Some time ago I wrote a coding challenge based on the concept of gerrymandering[0]. [0]: https://www.codewars.com/kata/5a70285ab17101627a000024
That's fun, I just started & enjoyed the katas from cw and planned to do yours after skyscraper 6x6
Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts
71–80 of 195 posts
Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts
#72This needs to be coloured in shades of Blue and Red.
I don't think that would give you the information you think it would.
Gerrymandering includes packing opposition votes into one district.
So whether a district is red or blue tells you nothing about whether it has been gerrymandered by a republican or a democrat
Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts
#73Earlier 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.
I think gerrymandering is typically willing to sacrifice a few districts to make the majority of districts less competitive
Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
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."
It's not even a very good T. Some letters are more impressive than others. Q is totally worthless for the political point. But N, D, U, and a few others are real gems.
What's wrong with D? That looks like a pretty reasonable district. B is the worst one I think.
Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts
#75Here's a sample
https://is.gd/KAduzx (.jpg)
Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts
#76Earlier 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.
That's what coalition-building (an important feature of other governmental structures used outside the US) comes in. You generally have a bunch of small minority groups all over the place, but if they work together ("hey, we'll support your group's big issue if you support ours"), they can form a large enough voting bloc that their issues get traction.
Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts
#77Earlier 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…
All but two state's electoral votes are decided by the result of the popular vote in that state, congressional districts have no effect on that.
Local and proportional representation is the main reason for having the house of representatives, while the reason for Gerrymandering is to disproportionately favor one party or another.
Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts
#78It 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.
Indeed states could do this for themselves, though for federal congress it would only make sense for states with large delegations like califormia’s (How would proportional representation Wyoming’s single rep?).
However Congress has barred at-large representation and that law would require changing as well.
Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
I think America really likes them because the alternative seems like "virtual representation" (i.e. representatives represent everyone, not a local district), which was part of why they rebelled against England. The theory is you want someone to represent your local area specifically rather than all representatives trying (badly) to balance the needs of everyone.
I don't know what the difference would really be in practice, although I think the other comments in this thread about lack of proportional representation would probably apply. I think it sort of comes down to how much worse you think Tyranny of the Majority is than what we have currently (or if you want an actual proportional representation system instead).
Re: Ugly Gerry – Font created from congressional districts
#80It 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…
The problem with this analogy is that the 55/44 split is not equally distributed across a state. In virtually every case there are pockets of one or the other. As long as you keep the goals of uniform, compact and consistent sizes they should do a much better job of getting closer to the 4/5 you are looking for or maybe a couple of safer and a couple of swing districts. What happens now is that the party in control (which in 2010 was largely R) packs and cracks to get an unnatural advantage (looking at you Wisconsin)
My bigger question is when the political split is more like 80/20 case should the 20 be guaranteed representation?