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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

#41

Post by Spivak »

jandrese wrote: post #37
AndrewHampton wrote: post #3

FiveThirtyEight did a great podcast series on gerrymandering in 2017 [1]. It turns out to be a much more complicated topic than I expected. Some gerrymandering is even legally required to ensure proper representation of minority groups even if they live in somewhat distributed communities. 1: https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/gerrymandering-podcast/

Which is so hilariously misguided it might be taken as a form of racism. By lumping minorities into a single candidate they create a token representative who has a very safe seat but no power in the state senate and allow all other candidates to effectively ignore that minority entirely. They don't have to worry about angering 5% of their electorate and losing the next election by a 2% margin.

Now let's take the other extreme. You split the minority population among 10 different seats where their population in each district is so small that their interests are ignored entirely in each one.

Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts

#42

Post by bcatanzaro »

Could we reduce the power of gerrymandering by increasing the number of districts? At the first census, there were 3.9M people and 65 districts. Now we have 327M people and 435 districts, so the number of people per district has increased by 12.5X. I would think this makes gerrymandering more lucrative, since gerrymandering works because of quantization error.

Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts

#43

Post by headcanon »

Endy wrote: post #5

This looks cute. Does the author expect to actually bring about any result by creating it? I see a Twitter link for various reps, but there's no link to any funded campaign to overturn recent legislation which has enshrined gerrymandering as the standard practice for districting. Perhaps if there was a donation link there it might be of more benefit. On the other hand, a political statement in a font is a very intere…

Does every political statement need to include all of these things? If I espouse a political opinion on an online forum like this:

"Gerrymandering is bad and has negative effects on our democracy"

Am I expected to include donation links and organize a Call Your Rep campaign every time I say something like that? Thats effectively what OP is doing, making a statement, not trying to singlehandledly solve the issue in question.

Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts

#44

Post by dmix »

mLuby wrote: post #34
TomK32 wrote: post #14

This needs to be coloured in shades of Blue and Red.

Nah, both parties are complicit; no need to trigger tribalism here, just stop gerrymandering.

Indeed, the previous time the US Supreme Court was dealing with gerrymandering rules/tests it was a republicans accusing the democrat's of unfair gerrymandering in Maryland: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/17-333_b97c.pdf

Then the latest one was democrats challenging republicans in Wisconsin.

It has a long complicated history of courts and politicians trying to balance the lines. As long as there's a way to game the system in your favour, someone will try - regardless of party.

Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts

#45

Post by legitster »

tunesmith wrote: post #40
toddsiegel wrote: post #24

It says tweet your reps. To be clear, you should probably contact your state rep about this (and send an email, not a tweet). They have the power to do something about it. This is very important, esp. in light the recent US Supreme Court decision on this subject[1]. Gerrymandering creates safe districts that make primaries hold increasingly more weight then general elections, which is leading, in a significant way, t…

More competitive? Or more representative of the overall population? Because those two things are at odds. Say you have a state that is split 55/44, and has nine districts. Do you want nine districts each at 55/44, meaning 9-0? That's more competitive, but less representative of the state. Or do you want five districts for one, and four for the other? That's more representative of the state, but less competitive. Redi…

This is SUPER important. People think redistricting is a panacea, but it actually sounds like a super tough nut to crack. Even states that have non-partisan districting enshrined in law are going through their own controversies and it doesn't (at first blush) appear to be solving anything.

99pi/538 did an excellent series on the topic I would recommend.

Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts

#46

Post by lsaferite »

tunesmith wrote: post #40
toddsiegel wrote: post #24

It says tweet your reps. To be clear, you should probably contact your state rep about this (and send an email, not a tweet). They have the power to do something about it. This is very important, esp. in light the recent US Supreme Court decision on this subject[1]. Gerrymandering creates safe districts that make primaries hold increasingly more weight then general elections, which is leading, in a significant way, t…

More competitive? Or more representative of the overall population? Because those two things are at odds. Say you have a state that is split 55/44, and has nine districts. Do you want nine districts each at 55/44, meaning 9-0? That's more competitive, but less representative of the state. Or do you want five districts for one, and four for the other? That's more representative of the state, but less competitive. Redi…

My understanding of Gerrymandering is to specifically have the outcome of 9-0 though. The natural distributions would make a natural outcome of 9-0 highly unlikely without rigging the district lines.

Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts

#48

Post by legitster »

jandrese wrote: post #37
AndrewHampton wrote: post #3

FiveThirtyEight did a great podcast series on gerrymandering in 2017 [1]. It turns out to be a much more complicated topic than I expected. Some gerrymandering is even legally required to ensure proper representation of minority groups even if they live in somewhat distributed communities. 1: https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/gerrymandering-podcast/

Which is so hilariously misguided it might be taken as a form of racism. By lumping minorities into a single candidate they create a token representative who has a very safe seat but no power in the state senate and allow all other candidates to effectively ignore that minority entirely. They don't have to worry about angering 5% of their electorate and losing the next election by a 2% margin.

This was exactly the point discussed in one of the episodes. Artificially create a black delegation? Or have no black delegation at all.

Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts

#49

Post by TheHypnotist »

Spivak wrote: post #41
jandrese wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is so hilariously misguided it might be taken as a form of racism. By lumping minorities into a single candidate they create a token representative who has a very safe seat but no power in the state senate and allow all other candidates to effectively ignore that minority entirely. They don't have to worry about angering 5% of their electorate and losing the next election by a 2% margin.

Now let's take the other extreme. You split the minority population among 10 different seats where their population in each district is so small that their interests are ignored entirely in each one.

These are both extreme's which make total sense but the degree at which the entire drawing of borders is taken is extreme by itself.

Are there any feasible solutions? Does simply squaring out a district make sense? Would that have unintended side effects?

Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts

#50

Post by TremendousJudge »

legitster wrote: post #48
jandrese wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is so hilariously misguided it might be taken as a form of racism. By lumping minorities into a single candidate they create a token representative who has a very safe seat but no power in the state senate and allow all other candidates to effectively ignore that minority entirely. They don't have to worry about angering 5% of their electorate and losing the next election by a 2% margin.

This was exactly the point discussed in one of the episodes. Artificially create a black delegation? Or have no black delegation at all.

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