Mathematicians looking to make elections in the US more representative • Hacker News Board

Re: Mathematicians looking to make elections in the US more representative

#91

Post by travmatt » Thu, Jun 08, 2017, 1:14 PM UTC

Torwald wrote: post #90

ValG wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a super interesting concept. I will look into it; book ordered! From a quick think through - I think that this argument may fall flat on 2 related ideas. 1. Data shows that when seats are more secure like you say (90-10 instead of 50-50), representatives often go towards the extremes of the political spectrum (on both sides). this leads to issue 2... 2. Voters are generally not strictly partisan - that is to s…

Could this be mitigated by having a system with more than two parties?

Multi party systems tend to favor the most ideologically driven actors in the system. An example of this is Israel.

Furthermore, American politics isn't two ideologies. Each party is composed of multiple groups that compete for dominance. Republicans have business interests, evangelicals, etc., while democrats have progressives, neoliberal, etc.

Re: Mathematicians looking to make elections in the US more representative

#92

Post by pyroinferno » Thu, Jun 08, 2017, 1:17 PM UTC

75dvtwin wrote: post #29

gizmo686 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is, I, and the typical taxpayer, is not qualified to make an informed decision about budget allocations. When I want to know where to spend my tax dollar, It is not sufficient to know how I value the causes, but rather how I value them relative to their existing budget allocations, and how useful additional money would be to them. For instance, I may value national defense and our military in the abstract…

I think, my recommendation, would create more informed voter base. Mostly because lobbyist would have to reach out to the voters, rather than to the politicians. Additionally, perhaps, letting a voter to 'forego' his/her right for the allocation could be allowed. This way you can choose to forego the right, while others would keep it.

So we're opening a whole new floodgate of lobbyist propaganda?

Re: Mathematicians looking to make elections in the US more representative

#93

Post by sp332 » Thu, Jun 08, 2017, 1:26 PM UTC

fivestar wrote: post #81

ValG wrote: post #2

There are a ton of important issues, but, I believe that gerrymandering is a core issue in the United States because : Partisan gerrymandering allows for politicians to secure their seats - this leads to less voters being represented (allowing the politicians to become more polarized) e.g. when races are tight, politicians tend to move towards the center. [2] Partisan gerrymandering is strongly disliked by both parti…

I'm not tracking. Are we not a representative democracy? How are less (the word you seek is 'fewer') voters being represented? I need to know if you're one of the many millions of disaffected socialists who is still whining about the election last fall or if there is something of substance here. The "I'm currently fundraising" is kind of a giveaway that you're one of them. While gerrymandering is strongly disliked, I…

Gerrymandering is already illegal. It can be fixed relatively easily by redrawing the districts, which is done routinely. And it's not like the electoral college is written in stone either. Since you can't see why it matters, here are some examples. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering#Effects

Re: Mathematicians looking to make elections in the US more representative

#94

Post by hysan » Thu, Jun 08, 2017, 1:45 PM UTC

aaron-lebo wrote: post #17

ValG wrote: post #2

There are a ton of important issues, but, I believe that gerrymandering is a core issue in the United States because : Partisan gerrymandering allows for politicians to secure their seats - this leads to less voters being represented (allowing the politicians to become more polarized) e.g. when races are tight, politicians tend to move towards the center. [2] Partisan gerrymandering is strongly disliked by both parti…

One of my professors at UT Dallas has a book that argues that districts in fact should be partisan. It's been a few years but the logic is something like if you've got a 50-50 district, you're gonna end up with 50% of the people in the district unhappy. Where as if you intentionally designed districts to be like like 90-10 (or whatever possible), more people are happy. Not sure if I believe him, but it's interesting.…

That position only proves true if you live in a society where compromise is seen as a negative.

I don't know when this shift occurred, but it is certainly the case now that any compromise is generally seen as a loss and failure to represent your constituents. Hence our very partisan climate and the increasing success of radical politicians. If all you have to do is vote the party line and never try to work things out, your job suddenly becomes quite easy to keep.

Now if things were to change and people would agree to discuss issues and meet midway, then more would get done and progress on long stalled issues would be made. In a country where small yet constant steps are being made, I would argue that the general populace would be far more happy than the one presented in that book by your professor.

Re: Mathematicians looking to make elections in the US more representative

#95

Post by DogPawHat » Thu, Jun 08, 2017, 1:46 PM UTC

kirrent wrote: post #32

aaron-lebo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my professors at UT Dallas has a book that argues that districts in fact should be partisan. It's been a few years but the logic is something like if you've got a 50-50 district, you're gonna end up with 50% of the people in the district unhappy. Where as if you intentionally designed districts to be like like 90-10 (or whatever possible), more people are happy. Not sure if I believe him, but it's interesting.…

I think single transferable vote is a much better way of addressing that criticism. We have it where I live and it has tended to produce fairly boring yet representative elections.

