Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Gerrymandering with geographically compact districts

dustingmixon.wordpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 116 posts

Re: Gerrymandering with geographically compact districts

#91

Post by squiggleblaz »

specialist wrote: post #45
taoistextremist wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually one topic I've grown to agree with my extremely conservative father on, that they should have never fixed the seats at 435. This was done long after the founding of the country (relative to the age of the country, that is), but if we had kept the original apportionment we'd have one of the largest legislatures in the world. It wouldn't solve the apportionment problem, but it would make the unfairness of…

I think of it as a scale problem. A Representative's front office is basically a call center & triage operation. The embodiment of the Politics of Attention (squeaky wheel gets the grease). What's the ideal size for a constituency? To maximize responsiveness, accountability, effectiveness? 100k? 200k? 400k? I don't know, but I'd like to find out.

Apparently largest assembly sizes are normally fall somewhere around the cube root of the population. Obviously you don't want so many electorates that the house becomes unmanageable, nor so few the voters can't make an effective choice. See some political scientist's thoughts here: https://fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com/category/electoral-rule...

I have no idea if that's the ideal rule or how you might determine that.

Re: Gerrymandering with geographically compact districts

#92

Post by dragonwriter »

realcoopernurse wrote: post #90

Here's a relatively new PR method developed by a grad student at Harvard. It's an interesting twist on STV that avoids the ballot complexity. https://medium.com/@jameson.quinn/place-voting-explained-129... I agree with others on this thread that the only solution to gerrymandering is some form of PR. PLACE voting is interesting because it doesn't require a change in the ballot and retains the notion of geographic dis…

Not requiring a change of ballots when you are doing very different things with them is, IMO, a negative traits because it creates a false familiarity.

When you are changing how ballots work, this should be unavoidably obvious, even to people who spent the time the change was being debated in a coma or Antarctic research expedition.

Also, STV in small (~5 member) districts gets much improved proportionality from the status quo, keeps geographic districts, and increases the proportion of people with someone representing both their ideology and district simultaneously.

Re: Gerrymandering with geographically compact districts

#93

Post by Sniffnoy »

dragonwriter wrote: post #92
realcoopernurse wrote: post #90

Here's a relatively new PR method developed by a grad student at Harvard. It's an interesting twist on STV that avoids the ballot complexity. https://medium.com/@jameson.quinn/place-voting-explained-129... I agree with others on this thread that the only solution to gerrymandering is some form of PR. PLACE voting is interesting because it doesn't require a change in the ballot and retains the notion of geographic dis…

Not requiring a change of ballots when you are doing very different things with them is, IMO, a negative traits because it creates a false familiarity. When you are changing how ballots work, this should be unavoidably obvious , even to people who spent the time the change was being debated in a coma or Antarctic research expedition. Also, STV in small (~5 member) districts gets much improved proportionality from the…

> Not requiring a change of ballots when you are doing very different things with them is, IMO, a negative traits because it creates a false familiarity.

I don't think that's something you can really do with voting systems, though. Lots of voting systems are based around the same input assumptions, i.e., people are submitting a rank-order of preferences. And nothing's saying you'd have to switch to PLACE from STV rather than from FPTP. Regardless I think it doesn't make a lot of sense to associate ordinal ballots with STV specifically rather than just, well, what they are, which is a rank-order of preferences, that will get used somehow.

Re: Gerrymandering with geographically compact districts

#94

Post by specialist »

squiggleblaz wrote: post #77
specialist wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The root cause is Duverger's Law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law TL;DR: With FPTP, each belligerent tries to form the smallest winning coalition, resulting in a near even split two-party system. Proportional Representation is the remedy for assemblies, councils, houses. Approval voting is the remedy for executive races (eg sheriff, mayor, governor). Additional benefits of both PR and Approval Voting: -…

Duverger's law isn't the whole picture. Normal FPTP assemblies the size of America's have third parties (see Canada, UK, India). Some PR countries have strong two party systems (see most obviously Malta). There is something additional in America that causes a two party system which may or may not continue past a switch to PR because we don't know what it is. Also, it is good to specify your goals. You might want to m…

I've mostly studied USA elections and legislatures. So am ill-equipped to compare, contrast. But being very political, and having run for office and done some policy work, I can comment on our elections.

Over simplistically:

#1 - Our FPTP elections leads to two major parties.

#2 - Our gerrymandered districts (local, state, congressional) has led to increased partisanship. As noted elsewhere, because contests are won during the low-turnout primaries where the motivated base participates.

#3 - Ever increasing campaign costs has led to concentrated influence (power law distribution of attention). Who ever controls the contributions controls the agenda.

#4 - We have city, district, county, state, federal elections. The party system starts at the bottom. Memories are long and defections are never forgiven (eg Nader & Green Party).

Having now done it... Everyone should run for office, at least once. Because most commentary, complaining isn't even wrong.

My goal, always, is to empower, enfranchise people. The various reforms I support increase voter choice and participation. At every level by various (sometimes non-intuitive) means.

Re: Gerrymandering with geographically compact districts

#95

Post by specialist »

int_19h wrote: post #74
jessriedel wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proportional representation just shifts the coalition building from the electorate level to the legislative level. It's well known that such coalitions tend to be the smallest majority possible. You may think for various reasons that it's better to form coalitions at one level of the voting process than the other, but let's not pretend PR avoids it.

The difference is that legislative coalitions don't have to be permanent, the way parties are. Various factions in the legislature can come together for a particular bill, or series of bills on some issue that's relevant to them all. But on something else, they might realign differently. Also, even when coalitions are more persistent, the terms are effectively renegotiated every election - party platforms are much mo…

Former US Rep Henry Waxman explains in his book The Waxman Report how Congress used to work, where coalitions were often formed around issues, interests.

