If you want to play around with district mapping, 538 has a neat tool:
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/redistricting-maps/
Their podcast series is a must if you are remotely interested in the topic.
Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts
51–60 of 195 posts
Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts
#52FiveThirtyEight 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.
If political issues actually split along the 95%/5% lines that correspond to that minority, then the 5% are effectively voiceless however you cut it. Another possibility is that most issues aren't about that minority group and you see something like republican:democrat:minority::42:43:5 split. Now the rep for that 5% has a ton of leverage to exchange, eg, votes for republican issues in exchange for republican support for minority issues.
Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts
#53Earlier 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.
Yep. It's hard to effectively wield political power as a minority in a democracy based on voting power alone...
Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts
#54This 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 qu…
There's a call to action on the webpage which goes to Twitter; which won't change anything. If instead there was a donation link, it would be contributing. Also, saying that on a forum is one thing; taking a stand with art should be backed by actually trying to do something about it and pointing people to groups or individuals who are doing more about it than creating art (no small feat in itself, but not an immediate cause of legal change).
Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Gerrymandering uses cracking and packing. Packing is giving your opponent 2 very safe districts (eg urban centre), and cracking is making it impossible for them to win the other 7 (eg making them 30% suburb, 70% rural).
Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts
#56It 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…
Or you could drop the whole issue by turning to a representative democracy with proportional voting, where it's about policy not individuals raising money.
Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not quite sure I follow you, could you elaborate?
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…
If this is the issue, the electoral college doesn't solve this. Because what happens is the campaigning for the general election is usually dictated by swing state status and when the caucus or primary takes place in the election calendar. If you look at the distribution of states visited during the campaigning for the general election, it backs this up.
Also, the Senate is supposed to combat the House in this instance. That's what it's there for, and frankly, because of the importance of the Senate, a voter in Wyoming has more voting power than a voter in California. This isn't good either as you mention in your last statement.
Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts
#58This needs to be coloured in shades of Blue and Red.
According to the cook political report[1]:
California 3 - D+5
Texas 35 - D+15
Ohio 12 - R+7
Ohio 7 - R+12
Connecticut 1 - D+12
Missouri 8 - R+24
Missouri 6 - R+16
Oregon 5 - EVEN
Ohio 4 - R+14
North Carolina 6 - R+9
Texas 15 - D+7
Illinois 18 - R+15
Alabama 1 - R+15
New York 7 - D+38
New York 8 - D+36
Illinois 11 - D+9
Arizona 6 - R+9
Florida 25 - R+4
Texas 12 - R+18
Ohio 10 - R+4
Michigan 13 - D+32
Tennessee 4 - R+20
California 43 - D+29
Illinois 4 - D+33
New Jersey 5 - R+3
New York 8 - D+36 (yes they used it twice)
California 8 - R+9
California 14 - D+27
Illinois 12 - R+5
Indiana 8 - R+15
Ohio 8 - R+17
What you are looking for is states where you see a lot of one party with +5-9 districts and then a handful of districts that are +20 or more for the other party.
Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Actually, I think gerrymandering aims to have the result be more like 7-2 consistently, where 7 is the party with less actual representation. Gerrymandering aims to put all of the opponent's voters in the smallest number of districts possible, while spreading out your own base.
The result is that the opponent wins fewer districts with over 90% of the vote where you win more districts with 55% or 60% of the vote.
Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts
#60Tweet all the reps... https://theunitedstates.io/congress-legislators/legislators-...