Ireland has it, I'm not sure you would call the last few elections "boring" (Probably more to do with the financial crisis hitting us like a ton of bricks though)

Re: Mathematicians looking to make elections in the US more representative

#96

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 08, 2017, 1:52 PM UTC

fivestar wrote: post #81

ValG wrote: post #2

There are a ton of important issues, but, I believe that gerrymandering is a core issue in the United States because : Partisan gerrymandering allows for politicians to secure their seats - this leads to less voters being represented (allowing the politicians to become more polarized) e.g. when races are tight, politicians tend to move towards the center. [2] Partisan gerrymandering is strongly disliked by both parti…

I'm not tracking. Are we not a representative democracy? How are less (the word you seek is 'fewer') voters being represented? I need to know if you're one of the many millions of disaffected socialists who is still whining about the election last fall or if there is something of substance here. The "I'm currently fundraising" is kind of a giveaway that you're one of them. While gerrymandering is strongly disliked, I…

[deleted]

Re: Mathematicians looking to make elections in the US more representative

#97

Post by CWuestefeld » Thu, Jun 08, 2017, 1:55 PM UTC

aaron-lebo wrote: post #17

ValG wrote: post #2

There are a ton of important issues, but, I believe that gerrymandering is a core issue in the United States because : Partisan gerrymandering allows for politicians to secure their seats - this leads to less voters being represented (allowing the politicians to become more polarized) e.g. when races are tight, politicians tend to move towards the center. [2] Partisan gerrymandering is strongly disliked by both parti…

One of my professors at UT Dallas has a book that argues that districts in fact should be partisan. It's been a few years but the logic is something like if you've got a 50-50 district, you're gonna end up with 50% of the people in the district unhappy. Where as if you intentionally designed districts to be like like 90-10 (or whatever possible), more people are happy. Not sure if I believe him, but it's interesting.…

But gerrymandering is ALSO an important factor behind today's political polarization.

In a district that's strongly biased one way or another (which is the goal of gerrymandering), the general election is a foregone conclusion: the nominee of the majority party will win, even if (as it's been famously demonstrated) he's dead, or if he endorses his opponent, etc.

The result is that the actual electoral process occurs during the party primaries. And middle-of-the-road folks are a lot less likely to participate in that. The make-up of the primary voters is far more extremist and partisan.

And so what we wind up with are candidates that are extremists partisans, and fewer candidates that are appealing to the median, centrist voter.

Re: Mathematicians looking to make elections in the US more representative

#98

Post by BearGoesChirp » Thu, Jun 08, 2017, 1:56 PM UTC

woopwoop wrote: post #22

It's easy to gerrymander a surface. It's hard to gerrymander a line, or a circle, where the connectedness requirement has teeth. One solution to gerrymandering is to determine congressional districts by birthday, or last name, rather than by geographic location.

The problem is that there are far far more policies that impact people based on area than based on name. This could effectively destroy any representation of rural areas which would achieve the opposite (every single politician would answer to 65% city voters and only 35% rural voters if the districts were based on something fully independent of location).

Re: Mathematicians looking to make elections in the US more representative

#99

Post by taejo » Thu, Jun 08, 2017, 1:56 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #93

fivestar wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not tracking. Are we not a representative democracy? How are less (the word you seek is 'fewer') voters being represented? I need to know if you're one of the many millions of disaffected socialists who is still whining about the election last fall or if there is something of substance here. The "I'm currently fundraising" is kind of a giveaway that you're one of them. While gerrymandering is strongly disliked, I…

Gerrymandering is already illegal. It can be fixed relatively easily by redrawing the districts, which is done routinely. And it's not like the electoral college is written in stone either. Since you can't see why it matters, here are some examples. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering#Effects

Gerrymandering is not in general illegal. As you say, districts are routinely redrawn - but in a way which results in gerrymandering! To fix it requires that the districts be redrawn fairly, and that's a tougher fix (but a significant number of states already have non-partisan districting procedures).

Re: Mathematicians looking to make elections in the US more representative

#100

Post by aaron-lebo » Thu, Jun 08, 2017, 2:03 PM UTC

CWuestefeld wrote: post #97

aaron-lebo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my professors at UT Dallas has a book that argues that districts in fact should be partisan. It's been a few years but the logic is something like if you've got a 50-50 district, you're gonna end up with 50% of the people in the district unhappy. Where as if you intentionally designed districts to be like like 90-10 (or whatever possible), more people are happy. Not sure if I believe him, but it's interesting.…

But gerrymandering is ALSO an important factor behind today's political polarization. In a district that's strongly biased one way or another (which is the goal of gerrymandering), the general election is a foregone conclusion: the nominee of the majority party will win, even if (as it's been famously demonstrated) he's dead, or if he endorses his opponent, etc. The result is that the actual electoral process occurs…

There's a lot of good comments pointing out potential flaws in his argument, but responding to yours since it's the most recent...

You're preaching to the choir. I disagreed with him at the time I read it and still do. The single party south is a "great" example of what happens when primaries become what matter.

On the other hand, the current political polarization and problems are due to the old system, so conceivably changing the structure could change things for the better. It's just fun to consider.

I'd also note that he worked in Congress (not elected) for awhile and taught for a couple decades, so his 160 page book anticipates a lot of the obvious criticisms thrown out here.