
The Map That Popularized the Word ‘Gerrymander’ - DanBC
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/06/map-gerrymander-redistricting-history-newspaper/
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wolco
The only way to fix this is to remove counties and count all votes equally by
state then allow counties to vote local representation and then assign a
percentage weight to that group per county.

Each vote is equal and ensures local representation.

The only difficult part would be moving away from one local rep equals one
vote. In many cases it will be a percent so one rep could have 1.4 time that
of a vote and some may have only .67 of a vote.

~~~
int_19h
No, that's not the only way. Mixed-member proportional voting, for example,
provides for proportional representation of parties, while also retaining
single member districts (and their theoretical benefits, such as having a
representative for a geographic constituency).

~~~
iainmerrick
Here's a great little web game that shows the power of multi-member PR:
[http://polytrope.com/district/](http://polytrope.com/district/)

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NoPiece
Elbridge Gerry is an interesting figure in American history. He was Governor
of Massachusetts, Vice President to James Madison, signatory of the
Declaration of Independence, and Articles of the Confederation. He was at the
Constitutional Convention, but ended up voting against it. He was then elected
to congress and was an advocate for the Bill of Rights.

~~~
dhimes
I live in his former hometown in MA. We have a drinking club named after him
:)

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equalunique
It's flawed, but why should an area with diverse communities have to settle
for one representative when a representative per community could be chosen
instead? Isn't it marginalizing to have electoral districts which are divided
politically? Districts should be aligned to the wishes of the residents there
in, correct?

~~~
erpellan
Use a computer to optimise for getting as close to the same number of people
in each district with the shortest borders (probably roughly hexagonal
districts). Carving up the populace on any other basis than 'number of voters'
is sheer sophistry. No amount of weasel words about 'communities' will change
that.

~~~
int_19h
The problem with this is that it defeats the purpose of having per-district
representation in the first place, which is _supposed_ to be about shared
geographic interests. If your randomly cut districts end up including parts
with vastly different interests, one of them ends up denying representation to
the other. You can say that it averages out across the country, but again, the
whole point of such districts is to have representation that is unique to
their needs. If we're okay with averaging things out, we might as well just
ditch the districts, and count party votes on the national level.

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ScottBurson
Occasionally I wonder if it would be possible to let districts be completely
dynamic, by allowing each voter to choose what district they wanted to vote
in. Geographic proximity would no longer be a consideration (except of course
that the district has to be entirely within the state); a geographically
distributed interest group could form a district, if they were sufficiently
numerous.

We would want the districts to be relatively stable; huge numbers of people
changing districts right before an election would be too weird. And of course,
we would want the system to overall increase voters' sense that their vote
matters and that they are being represented well.

I haven't come up with a set of rules that could make this work, but I haven't
thought about it all that hard. Seems like it could solve the gerrymandering
problem, though.

~~~
ant6n
Ooooor, just use some form of more (or mixed) proportional representation.

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walshemj
I though it was Ireland that coined the term gerrymandering

~~~
ppod
You might be thinking of "Boycott", who was an English land agent in Ireland:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Boycott](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Boycott)

~~~
walshemj
Ah yes your so right I got the two confused - my bad

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gech
If we had to choose one party in the U.S. that is more guilty of this sin,
which would it be?

~~~
chasing
Most distortions in representation due to gerrymandering favor Republicans.
So: The GOP is the more guilty party.
[http://election.princeton.edu/2012/12/30/gerrymanders-
part-1...](http://election.princeton.edu/2012/12/30/gerrymanders-
part-1-busting-the-both-sides-do-it-myth/)

~~~
asveikau
Worth noting that recent events bias the story towards Republicans as
perpetrators because they held power in 2010 - a census year, when districts
are redrawn. If 2010 had been a better year for Dems maybe we would see it the
other way.

(Disclaimer: My personal leanings are very anti-Republican, fwiw.)

~~~
chasing
Maybe. But I actually think it's representative of a very deliberate attempt
by the GOP to take gerrymandering to the next level. The GOP has become a
vicious beast over the past decade. They are not fucking around when it comes
to winning and they absolutely consider "the voice of the people" as something
not to be heard to but to be manipulated in various ways. I know, Democrats do
it, too, blah, blah. But not like the GOP. Nowhere in the same ballpark.

To quote a prominent Republican: "Sad!"

~~~
asveikau
> The GOP has become a vicious beast over the past decade.

Only ten years you say? Well Reagan kicked off this crazy "government is the
problem" kick which was really veiled racism (I guess you could go back to
Nixon's southern strategy for some of that), then Gingrich and his crew were
pretty awful power-hungry hypocrites, then we had about a decade of Karl
Rove's "permanent majority" BS which thankfully looked like it was going to
crash and burn this decade until its smooth, effortless and unfortunate
transition into the present day with Trump...

But as those kiddos say, HN is not a place to discuss politics. :-P

Though Gerrymandering, I will note, the map being discussed in this post
predates either political party by quite some time.

~~~
chasing
Oh, I am completely with you, trust me. The past decade is only when the GOP
has truly reached its apotheosis (I hope) of hate and stupidity. A popular
black liberal President who refused to have a nice juicy scandal they could
exploit threw them into a special kind of froth.

But, yes, it's all born of Nixon's Southern Strategy and the idea of injecting
hateful cynicism into the marrow of the party. Like saying, "Even though we
may not be racist ourselves, racism is something we can exploit to gain and
keep power." And then over the decades substitute racism with all sorts of
ugly shit. And then -- oops -- get taken over by people who are actually
deranged racists because, well, now that's what your base desires. But wait:
They still want to cut taxes on the rich. So it all worked out well in the
end! .....

I am more than happy to discuss politics. Sounds like we're on the same page
though, more or less. :-)

