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Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts

uglygerry.com

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Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts

#121

Post by projektfu »

the-pigeon wrote: post #88
labster wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that it uses non-gerrymandered districts from California, where elected officials are not allowed to draw the lines. So any statement is lost, but I guess it’s a fun art project.

Also district shaping is more complex than you might think. For instance some distracts were purposely built around a minority groups neighborhoods so that they would have a representative. If you made the districts purely based on grids then the group would be too small to have any representative. Which maybe is the wrong solution. But you get funky district shapes for all sorts of reasons that are not the corruptio…

A lot of times they do this to isolate voters in one district. You make 1-2 compact districts like GA-5, that contains a large number of Democratic voters (and black people), like 90% margin. Then you surround it with gerrymandered districts and make them nearly but not quite competitive, like 55% Republican white suburban. Thus the same population of Republicans can have 4 or 5 districts while the Democrats get 1 or 2.

Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts

#122

Post by undersuit »

zw123456 wrote: post #84

I think that a solution this problem as well as many others like undo influence, too much money needed and so on, could be solved by increasing the number of representatives. I believe that the only stipulations in the constitution is that each state must have at least one and that a representative cannot represent less than 30K citizens. The number was frozen 35 in 1911 by the house, but they could change that if th…

Prior to the Civil War our Representatives voted and worked from the same desk, the one they had in the Capitol Building in the House Chambers.

Now they have offices and support staff. Why don't we just convert those ~5000 support staff( and their offices ) into a much more representative democracy?

Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts

#123

Post by zhoujianfu »

kelnos wrote: post #69
TremendousJudge wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...just do away with districts entirely? why are they needed?

The original point of having districts was because states are "too large" and you want people representing an even smaller geographical area so that truly local issues are represented. And in many places that's still the case, and is actually useful and important to get local issues surfaced properly. For states with heavily gerrymandered districts, though, I agree: might as well just do away with districts and have…

Yep, via ranked choice voting and open primaries!

Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts

#124

Post by raldi »

undersuit wrote: post #117
raldi wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't a third. There are two, T (made up of one district) and X (made of two). If the point of this project was to call attention to ridiculously-shaped gerrymandered districts, these are some of the last districts that should ever be considered for inclusion.

>these are some of the last districts that should ever be considered for inclusion. Maybe there were, and the author had to use them for their relatively sane shapes compared to calling Maryland's 3rd District the X.

Be that as it may, it substantially undermines the premise of the work, which is presumably, "Gerrymandering is so rampant that you can make an entire alphabetic font out of gerrymandered districts".

Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts

#126

Post by WaitWaitWha »

jethro_tell wrote: post #116
Spivak wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the arguments in favor of the electoral college is that it boosts the voice of people who are in areas with lower population density. This is to ensure that minority interests are respected and taken into account by presidential hopefuls. Without this protection the voices of people who live outside the 5 major metropolitan areas simply wouldn't matter and candidates would have no reason to listen to their iss…

This is why we have the senate, two votes per state even though alaska has less people than the city of Seattle. The point of the electoral college was that news travels slowly so voting for a rep to vote for you to represent your district was the right thing to do. Now, everyone can vote for themselves and probably should and we can have it counted in a day or two.

I am not sure I agree with you on this. Although the Senate indeed has two per State, the House seats is by population. Correct me if I am wrong, but the US House the exclusive power to "initiate revenue bills, impeach federal officials, and elect the President in the case of an electoral college tie".

Because bills are _always_ full of pork (Gov funded projects that are specific to the representative's district), there is nothing that would stop a highly populated region representatives to divert all funds to their district, while taxing an other region higher. In essence, diverting not only shared funds, but levy punitive taxes on other regions.

Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts

#127

Post by chimeracoder »

labster wrote: post #19
yholio wrote: post #2

In case it's not entirely clear, the font ridicules the practice of gerrymandering: toying with electoral district borders so that the results favor the incumbent while corralling the voters of the adversaries. So extensive is this practice that the resulting shapes can approximate any letter of the alphabet. Quite readable too.

Except that it uses non-gerrymandered districts from California, where elected officials are not allowed to draw the lines. So any statement is lost, but I guess it’s a fun art project.

> Except that it uses non-gerrymandered districts from California, where elected officials are not allowed to draw the lines.

Just because the districts are drawn by unelected people doesn't mean the districts aren't gerrymandered.

Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts

#128

Post by nsxwolf »

EForEndeavour wrote: post #26
labster wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that it uses non-gerrymandered districts from California, where elected officials are not allowed to draw the lines. So any statement is lost, but I guess it’s a fun art project.

Only three letters in this project include California; only the letters T and X are represented exclusively by California. The statement is powerful and hilarious, not "lost."

Districts look idiosyncratic no matter how they are drawn, so I’m not sure this works as a statement. Perhaps if the font were updated over time to match the changes due to gerrymandering, the font would become less and less readable, and that would seemingly be some sort of statement.

Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts

#129

Post by core-questions »

the-pigeon wrote: post #88
labster wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that it uses non-gerrymandered districts from California, where elected officials are not allowed to draw the lines. So any statement is lost, but I guess it’s a fun art project.

Also district shaping is more complex than you might think. For instance some distracts were purposely built around a minority groups neighborhoods so that they would have a representative. If you made the districts purely based on grids then the group would be too small to have any representative. Which maybe is the wrong solution. But you get funky district shapes for all sorts of reasons that are not the corruptio…

Isn't it interesting that folks will justify gerrymandering when it's built to support a minority group, unless that minority group is the one particular subset of the population who aren't generally allowed specific representation?
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