There are many other accounts, giving different perspectives, of course. The Politics of Attention and Unorthodox Lawmaking come to mind.

Re: Gerrymandering with geographically compact districts

#96

Post by jessriedel »

int_19h wrote: post #74
jessriedel wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proportional representation just shifts the coalition building from the electorate level to the legislative level. It's well known that such coalitions tend to be the smallest majority possible. You may think for various reasons that it's better to form coalitions at one level of the voting process than the other, but let's not pretend PR avoids it.

The difference is that legislative coalitions don't have to be permanent, the way parties are. Various factions in the legislature can come together for a particular bill, or series of bills on some issue that's relevant to them all. But on something else, they might realign differently. Also, even when coalitions are more persistent, the terms are effectively renegotiated every election - party platforms are much mo…

You're failing to draw the correct analogy in each case.

> The difference is that legislative coalitions don't have to be permanent, the way parties are.

Just like the parties that make up a legislative coalitions can change, the voters making up a political party can and do change.

> Various factions in the legislature can come together for a particular bill, or series of bills on some issue that's relevant to them all. But on something else, they might realign differently

This happens all the time on individual bills in a two-party systems as well. ("Crossing the aisle".) But the coalitions forming control of the legislative body rarely change except immediately following elections (in both PR and two-party systems).

> Also, even when coalitions are more persistent, the terms are effectively renegotiated every election - party platforms are much more stable.

The analog of a particular legislative coalitions in a two-party system is not a particular party but the party in power. And the platform of the party in power changes dramatically when power shifts from one party to another.

Re: Gerrymandering with geographically compact districts

#97

Post by squiggleblaz »

int_19h wrote: post #79
OliverJones wrote: post #41

In an two-stage election system, rigging the districts to make the second stage irrelevant to the outcome, well, makes the first stage relevant to the outcome. When the first stage elections are contested among isolated ideological subsets of the electorate their results tend to extreme positions. What I'm saying is this: it is inevitable that the REDMAP project that yielded the kinds of district-level results shown…

I very much agree with this. What gerrymandering (and partisan voter suppression) does, is reduce the number of competitive districts in the country. Next year, the expected number of competitive House districts is 23 to 38 - out of 450! So, in over 400 districts, primaries are the only thing that matters. On the other hand, primaries attract more motivated voters than the general. And those motivated voters tend to…

But if this process is as you describe, won't the moderate voters eventually start electing independent candidates?

Re: Gerrymandering with geographically compact districts

#98

Post by dragonwriter »

Sniffnoy wrote: post #93
dragonwriter wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not requiring a change of ballots when you are doing very different things with them is, IMO, a negative traits because it creates a false familiarity. When you are changing how ballots work, this should be unavoidably obvious , even to people who spent the time the change was being debated in a coma or Antarctic research expedition. Also, STV in small (~5 member) districts gets much improved proportionality from the…

> Not requiring a change of ballots when you are doing very different things with them is, IMO, a negative traits because it creates a false familiarity. I don't think that's something you can really do with voting systems, though. Lots of voting systems are based around the same input assumptions, i.e., people are submitting a rank-order of preferences. And nothing's saying you'd have to switch to PLACE from STV rat…

> I don't think that's something you can really do with voting systems

You can sometimes, you can't others.

> Lots of voting systems are based around the same input assumptions, i.e., people are submitting a rank-order of preferences

But FPTP is not based on that input, so changing from FPTP to a more proportional system (many of which rely on that kind of input) provided a clear opportunity to have a clean break without false familiarity.

> And nothing's saying you'd have to switch to PLACE from STV rather than from FPTP.

The false familiarity is FPTP -> PLACE.

Re: Gerrymandering with geographically compact districts

#99

Post by Sniffnoy »

dragonwriter wrote: post #98
Sniffnoy wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not requiring a change of ballots when you are doing very different things with them is, IMO, a negative traits because it creates a false familiarity. I don't think that's something you can really do with voting systems, though. Lots of voting systems are based around the same input assumptions, i.e., people are submitting a rank-order of preferences. And nothing's saying you'd have to switch to PLACE from STV rat…

> I don't think that's something you can really do with voting systems You can sometimes, you can't others. > Lots of voting systems are based around the same input assumptions, i.e., people are submitting a rank-order of preferences But FPTP is not based on that input, so changing from FPTP to a more proportional system (many of which rely on that kind of input) provided a clear opportunity to have a clean break wit…

Ah! I misunderstood. You're talking about the possibility of "check one, go by that candidate's endorsed ballot". (Something that could really be added to just about any voting system; I hadn't really considered it as essential to PLACE in particular.) Yeah, that's an interesting point against that feature, then. Hadn't considered that.

Re: Gerrymandering with geographically compact districts

#100

Post by rojoca »

patrickmay wrote: post #46
openasocket wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"proportional representation" is a generic term for a wide variety of possible representational systems. And each system has their own advantages and disadvantages. Those that get rid of districts entirely lose the ability for specific sub-regions of a state to have their own dedicated representative to vouch for their specific needs. This matters less in small states and countries, but can mean quite a lot in very l…

> Those that get rid of districts entirely lose the ability for specific sub-regions of a state to have their own dedicated representative to vouch for their specific needs. This matters less in small states and countries, but can mean quite a lot in very large states. The solution to that, however politically difficult, is to break the larger states into smaller ones. New York City, for example, shares very little p…

The other solution is to have mixed representation where a portion of the seats represent districts and the rest are allocated to match the proportions voted for by the state. In this case each voter gets 2 votes: 1 for their district and 1 for a party.
Post reply on HN