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An impossibility theorem for gerrymandering

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Re: An impossibility theorem for gerrymandering

#71

Post by T-hawk »

indubitable wrote: post #21

I think this indirectly hints at something much more fundamental: district based plurality does not make sense as an election system anymore. I think an eye opening example is to consider a hypothetical single state with 10 representatives. This state has a population, perfectly well distributed, of 35% democrat, 30% republican, 20% libertarian, and 15% green. And we draw our districts up with absolutely no bias what…

> Why don't we do at large proportional elections instead of district based plurality elections?

Because the seats going to the smaller parties would come at the expense of the parties currently in power, who are thus strongly disincentivized against changing the rules towards proportionality.

Re: An impossibility theorem for gerrymandering

#72

Post by waqf »

KGIII wrote: post #68
sova wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for your words and insight. Yes, proportional voting would be great! Your state gets 5 house seats? Let's have priority-voting where a voter picks choices 1-5 for representation. Jane is first choice, then Miyoko, Sofia, Leben, and Pierre. Jane may not get all the "first place" votes but she could get enough to end up in one of the five house seats our state gets. Reading up on the 14th amendment, it does ensu…

Most States don't take away your right to vote if you are convicted of a felony. Felons get to vote and can even, more often than not, vote while incarcerated. To vote while incarcerated, they use absentee ballots from the district where they resided prior to detention.

Only two states allow felons to vote while incarcerated: http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/felon-v...

Re: An impossibility theorem for gerrymandering

#73

Post by KGIII »

waqf wrote: post #72
KGIII wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most States don't take away your right to vote if you are convicted of a felony. Felons get to vote and can even, more often than not, vote while incarcerated. To vote while incarcerated, they use absentee ballots from the district where they resided prior to detention.

Only two states allow felons to vote while incarcerated: http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/felon-v...

D'oh. I had looked up, previously, to find out that felons can usually vote and extrapolated Maine to be the same as the rest, with regards to voting while incarcerated. My bad, the rest is correct however.

I know Maine allows it, and even encourages it. I actually started a campaign for State Senate at one point. As I got closer to election, I learned more about the system and decided I couldn't participate in that. So, I never turned in all the signatures and didn't run.

But, thanks for the correction. For some reason, I'd assumed the rest of the States allowed it. I understand that, in Maine, some candidates have even campaigned, in person, in the prisons. Notably, we don't actually have a lot of prisoners or very dangerous prisons.

Re: An impossibility theorem for gerrymandering

#74

Post by tashi »

KGIII wrote: post #65
indubitable wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think something you're fundamentally getting at is that in today's system people's views are not necessarily representative of their party's views. Ron Paul is not really what you'd call a republican, but he certainly ran as one. The reason is that in our current system, small parties cannot exist - or at least they can't get any representation in congress, but is there really any difference? So if you want to actu…

In Maine, at least, third parties actually have a good chance at being elected. In the past few decades, we have elected Independents for governor quite frequently. The Green Party has a respectable turnout, as well. Once in a while, we get Libertarians and Socialists, but those are less frequent and usually at a local level. (Mainah, ayuh.)

I was just looking at a list of Maine's governors, and something stands out: your state really is ideologically diverse! You only care about picking the right man for the job.

Re: An impossibility theorem for gerrymandering

#75

Post by indubitable »

tashi wrote: post #74
KGIII wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Maine, at least, third parties actually have a good chance at being elected. In the past few decades, we have elected Independents for governor quite frequently. The Green Party has a respectable turnout, as well. Once in a while, we get Libertarians and Socialists, but those are less frequent and usually at a local level. (Mainah, ayuh.)

I was just looking at a list of Maine's governors, and something stands out: your state really is ideologically diverse! You only care about picking the right man for the job.

One thing about places like Maine and Vermont (Sanders' state) is that they're tiny.

The total population of Maine is 1.3 million. The population of Vermont is 0.62 million. These states are smaller than many cities now a days. And you'll see a similar pragmatic politics in many of the other very small states. I think that's because you minimize the degrees of separation between representative and voter. When people know and meet other people it humanizes them and makes it easy to see that a letter beside somebody's name doesn't define them.

Our system was built for a different time, and we can see it's still a pretty reasonable system in the areas where that time is kind of emulated. But for many other parts of the country the system's age is showing. Even if we tried to keep up with how the founding fathers saw it we'd have literally thousands of individuals in the house of representatives which is probably similarly unworkable - and rather comical compared to the unchanging 100 of the senate.

Re: An impossibility theorem for gerrymandering

#76

Post by KGIII »

tashi wrote: post #74
KGIII wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Maine, at least, third parties actually have a good chance at being elected. In the past few decades, we have elected Independents for governor quite frequently. The Green Party has a respectable turnout, as well. Once in a while, we get Libertarians and Socialists, but those are less frequent and usually at a local level. (Mainah, ayuh.)

I was just looking at a list of Maine's governors, and something stands out: your state really is ideologically diverse! You only care about picking the right man for the job.

Kinda neat, isn't it?

We actually approved a change in our constitution because of the current situation. Our current govenor, he's an idiot, was elected with 34% of the votes. The previous election saw him win with something like 38% of the votes.

So, we had a referendum on the ballot and we will now have run-off voting.

I can, within reason, live anywhere on the planet. I've enough resources to get resident status and citizenship with pretty much every country. I retired and looked all over. I didn't 'settle' on Maine. I think that confers a negative view. So, I picked Maine because it best suits my needs.

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