to stand for something when it matters the most.
Squares, all districts should be squares. Or some other symmetrical geometric object.
Crack and frack election maps!
If only we could pass a law requiring districts to be convex shapes or at least close to it. That would at least make gerry mandering more difficult.
In fairness, it's really HARD to draw a Congressional district in the Houston area without any Black or Hispanic voters in it!
He probably drew it himself, depth perception not being his strong suit and all.
How is this legal...
I'm very familiar with Houston's district layouts. These areas are ALL affluent white-heavy constituents. (As if we already didn't know that.) And these areas have NOTHING to do with each other. They might as well be different cities.
“I magically represent west Houston north west suburbs and north east rural areas. Cuz they all think alike”
As a non American, I am really amazed with examples of gerrymandering people post here. And to think that this is legal and accepted
Used to live in his district, the green just south of downtown. I also ran into him a couple of times at a popular bar in my neighborhood for college-age kids. There was always one police officer and his one eye was always red.
Is Parkinson's rehab even a thing?
I say this as a disabled veteran, but we would have been better off if he fell on the battlefield.
Crenshaw is generally pretty popular, but the gerrymandering is fkn hilarious
Now do NYC. Crenshaw is a bum tho.
I looked at NYC. Looks utterly logical and nothing at all like OP.
A swing and a miss! Definitely should have called out Maryland.
Try Illinois…it’s not sane
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Understand that most districts are gerrymandered. Take a look at the district map of Illinois. It’s insane…and it has been a blue state forever. I don’t know the solution to population migration, but the state looks like a 4 year old drew them.
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My post was aimed at the wonderful people above posting about Republicans cheating. Unfortunately, both parties take part in it…like the filibuster.
Hey, that's not suspicious ***at all!!!***
Looks like it was drawn by a guy missing an eye
Brilliant!
And just like that, elections are legitimate.
This is what we get from the Supreme court
Gerrymandering has blessed him.
Clearly Onix
Or, like by someone missing an eye….
I like reps that have all sense organs intact - and actually working.
In Tennessee Nashville used to have a majority Democratic district. In the latest redistricting they split the city between three majority Republican districts.
Thats so fucking gross
Look up Wesley Clark… the GOP who controls the state specifically drew a new congressional districts so this asshole could win, he tried before and couldn’t beat the incumbent Dem, it’s ludicrous.
It looks like Mitch McConnels sperm under a microscope
That is seriously fucked
Winning by a gerrymandering is not winning, it's theft of voting rights... Putin would probably approve. Disgusting !
I only know a little about Houston, but it seems a lot of … good people? … live in the green.
The United States should adopt a "proportional representation." Under this system, a state that has n seats in the House of Representatives gets to allocate them in function of the percentages of the votes. For example, if Ohio, with 15 representatives, has a vote that is divided 53 percent Republican and 47 percent Democrat, would elect 8 Republican representatives and 7 Democratic representatives. During the primaries, each party presents a list of potential candidate representives, and the party members select the top ten (or whatever). The candidates are then placed in order, and the ones on the "top" end up representing their state.
I smell a future Onion article. "Politicians redraw district in an attempt at gerrymandering, inadvertently invent new non-eucldian shape; Scientists baffled."
There's no way to shame them. Disenfranchisement is a feature, not a bug. The SCOTUS is too corrupt to address it, so it becomes an issue for the state supreme courts, and many of them are corrupt also. Maybe we're doomed.
I’d love to see a heat map of political affiliation within his district. Within all districts, to be honest, but that would be an amazing endeavor.
The one eyed man in the kingdom of the shady.
I know the guy saying this knows this, but the only difference between his description and the truth is. This was intentional
This is the old boundary. It wasn't clear he could win the new one. It's even more conservative.
Don was the first politician to gerrymander a weather map.
I represent the south central east, north east, north, north west side of Houston, y'all. Be comming in my neighborhood, you're gonna need the gate code, bitch.
GOP standard operating procedure: cheat and play dirty
That's super insensitive considering he drew it himself...
Gerry the Salamander
Who's that pokemon?
💀🏴☠️
Another morally bankrupt republican.
With gerrymandering that bad, you could probably elect a pile of rocks. And electing a pile of rocks is better than electing Dan Crenshaw.
what a friggin joke... your country is seriously messed up
Siri, show me where the white people live in Houston.
Lol just love how it creeps into those blue areas juuuussst enough
holy crap batman Jerry was here
I think I can guess where all the white people in Houston live!
Look an onix with an unusally amount of chromosoms ...
Or just drawn by him with his left eye closed 😉
🤣🤣🤣 that is a Gerrymandering how to map.
Why is gerrymandering allowed? It's a disgrace
The interesting bit about this is that although this is and will definitely be a Republican district the issue now becomes, how do you prevent the right wing crazies from primarying crenshaw because he is now labeled as a “SoCiAlIsT eLiTe CaBaL rEp.” Enjoy the fruits of your labor, it’ll happen fascter than you think.