Mathematicians looking to make elections in the US more representative
101–110 of 136 posts
Re: Mathematicians looking to make elections in the US more representative
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
The first one is.
no, it is making your opponent's seat more secure.
Think about it for more than half a second.
Moving a Democrat into a Democratic district makes that district's Democratic seat more secure.
At the same time, moving that Democrat out of your district makes your Republican seat more secure.
You can't do one without the other.
Re: Mathematicians looking to make elections in the US more representative
#103There 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…
The fact that gerrymandering is even possible is a symptom (albeit an severely exacerbating one) - not the cause - of the problems in the US electoral structure. It could be countered quite effectively by a system using larger jurisdictions each with multiple representitives.
Totally agree. The winner takes it all system is the real problem. You can start a third party and get 30 percent of the vote and still end up with zero representation.
Re: Mathematicians looking to make elections in the US more representative
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you are moving this up with ranked choice. Approval voting allows you to vote for every option either ones or not at all. So you either approve of the option or not. If you want you can vote for everyone. However, that's the same as voting for nobody. You could however also vote for everybody except for one option. That would be the equivalent of voting against somebody. Example ballots could be: Voter one: G…
> There is very little spoiler effect [under approval voting]. Why do you believe this?
Because there is much less reason to strategically vote for your second choice in order to prevent a candidate you definitely don't want. A friend of mine who is very active in this area also claims there are studies about this. But I've honestly never read them. It seems intuitively true to me. Which I acknowledge is not ideal.
Re: Mathematicians looking to make elections in the US more representative
#105There 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…
The fact that gerrymandering is even possible is a symptom (albeit an severely exacerbating one) - not the cause - of the problems in the US electoral structure. It could be countered quite effectively by a system using larger jurisdictions each with multiple representitives.
Large jusrisdictions with multiple representatives has its own set of problems too. In the current system, people, at least, know who their representative is, and there is more accountability.
Re: Mathematicians looking to make elections in the US more representative
#106If you redesign the districts to be purely on population you'll skew policy so hard towards urban life that you destroy the rural, agricultural base of the country.
If you care at all about being provided with food, it is unwise to ignore those who live outside of a city or you cut your own throat.
Democrats don't seem to get this because they care too much about their social issues, and Republicans aren't much better about this for the last decade.
Only Trump seems to have figured this out and smartly got rural America on his side.
Re: Mathematicians looking to make elections in the US more representative
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
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).
It might be nearly impossible to litigate, but it is illegal. https://www.wired.com/2017/04/gerrymandering-illegal-mathema...
Re: Mathematicians looking to make elections in the US more representative
#108There 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.…
> Where as if you intentionally designed districts to be like like 90-10 (or whatever possible), more people are happy.
Right, and that's the right way to do it. The wrong, current way, is to design the districts so their own party has a slight majority everywhere, thus winning more seats overall, not a significant majority in the areas where they are strongest.
The problem is that there's a conflict of interest, so redistricting shouldn't be in the hands of the politicians with a vested interest in winning.
Re: Mathematicians looking to make elections in the US more representative
#109There 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…
The fact that gerrymandering is even possible is a symptom (albeit an severely exacerbating one) - not the cause - of the problems in the US electoral structure. It could be countered quite effectively by a system using larger jurisdictions each with multiple representitives.
The system the US help setup in Iraq was that half the house was local represention, then the wasted votes (didn't get your candidate locally, your candidate votes over majority) are given to the party they represent to buy seats in the other half of the house.
So the second half should be proportional to the error in the local representation.
Re: Mathematicians looking to make elections in the US more representative
#110Earlier 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.…
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…
There are issues where compromise is impossible. Reproductive rights, marriage equality, and separation of church and public schools come immediately to mind. There are also issues where compromise leads to a death of a thousand cuts with one position becoming more and more extreme to force movement in their preferred direction.
The basic problem is that government at all levels has too much power. Less coercion and more voluntarism is the only long term solution to battles over power.